Pentagon Blocks SBC Website: Diabolical Plot or Glitch?

Sometime yesterday (Thursday) afternoon, I noticed a curious article that began popping up on my Facebook news feed. Posted by several of my fellow Southern Baptist FB friends, the article in question, “Pentagon Blocks Access to Southern Baptist Website,” was written by Todd Starnes, a Fox News reporter known for his online stories which center on religious topics, especially cultural “attacks” against Evangelical Christianity. Normally, I tend to believe what Fox News reports — “fair and balanced” — but I was immediately skeptical of the aforementioned headline.

Why would the Pentagon block access to SBC.net, the Southern Baptist Convention’s official website, from some of its military bases? As a Pastor of a SBC-affiliated church in an Air Force town — Alamogordo, NM — I had not heard of any such ban at Holloman Air Force Base. How long has SBC.net been blocked? Was this just another one of President Obama’s diabolical plots to stamp out Christianity from our cultural landscape and to relegate Christians to “second-class” status in our society? So many questions, but so few answers. Well, not really. The answers as to why the SBC’s website has been blocked for a few days — not months — are available to all who do not have a preconceived, conspiratorial notion that the Obama Administration is “out to get us.”

It turns out that internet software on some military bases blocked SBC.net, not because of sinister reasons, but because the software detected that SBC.net was infected with some type of malware:

Defense Department spokesman Lt. Col. Damien Pickart said Thursday in an interview that the problem seemed to be with the commercial software the military uses to protect its network. The software blocks access to prohibited sites, like those for pornography or gambling, as well as sites that might have some type of malware associated them, often unbeknownst to the site’s owners.

“It probably doesn’t help that the message that comes up when a site is blocked will often say `malicious content,’ or in this case it said `hostile content.’ People will look at that and think, `What is hostile about this site?’  It should probably say there might be malicious software associated with the site.”

I know just enough about malware and viruses to be dangerous, but I know that the smallest software glitches can sometimes cause big headaches. And, bigger misunderstandings. Only a few weeks ago, my own blog became inaccessible from any of the computers in my own home. It was frustrating because I could not post any new articles nor could I check comments or stats for a few days while the problem was being fixed. My very first thought when I was blocked from my blog — President Obama has read one too many of my less-than-flattering posts and has ordered some unknown political operative to take down From Law to Grace!

Of course, that is crazy talk. But, then again, so is jumping to the conclusion that someone in the Pentagon — or perhaps the White House — ordered that SBC.net be added to a double-secret list of websites that America’s armed forces must be protected from. There is no question that Evangelical Christians serving in the U.S. Military have been the subject of real discrimination and persecution. When that happens, we should speak out. But, we cannot become so unhinged that we view the slightest anomaly or glitch as some diabolical plot meant to discriminate against Christians. That not only makes us look crazy, but also makes our responses look graceless.

Instead of rushing to judgment against America’s top Military brass — and, truth be told, that judgment directed against a Commander-in-Chief who many Southern Baptists simply don’t like — why don’t we give people the benefit of the doubt in situations where we have absolutely no reason to think that the SBC is being singled out by the Pentagon for special disfavor? Why would SBC spokesman Sing Oldham describe this glitch as “deeply disturbing,” even as the Army confirmed that the blockage was unintentional and that they were working to resolve the access issue as quickly as possible? Do Mr. Oldham and other SBC leaders have any good reason to believe that the Deputy Chief of Operation of the US Army and other Defense Department officials are lying about the cause of the blockage? Has no one in the IT Department of the SBC ever heard of this problem with malware causing websites to be blocked? This exact same problem happened with our network at church. As far as I know, there was no conspiracy afoot in our case.

I have a few theories that might answer those questions, but I would rather not speculate as to the motivations behind the words and actions of some within my own denomination. When all is said and done, this glitch will be fixed. What cannot be as easily fixed is the perception that some of our religious leaders carry around a spirit of offense when it comes to real and imagined slights allegedly perpetrated by the Obama Administration and their minions in the Pentagon. I can understand why the American Family Association, which was where one of the officers who was blocked first reported the problem to (don’t get me started on that one), would want to use this incident to rally its conservative Christian base and raise money. That’s simply what they do. However, why Southern Baptist Convention leaders chose to publicly react in the manner in which they did — without first knowing all the facts — is what is “deeply disturbing.” Hopefully this is simply a glitch in grace and not some diabolical plot to look completely foolish and unhinged!

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