Seismic Shock, Rev. Stephen Sizer, Blogging, Christians and Censorship.
Guest-posted at Seismic Shock.
The blogging world has been ablaze in recent days relating to the revelation that the Anglican Vicar Stephen Sizer involved the police in an online dispute with a young messianic Christian blogger (Seismic Shock).
Stephen Sizer is a public figure and a renowned anti-Zionist and Seismic Shock analysed his written work and lectures, on his blog. It would seem that Seismic Shock has himself become the victim of an intimidation campaign as a result of this activity.
I was very disturbed by the involvement of the police and the subsequent intimidation that Joseph Weissman (aka Seismic Shock) had received, and so I blogged about this here and here.
Although the blogging world has been buzzing with this news (now referred to as SizerGate), the Anglican Church seems to have been remarkably silent, I imagine that perhaps this news has passed them by unnoticed, or perhaps there are other reasons. There were however, some notable exceptions:-
Here are a couple of Christians who also covered this:-
As for me, I had decided to blog no further on this issue, as it had reached the mainstream media from the blogging world, for example:-
I haven’t blogged much over the last couple of days and the simple reason is, that I have been unnerved and a little shocked by accusational emails, sent to me from a certain quarter of the conservative evangelical Anglican church. I have been advised today that an Anglican group wishes to sever ties with me and no longer want me to work with them, on an upcoming project, on a voluntary basis. I can only assume this is because I haven’t toed the party line.
It has become very apparent to me that Stephen Sizer is heavily involved in, and very influential within, this Anglican group. I’m not going to name them, but it is fairly easy to deduce Stephen Sizer’s Anglican connections online. Every comment I have received has been done privately, through email and never publicly. Here is one example:-
I have discovered from your site that you have been instrumental in what I can only regard as a hate campaign. I was horrified to read the list of people who have taken up this war cry.
My comments on another blog have even been noted and an email sent to me, to warn me off.
So far I have been accused of: organising a lynch mob, witch hunt, hate campaign, making a song and dance, making things awkward for an Anglican group affiliated with Sizer, of being culpable of terrorising, of dishing out persecution, of consorting with the ‘wrong types’, and told that I should ‘draw a veil’ over any of Sizer’s theology that I may have an issue with, and so on. I think you get the picture.
The issue of theology is to me now moot, as my main concern is freedom of speech and the involvement of the strong arm of the law in an attempt to intimidate and censor a blogger.
I’m posting this now, to bring this in to the open. There would certainly appear to me, to be some who would wish to censor me on this issue and I am tired of private emails of an Ad Hominem nature, that simply attack me and do not even address the issues and facts at hand.
I have been advised to Google Sizer and find out for myself that Sizer is an ‘expert’ on Israel and has actually visited the country a number of times and has even produced a number of books. This advice came with the admittance that this is a topic on which they know very little!
I have even been accused of being partly responsible for the very reason that the police were called in on this issue in the first place, even though the incident happened last November and I only blogged about this for the first time, over the last few days.
Christians must not attempt to censor one another, or attempt to censor the non-Christian world, as this only causes further exposure and an inevitable backlash. Please do check out the Streisand effect.
We cannot (and should not) demand a platform for freedom of speech for ourselves and then attempt to silence our critics.
Here are a couple of links relating to this issue and freedom of speech online.
Tags: Christian Life
January 28th, 2010 at 7:48 pm
Right-wing evangelicals are allowed to say what they want. And destroy the Church in the process. Challenge them and they threaten you. Don’t be warned off by hate-mongers who hide behind the Christian Faith, but haven’t a clue what it means.
January 28th, 2010 at 9:18 pm
January 28th, 2010 at 11:29 pm
[...] Anglican Group Intimidates Another Blogger Filed under: censorship — seismicshock @ 11:29 pm This is a guest post by Stuart [...]
January 29th, 2010 at 2:16 am
[...] by Modernity – reposted by eChurch, John Gray, Z-Word, The Poor Mouth, Sedgemore and IsraelWhat. Possibly related posts: [...]
January 29th, 2010 at 4:19 pm
This sounds a lot like Anglican Mainstream.
January 29th, 2010 at 7:53 pm
[...] you might want to check out Stuart’s blog as [...]
