So what's next Angelina...blackmail or maybe litigation?
I don't know Roseanne...but below is the alleged censured posting from David Ould's blogsite
Fiona FraserJanuary 3, 2014 at 10:29 PM
Sorry - made an error last time around.
I have made several postings on David Ould's website critiquing his methodology.
Unfortunately he has deleted my last posting. Ironicially my posting was a response to his claims to support freedom of speech. He claimed I had called him a "liar" and a "tyrant".
I will attach the deleted posting here (complete with spelling errors). Not once do I refer to him as a "liar" or a "tyrant" although perhaps he has taken a message on board....
The deleted post was as follows:
Not sure what happened to my last post where I replied to your assertion re. Freedom of speech, but will try again.
With such freedom (and it is a very powerful freedom in this age of the internet) comes responsibilities. We still (at the moment at last) have some legal restrictions to this freedom. For instance it is no at the moment legal to use this freedom to incite racial vilification.
You have represented your views as the views of the Anglican Church, and you keep arguing about the “facts” of the case when as we finally established here a couple of posts ago, you have but one interpretation. Others HAVE posited alternate interpretations on your blog and in other places. You simply will not accept their arguments. That’s fine - but please be honest and don’t keep insisting that no one has offered an alternative view. It’s just they haven’t offered an alternate view that satisfies you. And as I keep having to point out - fortunately, you are not the person appointed to make decisions about Dr McNeil’s appointment.
Your flawed approach is clearly demonstrated in the way you have leapt to the erroneous conclusion that I have an alliance with Dr MacNeil. You cannot assume this simply on the basis that I once attended a church where Dr MacNeil currently serves. I went to university with and was once briefly acquainted with Tony Abbot but it would be a huge step for you to claim to know my political allegiances on this basis.
In my humble view (and I acknowledge this is bit a personal view) it is highly mischievous to attempt to sabotage the legal process by which Dr MacNeil has been elected bishop and cast dispersions on the reputation of a highly respected and distinguished Minister of the Church simply because of your interpretation of part of one sermon that you found somewhere on the web. I’m sure if I read your sermons I would find lots of things I didn’t agree with to which you would rightly respond “so what”!
You will no doubt have a different view and continue your campaign. You may fool some but ultimately it is all a bluff.
People used similar tactics to hold up the ordination of women that were hurtful and distressing to many of those involved. But they were ultimately unsuccessful. Many people (including some of those who formerly opposed women's ordination) now benefit and thank God for the ministry of women.
You will also be unsuccessful ultimately but it is such a shame you try to hold back the church because of your own insular outlook on these issues. This has a very negative impact on the church’s reputation and alienates many people including me.
I find it very difficult to see the church I once loved being absorbed by very unsavory disputes such as this. I have sat by in silence through much of it, but believe there is truth in Edmund Burke’s words "All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.” I therefore cannot remain silent
Published here on Calam's blog in the same mindset as David Ould, when he says...
Ten years of writing at Stand Firm has taught me that the very best way to fight these battles (and it certainly is a battle) is to get the information right out there. And the best information is the words that theological liberals (or conservatives from Calam's point of view) in the church write and proclaim.
I have made several postings on David Ould's website critiquing his methodology.
Unfortunately he has deleted my last posting. Ironicially my posting was a response to his claims to support freedom of speech. He claimed I had called him a "liar" and a "tyrant".
I will attach the deleted posting here (complete with spelling errors). Not once do I refer to him as a "liar" or a "tyrant" although perhaps he has taken a message on board....
The deleted post was as follows:
Not sure what happened to my last post where I replied to your assertion re. Freedom of speech, but will try again.
With such freedom (and it is a very powerful freedom in this age of the internet) comes responsibilities. We still (at the moment at last) have some legal restrictions to this freedom. For instance it is no at the moment legal to use this freedom to incite racial vilification.
You have represented your views as the views of the Anglican Church, and you keep arguing about the “facts” of the case when as we finally established here a couple of posts ago, you have but one interpretation. Others HAVE posited alternate interpretations on your blog and in other places. You simply will not accept their arguments. That’s fine - but please be honest and don’t keep insisting that no one has offered an alternative view. It’s just they haven’t offered an alternate view that satisfies you. And as I keep having to point out - fortunately, you are not the person appointed to make decisions about Dr McNeil’s appointment.
Your flawed approach is clearly demonstrated in the way you have leapt to the erroneous conclusion that I have an alliance with Dr MacNeil. You cannot assume this simply on the basis that I once attended a church where Dr MacNeil currently serves. I went to university with and was once briefly acquainted with Tony Abbot but it would be a huge step for you to claim to know my political allegiances on this basis.
In my humble view (and I acknowledge this is bit a personal view) it is highly mischievous to attempt to sabotage the legal process by which Dr MacNeil has been elected bishop and cast dispersions on the reputation of a highly respected and distinguished Minister of the Church simply because of your interpretation of part of one sermon that you found somewhere on the web. I’m sure if I read your sermons I would find lots of things I didn’t agree with to which you would rightly respond “so what”!
You will no doubt have a different view and continue your campaign. You may fool some but ultimately it is all a bluff.
People used similar tactics to hold up the ordination of women that were hurtful and distressing to many of those involved. But they were ultimately unsuccessful. Many people (including some of those who formerly opposed women's ordination) now benefit and thank God for the ministry of women.
