Update on Anderson's "Stalker".

In my last post, I spoke about Owen Anderson's recent blurb regarding some harassment that he claimed he was experiencing. Taking for granted Anderson's claims, I worried that one of my readers might be the one doing the harassing and so I tried what I could to discourage it. A couple of days ago, I was contacted by ASU police. Apparently, Anderson reported to them and university officials that he felt threatened by me, citing the recent tragic shooting at UCLA. Now the police and ASU administrators are pursuing an official threat assessment, which includes, but is not limited to reviewing this blog. Given the heightened sensitivity, following the recent shooting between a student and professor (that incident apparently involved a blog), they have to take Anderson's claims seriously. It's likely that even my current institution has been contacted as Anderson threatened to do so on his blog.

Truth be told, I'm having a hard time believing that Anderson genuinely feels threatened by me on the basis of this blog alone. Now Anderson's recent posts about internet trolling, cyber-bullying and harassment paint a vague picture of a harasser-- of someone that has been incessantly contacting him and someone that refuses to leave him alone despite his requests. However, none of this applies to me which is why this whole situation seems incredible to me.

As I've said before, I've had zero contact with Anderson save for responding to his unsolicited emails to me last year. I don't email him, I don't call him, I don't text him, and I don't comment on his site. I just have this blog which is about the views of his mentor and pastor Surrendra Gangadean and the doctrines and practices of their church, Westminster Fellowship (I also use a facebook and twitter page to promote the blog, but that's standard practice for bloggers). Only on rare occasion, is Anderson mentioned and again only in connection to his philosophical or theological views, which are found in his published works. So this blog is purely academic. It's not slanderous, there are never any personal attacks, or any malicious content or intent. I've taken reasonable efforts to ensure that. What is more, I'm not even asking Anderson to read it, in fact, I'd much prefer that he stop visiting my site. Given that Anderson is the one that instigated the only "recent" contact we've had and he apparently keeps visiting my blog (and referencing it and me frequently on his site as of late), some might be tempted to think he's the one that we should worry about. In fact, given what has just transpired, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a bit scared. Maybe I should be the one contacting the authorities. I'll let you decide whether or not this blog constitutes a real threat (that is, beyond a threat to his ideas) and reasonably merits a formal complaint to the police and university officials.

The most charitable reading of this situation that I can give to Anderson is that he has in fact experienced some real harassment, but has in turn mistakenly accused me of being behind it because I keep this blog. If this is so, then Anderson has made a rather serious mistake and I would hope that he would offer up an apology for jumping to conclusions. Importantly, I never once heard from Owen about any of this despite the fact that he has all of my personal contact info (remember he emailed me last summer and he has my phone number, too). Instead, I got a surprising call from the police out of the blue. At any rate, if such a harasser exists, I again encourage them to stop what they are doing and the authorities have my full cooperation to aid in any future investigations. On the other hand, if it's not a case of mistaken identity, and it's just this blog that is being perceived as a threat, then I'm truly at a loss.

There is so much more that I want to say about the matter, but I've been well advised by a number of people to show restraint so as not to undermine the integrity of this blog. I will say that a part of me feels like all of this has been an effort towards censorship. Some might even wonder if it ironically constitutes a kind of bullying. We can only speculate at this point. I had originally written a longer version of this article, which got into specifically what Anderson had told the police about me in trying to pin a motive for my alleged obsession with him. However, in trying to explain all of that, I found myself having to divulge some personal information about Anderson to provide ample background, which ultimately seemed incompatible with the values of this blog. Suffice it to say, he brought up nothing about Westminster Fellowship and something very strange about his personal history with me and I'm still having a hard time connecting the pieces. One more weird thing is that the police had gotten the impression that this blog is all about Anderson (at least from talking with him about it), which is far from the truth. It's primarily about Surrendra Gangadean's philosophical views, the doctrines and practices of his church and only on rare occasion, do engage directly with Anderson's material. This site is, and has always been, simply a resource for people wanting to think about and discuss a particular kind of philosophical worldview. And it will remain that way.

To reiterate, I maintain this blog for just the following reasons.

1) I enjoy thinking about and raising objections against Gangadean's philosophical worldview--which is basically raising objections against a form of Neo-Cartesianism. It's because I'm a philosopher with particular interests in the philosophy of religion.

2) I have a continually growing audience that appreciates the blog for a variety of reasons.

3) I think there's a real need to inform people about Gangadean's church. At the very least to offer up a different perspective than what is advertised by Gangadean and his followers on various campuses throughout the valley.

Again I'll let the reader decide whether any of this constitutes obsessive behavior, cyber-stalking, internet bullying or even trolling as Anderson claims.

Also to be clear, I've made no efforts whatsoever to interact with or contact Anderson in anyway for the past 3 years (save for cordially responding to his emails to me last year). I'm confident that further investigations will only authenticate my claims.

I don't know what further ramifications will follow from all of this. It's not been fun to deal with, and I suspect there will be some more phone calls and possibly meetings with my university in the coming days (and possibly an attorney). But I'll roll with the punches and I'm sure this too will pass.