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.

Ramsey Solutions, former employees and their spouses say, is run more like a church than a business. A review of court documents, company emails and recordings of staff meetings backs up these sources’ claims that company leaders attempt to exert control over employees’ personal lives.

At a staff meeting in July, Ramsey railed at his staff after an employee sued Ramsey Solutions for firing her for having premarital sex, which is against company policy, and said he would pay the price to protect what he had built out of love for his employees.

“I am sick of dealing with all this stuff,” Ramsey bellowed, according to a recording obtained by Religion News Service. “I’m so tired of being falsely accused of being a jerk when all I’m doing is trying to help people stay in line.”

The implication is that this company has something resembling a morals and doctrinal covenant — like a Christian nonprofit ministry or college. As you read further down the piece, you see the bizarre things this company also does, like interview the spouses of potential hires. The reason?

“When hiring someone, you are employing more than just the person,” his website advises. “You’re taking on the whole family. And when they are married to someone who is domineering, unstable or simply full of drama, you’ll end up with a team member who can’t be creative, productive or excellent.”

The article goes on to describe how the company downplayed the coronavirus when it first showed up last March. Employees were sent home for about six weeks, then called back to work in person on May 4. Despite 100 cases linked to the staff that have come up since then, Ramsey Solutions has not shut down.

The rest of the piece is quite shocking in detailing the weird behavior that streams from the top of the company and twists relationships and leads to people being fired out of the blue, while maintaining what former staffers say is a Big Brother atmosphere — to the point where one of the sources would talk about how “Dave is watching.”

The company, it seems, freely mixes profit-seeking and Christian culture. Chapel services are mandatory, for instance, and that company moral code allows the firing of anyone known — somehow — to be having extramarital sex.

The only thing I saw missing in the piece was any mention of Ramsey’s church or where he goes to worship. He does have a church, right?

The story drew 191 comments, a number of them written by Ramsey defenders seeking to go after those who agreed with the article.

But those comments were lightweight compared with a scathing takedown of Smietana from Ramsey’s PR department. I think I’m right in guessing this broke all records in terms of wacko responses to stories. Usually when a reporter writes a piece a source hates, they may (a) ignore it , (b) complain to the reporter’s superiors, (c) threaten to sue or (d) publish some kind of rebuttal.

I guess you can call this vindictive response a rebuttal on steroids. Here’s a portion of the response:

Bob,

Thanks for reaching out. We want to confirm for you that you are right, we are horrible evil people. We exist to simply bring harm to our team, take advantage of our customers, and spread COVID. And YOU figured it all out, wow. Who would have guessed that an unemployed guy, oh I am sorry, a “freelance reporter” would be the one to show us how horrible we are so we can change and to let the world know of our evil intent, secrets, and complete disregard for decency…..but YOU did it, you with all your top notch investigative skills have been able to weave together a series of half-truths to expose our evil ways. You are truly amazing.

Because your personal virtue is so incredible, we want to help you with your hit piece and confirmation bias. We actually have audio of the time Chris Hogan farted in church and you should have a listen, it is truly horrendous.

Since Smietana is on staff with RNS, he’s not a freelance writer.

Anyone following this story should check out this media panel that Religion Unplugged hosted on Jan. 22 to figure out exactly how all this went down.

Hosted by fellow GetReligionista Bobby Ross (who also leads The Christian Chronicle), panel included Holly Meyer, religion writer for The Tennessean; Ministry Watch president Warren Smith; Meagan Clark, managing editor of Religion Unplugged; Cheryl Bacon, retired journalism chair at Abilene Christian University, and Smietana.

The major question the panel considered was: Can a for-profit company be run like a church? That is, can they obligate people to believe in the company’s mission, do righteous living or get fired if they don’t?

In one of my first posts for GetReligion, I wrote about a similar situation regarding faculty and staff at four Catholic high schools in the Archdiocese of San Francisco. The difference here is that the non-profit schools — left or right — represent specific denominations with specific moral standards that would-be employees are informed of when they sign on.

