Blogging: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Part of the course I’m currently taking at Columbia Seminary has to do with the role of the church in the public sphere (community). We’ve been wrestling with Augustine (and losing, walking with a limp) for the last few days. Particularly, his notion that the love of Christ compels us to always have an open posture to the world, because, in Christ, God made himself vulnerable to us (Paul would say, “Even while we were God’s enemies, he died for us”).

The conversation today took a turn to media, film, blogging and Facebook. Because I’m the youngest student in the class, I felt I needed to weigh in on the redemptive/destructive qualities of emerging mediums.

With particular attention to blogging, I think some of us need to do some deeper reflection (NOTE: I wrote a similar blog a while back).

Blogging is a good thing.

1. We develop an “online” or “virtual” community with people from all over the world.

2. We share ideas, stories, and opinions that are deeply important to us (even when we disagree).

3. Blogging gives everyone, in one sense, a voice. This is important in a culture that usually only gives voice to the sexy, powerful, educated, creative, persistent ones. Some of the most important ideas in American history come from unexpected places (like Baptist preachers from Alabama, and stay-at-home-mom’s who write life-altering novels).

Blogging can be a bad thing.

1. We can eliminate those whom we don’t agree with. We might only read blogs from the N.Y. Times or Fox News because we know which one “tends” to take our position. Instead of being open to the world, new ideas and concepts we simply spend our time reinforcing what we already know to be true. The truly wise people in this world are the ones who realize they don’t know very much.

2. We can distort ourselves. As the saying goes, "Sue in L.A. is really Steve in Fort Worth." People will say things on a blog, they would not say in person. Some people feel as if they have to take on a sort of bravado that does not fit who they are in every day life. Some men feel as if they are the blogosphere’s John Wayne, here to fix the intellectual wagons left in the ditch of ignorance. Be who you is. When you is who you ain’t . . . you ain’t (my college basketball coach used to say this to us all the time). All I am saying, if you are going to blog, try to be the same person you are at school, at home, in the mundaneness of driving to pick-up your kids at soccer practice or running to post office to buy stamps. Don’t try and be a hero. Be the real you. If you are not sure who that is, maybe blogging takes on a more confessional tone (I know it’s been healing for me).

3. Blogging can contribute to the complexity of our busy lives. When I sit at the computer, I go through a checklist. Cell phone. Work voicemail. Yahoo email. Work email. Rochester college email. Facebook. Blog. I need to check all of these. It can be overwhelming. Blogging can be one more thing we add to our lives in order to avoid the people who need us most. Blogging has become a spiritual discipline for me, meaning, I discover God, by putting words to my feelings, emotions, and thoughts. However, if I feel as if blogging becomes one more competitive “feather-in-the-cap” that I use to distance myself from the relationships of my life, I’ll stop. No questions asked.

The Good News and Bad News of Blogging

I’ve been thinking about the value/role of blogging lately. It strikes me that there are advantages and disadvantages (or blessings and curses if you like biblical language) in the blogging experience. BTW—blogging and FaceBook are similar in my estimation. One could substitute the word “FaceBook” for “blog” in the coming paragraphs.

Just to show you how new, relatively speaking, this blogging thing is…as I write “blogging” or "blog" in a Microsoft Word document a little red line appears each time, indicating that this word “blogging” isn’t even a real word.


Ok. The possibilities/strengths/advantages/blessings of blogging…

First, blogging keeps you in touch with people from all over the world and throughout the United States. That is truly amazing—our world is ever shrinking.

Second, blogging allows you to consider perspectives of many different people.

Third, blogging can serve as a kind of “diary”, cataloging important events, experiences and thought-patterns on the journey of becoming truer disciples of Jesus.

However, there are setbacks/weaknesses/disadvantages/curses in blogging.

First, blogging can be an artificial way of staying in touch with people. You may have 55 people you stay in touch with via blogging (or FaceBook) but you may not have one authentic, real relationship in the bunch. Or, as my friend Randy Harris likes to say, “The only thing better than a dead friend is a virtual friend.”

Second, blogging, you can get caught in the trap of only reading bloggers who a) you disagree with (hence you must “defend the faith” even if that means you choose blogging over taking your wife out for a great date). Or, b) you only read people who agree with your perspective further cementing your already long-held conviction. In other words, it’s a great forum for group think.

Third, (then I’m done Ashley--he hates my long blogs), There are many things shared on blogs that simply should be kept to yourself or those closest to. It’s amazing (and scary!) what some people will confess to via a blog. It's also amazing what some people think other people care to know.

I’m really sick of the red, squiggly line underneath “blogging”—I’m done.

I told a friend recently that blogging is this generation’s form of French coffee shops which some historians give credit to for catalyzing the French Revolution. Her response… “Yeah, the French Revolution is the greatest secular disaster in human history,” (my paraphrase).

Touche ma copine!