What do I do when my church is doxxed or targeted online?

What is actually happening

Someone has taken a congregation, or one man inside it, and pinned it to a wall where everyone can throw. The addresses and phone numbers are not the point. The point is to make you feel surrounded, to make the members quiet, and to make the leadership decide that the cheapest way out is to stop saying the thing that started it. What it is fishing for is a walk-back, a resignation, or a sermon series that never touches the subject again.

Freeze and isolate the target · Rule 13. Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, polarize it. A whole congregation is hard to attack, so the campaign narrows to one address, one pastor, one quote pulled loose from its paragraph. The isolation is the weapon, and it stops working the moment the rest of the body refuses to step back from the man in the middle.

What Scripture says

“He that is first in his own cause seemeth just; but his neighbour cometh and searcheth him.” Proverbs 18:17

What the book says · Chapter 21, The Mountain of Media: Influencing Communications, News, and Information Systems

“When a journalist, commentator, or creator is targeted by a cancellation campaign for telling the truth, the Christian community has to rally. Subscribe, share, fund. A shield wall works in media exactly as it works in a denomination.”

From Rules for Radical Christians, quoted exactly.

What the law generally says

In most states there are criminal harassment, stalking, and threat statutes that can reach repeated online targeting, and a growing number of states now have specific laws about publishing another person's home address or private information with intent to cause harm or fear. Publishing a knowingly false statement of fact about a church or a pastor generally falls under civil defamation law, though opinion and heated criticism usually do not. Courts in many states will issue protective or no-contact orders where there is credible fear of harm, and some states treat threats against a place of worship more seriously than other targets. Major platforms generally have written policies on doxxing and coordinated harassment, and a written report that cites their own policy language is usually handled differently than a click-through flag. What counts, what the deadlines are, and who files turn on your state, which is what Ask looks up.

The words to use

"We are asking you to remove the posts that published our members' home addresses, under your own published policy on doxxing and coordinated harassment. We hold the historic Christian teaching on this question and we are going to keep teaching it. What is your timeline for reviewing content that targets a place of worship?"

Your move

1. Archive before you argue. Screenshot every post, comment, and account handle with the full URL, the date, and the time. Save to a folder off the church computer. Deleted posts are still evidence if you captured them.
2. Report in writing to the platform, citing its own policy wording, and keep the ticket or case number. Then call the local police non-emergency line, file a report even if nothing has happened yet, and write down the report number. A paper trail started early is worth more than outrage later.
3. Put in writing, as elders or trustees, what the church will and will not concede before the pressure builds. Say what you will teach regardless. Exhaustion should not get to make that decision for you three weeks from now.
4. Name the worst case out loud in the meeting and price it. Lost members, a protest on the sidewalk, extra security on Sunday, a call to the insurer. The unnamed fear is doing most of the work here.
5. Stand with the one who was named, publicly and by name, in the service and in writing. Do not move him off the schedule. Do not let him drive home alone.

• Document the pattern, not just the worst post: dates, repeat accounts, and anything that reads as a threat or an invitation for others to act.
• Ask the platform for a written answer with a timeline, and ask your insurer what your policy covers for security at services.
• Do not argue with anonymous accounts, do not delete your own old sermons or posts, and do not quietly remove the targeted member or pastor to make it stop. That is the outcome the campaign was built to produce.

Your situation, your state

This page is the general answer. Describe what is actually happening to you and Ask returns the answer for your situation and your state, with the law looked up and the exact words to use. Your first ask is free.

Not legal advice. When it stops being a conversation, a lawyer licensed in your state is the next call.