The Drill-Down Of Anonymity

I don't know about many other bloggers out there, but when I first started this blog two years ago, I was sorely tempted to make it anonymous. But very quickly decided that wouldn't be the best way for me. Why?

It's helpful for people to see who you're aligned to and why. In this particular case, I wanted to make it obvious on my blog what church I belong to for example. It not only adds weight to what you're saying, but in some cases it seemed to me that you just wouldn't be able to make a substantial point whilst hiding your identity.

"That's OK though," I thought, "I can make it clear what church I go to, and the fact that I'm a part of Newfrontiers whilst remaining anonymous."

But, as with all groupings, there are differences of opinion of different issues. and people from within my church or family of churches may want to disagree, or may take exception to the fact that I would write certain things giving the impression "this is what so-and-so thinks". I felt that to publicly align myself with a group or a theological view without the accountability for the reader of knowing my identity would be like trying to have a staring match with a pillowcase over your head: you might be staring magnificently, but the achievement of that is lost; you might make a wonderful argument but its urgency and power is lost.

And if I was going to blog, I was hoping it would have some kind of impact!

You might say "so don't align yourself to a group then - you can give your opinions without doing that." That may be true, but again it's my feeling that an understanding of who you are adds weight to what you're saying - without an identity to engage with people are likely to walk away.

The internet is full of mechanisms to help us create an alt-world for ourselves. These mechanisms deviate from the longing we were all built with for community and a home among strangers. The warmth of friendship which have emerged for me on the internet through this blog simply would not have happened had I kept my identity secret.

But what do you do if you need to keep your identity secret? How might you still enjoy blogging if you need to protect yourself as an overseas missionary for example? A couple from City Church recently spent six months in India serving a Newfrontiers church there and encountered this problem. They started a blog but subsequently decided to put a password on it so that they could write freely about their experiences. That is one option. Their readers still know who they are, but their content isn't available to everyone. Seems like it could work well. There are other options of course.

Adrian Warnock has this to say about anonymous blogging:

"I do feel that it is vital for blogger to be accountable offline for the personna they have online. I am so glad that my pastor knows about my blog and reads it from time to time and whats more that bloggers could easily find his email and drop him a line if they felt I was out of line. Thats accountability. Some of the blogs that get into the biggest hot water dont have that level of offline accountability available to their readers because they are totally annonymous"

It's an incredibly powerful thing for me to know that every time I write something it's going to be published at www.lukewood.info. That's my name right there, so I need to make sure I'm saying things I really believe, which are defensible from the Bible if at all possible. The mechanisms of internet anonymity have the potential to remove most of the positive things I love about blogging.