You will also be unsuccessful ultimately but it is such a shame you try to hold back the church because of your own insular outlook on these issues. This has a very negative impact on the church’s reputation and alienates many people including me.
I find it very difficult to see the church I once loved being absorbed by very unsavory disputes such as this. I have sat by in silence through much of it, but believe there is truth in Edmund Burke’s words "All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.” I therefore cannot remain silent
Published here on Calam's blog in the same mindset as David Ould, when he says...
Ten years of writing at Stand Firm has taught me that the very best way to fight these battles (and it certainly is a battle) is to get the information right out there. And the best information is the words that theological liberals (or conservatives from Calam's point of view) in the church write and proclaim.
Don't that Sarah Macneil know anything...Everyone knows that when you're a woman you can't remove posts .... because it's the right of them fellas...you know them ones with them penises... to whittle away and bring them women down a notch or two ... it's called Sydney Anglican submission!
David Ould spends many hours on his blog interfering in the affairs of other dioceses in which he has no business. As a self-appointed watch-dog representing Sydney bigotry, he has too much time on his hands. This is because he was appointed to a washed-up parish which no one else wanted. As usual, he is full of his own self-importance, writing from the Parish of Nowheresville.
ReplyDeleteFiona shouldn't worry. Ould has a homosexual twin brother who employs the same devious tactics on his own gay blog. When people disagree with him, they are abused. It's a family trait.
ReplyDeleteThanks for this and your blog.
ReplyDeleteYou are right . I was foolish to think we could engage in a rational discussion.
David Ould is clearly also an avid reader of this blog. Unfortunately I don't think he gets satire, he emailed me at 7.28PM on 4 January criticising me for choosing to:
"make friends on a site that promotes no serious engagement but, rather, encourages the most vile language about and treatment of those who they disagree with. Even a brief review of that site should embarrass you. Or perhaps it doesn't - which speaks volumes"
This was the first of 4 censorious emails which I encouraged him to continue (hinting they might make good material for further postings etc.). Unfortunately they now seem to have stopped!
Of course if David Ould's motives were as honourable as he claimed none of this would have been necessary. Rather than conducting a personal vendetta on the internet, the appropriate way to proceed would have been a less public and formal letter to the diocese concerned outlining his concerns in a rational and logical way and asking them, as the appropriate decision makers to look into the matter. I can't see any mention of such correspondence on his blog.
Most employers would have reigned him by now but he seem it keep trying to escalate his campaign as you have noted here.
I've heard of people being sacked for circumventing due process like this in other organisations! Certainly trying to intimidate those who question his approach seems over the top!
David Ould's employers have already noted his extraordinary penchent for self-promotion. This is why he was given such an awful parish. His blog only strenghens their contempt for him. As far as the Anglican Church is concerned, he may end up like his gay twin brother - out of full-time ministry!
ReplyDeleteI would encourage Fiona to publish David Ould's emails to her in order to make us laugh at his paranoia and hilarious self-justification.
ReplyDeleteYeh - I thought about publishing but they are a bit tedious, although obviously inappropriate.
DeleteCertainly there was a sense that I was involved in some sort of conspiracy against him. He entreated me not to “insult” him by suggesting my behaviour was "innocent”. I found that rather amusing as most of my friends would be encouraging me to spend my evenings doing something more worthwhile than trying to reason with some one like David Ould. So the point of such a conspiracy would be….?
Sadly he is obviously convinced of the rightness of his cause and made some one liner barbs suggesting I was beyond the pale as, unlike him, I’d already “made my mind up” etc.
I’ve kept the emails in hard copy and back up etc. for posterity if anyone ever wants them. If anything more juicy arrives I’ll certainly let you know.
I guess like Sydney Observer I’d hope that somebody in authority will bring him into line. This is actually the first time in my life I’ve ever blogged etc. and I’ve found it a bit stressful. But I just couldn’t bear to see it going on and stay silent. Having done my bit I’d prefer to bow out now.
I just wish others in the church would also stand up to people like David Ould and not get intimidated by spurious arguments about doctrine and theology that are a smokescreen for the real problem - a culture of deference to and/or denial about people that are in reality abusing their power and their position in the church.
Maybe after all the sexual abuse stuff in the church dies down there should be an inquiry into bullying….if the church is still around that is?
Dobby is such a nasty little piece of work that even Michael Jensen, the heir to nastiness incarnate, was forced to castigate him about his behaviour to Dr Macneil. Check out Jensen's latest tweet.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you Fiona... it is time for you to bow out. It can be very distressing to read the spite levelled at fellow Christians who dare to display compassion and inclusiveness towards others but it is far worse to become a target for some Sydney Anglican evangelicals. That's why many use pseudonyms when dealing with these fundamentalists.Thank you for your bravery and thank God for bishops like Sarah Macneil.
ReplyDeleteAnd thank God for you amazing guys and gals!!
ReplyDeleteI'm really taken with your creative and innovative approach to this - also a bit therapeutic I think.
Yeh - have taken a calculated risk here - hopefully it won't backfire, but unless I need to alert you to any further intimidation you'll be talking to my alter ego next time!
All power to you.
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ReplyDelete