January 29th, 2010 at 9:36 pm
“So far I have been accused of: organising a lynch mob, witch hunt, hate campaign, making a song and dance, making things awkward for an Anglican group affiliated with Sizer, of being culpable of terrorising, of dishing out persecution, of consorting with the ‘wrong types’, and told that I should ‘draw a veil’ over any of Sizer’s theology that I may have an issue with, and so on. I think you get the picture.”
Interesting. I think I would like to know more about this. What conduct of yours was described as “organising a lynch mob”? I can see how Seismic could be accused of this, but not you. What am I missing?
January 29th, 2010 at 9:43 pm
Email comments received in response to my blogging activity as follows:-
http://blog.echurchwebsites.org.uk/2010/01/23/anglican-minister-reverend-stephen-sizer-uses-police-to-intimidate-seismic-shock-blogger/
http://blog.echurchwebsites.org.uk/2010/01/24/show-solidarity-seismic-shock-victim-intimidation-shining-spotlight-antizionist-theology-reverend-stephen-sizer/
January 29th, 2010 at 10:06 pm
Thank you very much for this, which is helpful. This bit, you mean:
“I hope that more blogs will pick up this story. Don’t let Stephen Sizer get away with this and create a precedent whereby bloggers who expose the truth can be intimidated through the apparatus of the law. … If you are a blogger then blog about this. Here is a list of blogs that have already run the story and let me know if you blog about this, so I can add you to the list.”
I suppose I can see the logic. But I would read the post to indicate that *your* object was not about organising an anti-Sizer lynch mob, but about a pro-free speech campaign, undertaken in good faith on the basis of what you knew, and for the highly laudable goal of keeping the police off all of our backs. You may have been misinformed about the facts — none of us know them for sure — but such an intention would always be good. (What sparked the hostility was probably the anti-Sizer political comments you quoted in the middle of it, which WAS unwise).
Just being clear: do you deny these accusations? (I presume you do! but I thought I wouldn’t put words in your mouth).
It is interesting, then, that a pro-Sizer lobby does exist and is emailing around. I hadn’t seen a trace of it until now, which I thought odd. Any idea roughly how many people?
It is regrettable that Stephen Sizer has not stepped forward to defend himself, tho.
“We cannot (and should not) demand a platform for freedom of speech for ourselves and then attempt to silence our critics.”
This is well said. There is too much of this going around in this debate.
January 30th, 2010 at 2:45 pm
I believe Roger is being disingenuous, as any recent sampling of his comments across the blogosphere on this topic will indicate.
“We cannot (and should not) demand a platform for freedom of speech for ourselves and then attempt to silence our critics.”
I won’t remind Roger of his recent conduct and deleting comparatively innocuous comments on his own blog
His hypocrisy about freedom of speech is rather obvious once you get past the veneer.
I would recommend reading Francis Sedgemore’s post, he deals with it in greater depth
January 30th, 2010 at 4:39 pm
You’re getting close to libel, Modernity. This is not what happened, and you know it. Please desist.
January 30th, 2010 at 4:43 pm
Roger,
Again, you can’t see the contradiction here between you being a supposed advocate of freedom of speech, deleting comments and threatening libel.
Hmm.
You really should sit down and pray about these matters
January 30th, 2010 at 5:00 pm
Gotcha.
I thought I would dangle that, and see what happened. It’s always nice to get a troll to reveal himself.
January 30th, 2010 at 5:35 pm
A very good update on this link:-
The State Of Play and Rev. Sizer.
January 30th, 2010 at 5:46 pm
That’s on Modernity’s blog, so merely indicates one side of the argument, rather than an update, tho.
January 30th, 2010 at 9:01 pm
Yes, I have been very open about my views, I might be accused of being many things, however, shy and retiring is not one of them.
In fact, I do try to see a little bit of Rev. Sizer’s side of the case, and particularly the issue of the ex-Royal Marine.
I wonder how that will be explained away?
January 30th, 2010 at 9:06 pm
PS: Roger, might I humbly suggest that you look up the definition of a troll in the online world?
It is normally taken as “someone who writes a provocative comment to elicit a response”, and maybe you should perhaps look in the mirror on this occasion.
I am more than happy to deal with the arguments, time after time after time, and you will notice how you haven’t ever been deleted from my blog.
I wouldn’t dream of deleting someone because of a political disagreement, or or because they are offensive, that is not my style.
I do have a comments policy and I think every blog is entitled to have one, but deleting comments is not something that advocates of freedom of speech often do.