8-Balling and Online Impersonation

In response to my recent piece about 8-Balling, I received an ironic 8-Balling.

An anonymous person contacted me accusing me or breaking the 8th Commandment (what else?) for saying that the ELCA is “not my kind of Lutheran.” It was a rather rambling defense of the ELCA (!), accusing me of leading my congregation down the road to “legalism,” and of being a Pharisee. Yawn.

I’m all for people having the right to express their opinions. And I’m even sympathetic to the use of anonymity in many situations (while in other situations, it’s just an excuse for cowardice). But the main problem with my accuser here is that he claimed to have sent it from my District President’s email address.

Although my DP is too much of a churchman to contact me in such a way, nor would he have been eager to defend the ELCA as in fact “our kind of Lutheran,” I did my due diligence, and contacted him. And of course, he confirmed that this communication was indeed sent by an impostor.

So this is quite the irony: an anonymous person accusing me of breaking the 8th Commandment while actually engaging in… wait for it… breaking the 8th Commandment: by pretending to be someone else, giving false testimony, and disparaging someone else’s reputation in the process. This tells me all I need to know about this person and his accusations.

Moreover, “online impersonation” is, in some jurisdictions, a criminal matter. I know this from experience.

Several years ago, I had a cyberstalker who was obsessed with me, my wife, my son, and members of my parish. He wrote e-mails to me and others that were simply disturbing. Some were threatening. I was able to identify who was sending them, but chose to just ignore them so as not to inflame him, nor embarrass his family. This went on for over a year.

But he crossed a line that made it impossible for me to overlook his shenanigans any further.

He wrote two inflammatory messages to the LCMS International Center, put my name on them, and claimed they were coming from my email address. I went to the police and filed charges. Online impersonation is a crime in my state (as is cyberstalking). My cyberstalker was arrested on two criminal counts, and went to jail. When the judge saw the disturbing nature of some of his communications, he granted me, my wife, my son, and my congregation a permanent protection order.

The moral of the story is that the 8-Ballers are often guilty of what they allege others to be doing. I want to thank my current 8-Baller for vindicating my argument. But at the same time, he and those of his ilk should be aware that their behavior could potentially land them in jail. They would be wise to steer clear of online impersonation, but also repent of their accusatory 8-Balling.

That is also “not my kind of Lutheran.”