Monday, October 17, 2005
What Would Jesus Blog?
Wired News: What Would Jesus Blog?
"We need to start thinking about how we can harness and focus the Christian blogosphere for greater impact." --Rev. Andrew Jackson
Wired as an interesting article about chrisitian bloggers exploring the question of what it means to be a christian in the blogosphere. One topic is the conflict of cultures between the traditional church and the many who are launching religion into cyberspace. For example some of these bloggers have the idea that christian bloggers can act act as a sort of check on any abuse of power in the religious community:
"We need to start thinking about how we can harness and focus the Christian blogosphere for greater impact." --Rev. Andrew Jackson
Wired as an interesting article about chrisitian bloggers exploring the question of what it means to be a christian in the blogosphere. One topic is the conflict of cultures between the traditional church and the many who are launching religion into cyberspace. For example some of these bloggers have the idea that christian bloggers can act act as a sort of check on any abuse of power in the religious community:
Some predicted bloggers could play a role in reforming the modern church by keeping televangelists and other high-profile Christian leaders honest.Harnessing the blogosphere seems to be the topic on the minds of business people, politicians, marketers and it seems anyone interested influencing the public mind. Religious blogging is another subculture of the blogosphere that is attempting to define itself. Blogginng is an activity that opens up a christian conversation to the public eye, and this seems to concern some of the bloggers who attended this Christian blogging conference. Another topic of conversation was about how to interact with non-believers that you would meet in the blogosphere:
At one well-attended workshop -- "When Non-Christians Read Your Blog" -- Biola University professor Timothy Muehlhoff gave instructions on writing about faith without alienating nonbelievers.Will the culture of the blogosphere transform the culture of the church? Or will the church transform the culture of the blogosphere? If it is changing they way they talk, it may change the way they walk. There is a reason that many religious cultures (not all) discourage contact with outsiders who may be carriers of heretical ideas. Will the churches accept members of their congregations blogging away about the things they like or dislike about their pastors and practices? Or will they be shunned? Bloggers as truth-tellers has an idealistic ring to it, but throwing the money-changers out of the temple has never been very popular with the priests in any era.
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."
"As Christians today we are embroiled in the argument culture and we have forgotten this one thing: 'Blessed are the peacemakers,'" he said. "Wouldn't it be nice if we could say we brought a level of civility back to the conversation?"