But Ramsey is the owner of a for-profit religious company that is not exempt from Title VII rules (being able to discriminate on the basis of religion) in the way a non-profit is.

Ramsey’s workplace aims to represent a biblical framework of conduct that the company must assume is general knowledge in the Mid-South. And no one is forced to work there. In fact, one thing Smietana raised during the panel discussion is that starting wages at this company are so much lower than market level that prospective employees are asked to submit a budget proving they can live on that salary.

Ramsey Solutions also has profit sharing, but the salary belt tightening is interesting, considering the fact that Ramsey has a net worth of $55 million.

Anyway, Ramsey claims his outfit is the best place to work in America. It has 900 employees and is seeking to hire 600 more. Which is why an article like Smietana’s came as an unwelcome surprise.

Now, Smietana had been interested in interviewing Ramsey since 2008, when he moved to Nashville to work for the Tennessean. He knew that employees were asked which church they attended and told how negative comments about the company are considered gossip.

Smietana had been hearing whispers for years, but anyone leaving the company was forced to sign a non-disclosure agreement. Thus, it was hard to get anyone on the record. But the arrival of COVID-19 gave Smietana an opening, because in May, someone filed an Occupational Safety and Health Administration complaint against the company, alleging it was not doing enough to keep the disease from spreading.

Ramsey’s other no-no is adultery. However, Smietana wrote, when one of their major speakers had several affairs, they didn’t fire him. When the couple divorced, it was said that the husband had not broken the rules. (Here is a statement from the wife about the matter.)

However, when an unmarried female employee got pregnant, she was let go. (Someone on Ramsey’s legal team was not awake when that happened, as pregnancy creates a protected class under federal law.)

When reporting on such matters, public documents — such as the OSHA complaint — really help. Smietana was also able to see the divorce filings, the ensuing lawsuit from the pregnant employee, plus obtain recordings of company meetings.

Anyway, the company reacted by blasting out Smietana’s name and email and asking staff to contact him with their protests. About 100 did, including two pastors, “one of whom was pleasant,” Smietana said. “The other wasn’t.”

For those of you who have not lived in a Christian culture like that in much of Tennessee, the thought of a local employer being able to go after the news media in this way sounds bizarre. Having lived in west Tennessee from 2012-2014, I very much understand how this could happen.

In the panel discussion, Smith said the PR response was Trumpian in nature: Bob was the “fake news” and one had to hit back hard. Generally, he said, evangelical Christians have not liked journalists since the Scopes “monkey trial” back in 1925. That’s 96 years of animosity, folks.

What they don’t understand, he added, is that journalists are the voice for the voiceless and they do speak truth to power, like modern-day prophets. The idea that Smietana is trying to protect future victims of Ramsey just doesn’t register with this crowd.

Bacon pointed out that a normal corporation would have apologized for the PR response and fired the employee who wrote it. But he –- or she –- was not, leaving one to wonder if the response came from top leadership. That is, Ramsey either wrote it or he signed off on it.

Another disturbing question: Are these evangelical followers really so consumed with anger for reporters that it’s OK to treat one like that? When did bullying reporters become a Christian thing to do?

It’s kind of comical to learn how Smietana got pranked by his opponents. His name was referred to realtors in Florida (in the hopes that he’d move there); someone signed him up for a Mormon dating service, a drug addiction ministry and a Scientology mailing list.

But it’s also creepy. Most of us know that our home addresses are available through a simple online search. It’s one thing to get put on zany mailing lists; it’s another to have people outside of your home. For religion reporters, it hasn’t come to the latter –- yet. But, who’s saying it never will?

Pay attention to this Ramsey affair. And I hope, for Smietana’s sake, that more reporters show up to report on this company. In this case, the more coverage, the better.

FIRST IMAGE: Dave Ramsey Show publicity photo.