"...Many bloggers are now putting less emphasis on hot-button issues such as abortion, homosexuality and assisted suicide and are instead writing about religious oppression, poverty and world hunger, said Andrew Jackson, a seminary professor and pastor at the Word of Grace Church in Mesa, Ariz., who blogs daily at smartchristian.com."I think there is more and more a voice in the blogosphere against partisan politics and a voice toward public policy, social action issues and justice issues," said Jackson, who was a panelist at Biola, a small Christian university about 20 miles southeast of Los Angeles.
That change is in part because bloggers are realizing the tremendous influence they can have — and how that influence can be misdirected and misunderstood, he said.
"There is a voice of caution and that is even coming from those who would self-identify as Republicans. Partisan politics is not what informs our faith, the Bible is what informs our faith."
(emphasis added)
I mentioned this a few days ago and reacted sharply to a quote that indicated many participants saw their blogging as an extension of one political party, and that their efforts were in support of that party.
Now that the conference is ending, it seems that a reasonable understanding of what Christians are to believe and do emerged. This is good to hear, and reinforces my gut reaction that these efforts will make a positive change in how we talk about our faith, and share it with others.
"...During one well-attended workshop entitled "When Non-Christians Read Your Blog," Biola University professor Timothy Muehlhoff instructed people on how to write about their faith without alienating nonbelievers.He stressed that God blogging has the potential to be a "train wreck" because done wrong it can reinforce stereotypes of evangelical Christians as angry and close-minded "pit bulls of the culture wars."..."
Ever since the dialup computer bulletin board systems (BBS) of the late 1970s to the mid 1990s it has been obvious to me that people often present a different personna in email and chat sessions than they would present in face-to-face conversations. As a BBS SysOp for several years (until DSL made dialup less attractive) I found myself needing to moderate the message boards constantly, putting out flamewars. We also met every month at a local pizzeria so we got to see the faces behind the messages -- and I can attest to the fact that the differences in personnas are real.
Blogs are, in a sense, the heirs of the BBS in that they allow commenting on postings, some wide open to the public, others limited to registered users. We are, in a sense, ambassadors of the Kingdom of Heaven, and we need to keep that in mind when we post our articles.
1 comment:
I heard Al Gore was at that conference. He invented blogging.
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