Religion reporters don’t usually have to fear for their lives, nor wonder if someone’s going to show up at their homes to exact some kind of revenge for an unfavorable story.
But there’s always a first time.
Several weeks ago, Bob Smietana, the veteran national reporter for Religion News Service, got to experience some very weird doxxing — not at the hands of some anti-religious conspiracy, but from devout Christians.
On Jan. 15, RNS published Smietana’s 4,150-word investigative piece on the workplace at evangelical financial guru Dave Ramsey’s $42 million headquarters in Franklin, Tenn., just south of Nashville. (The Tennessean, Nashville’s hometown newspaper, finally got around to running the piece on Jan. 28.)
That piece followed a Dec. 11 story by Smietana on Ramsey’s for-profit enterprise defying COVID-19 precautions such as wearing masks.
Put all that together and you had a non-flattering description of a workplace shaped by strict controls and perhaps even a personality cult. Here is what ran Jan. 15
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (RNS) — Dave Ramsey has spent the past three decades trying to build what he calls the best place to work in America.
From his headquarters south of Nashville, the evangelical Christian personal finance guru runs a media and live events empire that includes a popular national talk radio show. Tickets to workshops on topics such as “EntreLeadership” run from $3,000 to $10,000.
Thousands of churches around the country, meanwhile, host Ramsey’s “Financial Peace University,” a 9-week program built around his principles for handling money “God’s way.”
Several churches I’ve attended have indeed offered this program. Finances is something most pastors know nothing about, so they kick the task over to Ramsey, who’s making millions off these referrals.
But inside Ramsey Solution’s $42 million headquarters, there appear to be some problems, according to the kind of source one normally encounters in pieces of these kinds — former employees..
Ramsey’s intolerance for dissent has created what former employees call a cult-like environment, where leaders proclaim their love for staff and then fire people at a moment’s notice.