Anxious Bench Asks Patheos: What’s Going On?

Today, Anxious Bench, a group blog at Patheos, featured two posts which questioned the termination of my blog. I will take them in the order posted today.

So, what is going on at Patheos?

Written by Kristin Du Mez, she wonders who was behind the move to end my blog at Patheos.

With so little information, it wasn’t hard for Throckmorton—and many of the rest of us—to jump to some conclusions. Throckmorton, of course, is known for writing on some of the biggest scandals in the Christian subculture. “A Christian whistleblower,” he’s blogged about Mark DriscollMars Hill ChurchK.P. Yohannan, and Gospel for Asia. Connecting the dots, Throckmorton explains: “Patheos was at the center of the Mars Hill Church and Gospel for Asia stories and now they host Mark Driscoll and K. P. Yohannan.” (Throckmorton has moved his blog to www.wthrockmorton.com, though Patheos has not responded to his request to migrate comments on his posts to his new site).

She then quotes Dan Wilkinson who provided an overview of BN Media’s connections. Go over and read the rest. I am not sure how long she will be there.

Can Patheos Continue to “Host the Conversation on Faith”?

I’m going to say, probably not.

It wasn’t always that way according to Chris Gehrz who wrote about his attraction to Patheos:

Perhaps most of all, I was impressed that Patheos recruited Warren Throckmorton in 2013. A psychology professor at a conservative Christian college who has publicly rethought his views on sexual identity therapy, Warren is even better known for his investigations of popular evangelical figures like David Barton and Mark Driscoll. That Patheos’ Evangelical channel would host someone as unflinchingly honest and potentially controversial as Warren spoke volumes to me as I considered the Anxious Bench offer. This was a “big tent” evangelicalism, open to self-criticism and dissent and not afraid to challenge readers.

So I was troubled to learn that Patheos abruptly endedWarren’s blog last month, for reasons that remain somewhat mysterious. Warren first reported that he was simply told that his blog no longer met the “strategic objectives” of Patheos…

Once you start getting rid of material because someone is offended or bothered by it, then it isn’t long before other bloggers bother someone else. Apparently, I bothered an investor, an owner, an advertiser, a potential writer or someone who wanted content erased. I still don’t know. Until it the “objectives” are made clear, the bloggers on the platform can’t feel secure that the conversation on faith will continue.