What not blogging for 5 years has taught me

I think I killed badchristian. Once upon a time there were a number of folks who would sometimes come and read the things I wrote.

Sometimes they would share a comment, too.

Then, I went to grad school. Suprisingly, this didn't slow me down. I kept writing things. Kept linking to things I found funny, troubling, disturbing...

Then, we had a baby boy. That stopped my blogging. Maybe for good. Maybe (not).

The boy happened over five years ago.

I'm now the father of a five year-old. The professor of more students than I wish to count, at a University where I couldn't count the number of students we have if I wanted to.

I'm still a christian. I still do it badly. Sometimes I even do it as badly as everyone else. Sometimes worse.

I noticed that a lot of my blog-friends who were around when I started doing the blog-thing in about 2004 have left. Some of my mentors (not that they knew they were mentors) have either quit, experienced existential crises, or some other malady. Knowing this makes me sad for them.

I have to wonder if this virtually isolating (sometimes) echo chamber we call (or called, at least) the blogosphere has the power to drain but not replenish. Maybe we were just doing it wrong. I think I might have been doing it wrong.

I think some of us "liberal christian" bloggers reacted so strongly to other christians that we may have (just maybe) have set up an idol in the place of our God. Possibly we started to adhere first to an ideology and second to the King of the universe. And it was a good lie ole' uncle Screwtape fashioned, that one. That because we saw the crazy unholy rampant conservatism masquerading as "Christianity" that it might just be best to counter that with an unflinching adherence to radical realism, reason, and logic. The only problem with radical realism, reason, and logic is that humans aren't really capable of any of these things. We're not reasonable, realistic, or logical. In fact, adhering to the findings of social science (an act of reason and logic itself) would attest this fact.

And uncle Screwtape wisely suggested to his protoge that he not get us to adjust our aim 180 degrees out of whack...just 5 degrees off center would do. And we were fooled. We aimed at reason, logic, and reality. We said we did it because it was holy. And maybe we even did do it because we thought it was holy. But our motives belied our heart's aim. And the things we pursued, ultimately, they weren't the right things. It turns out that it's not enough to pursue the "not wrong" things. Things like logic and reason and realism. But if they're what you're aiming at, rather than aiming at loving Jesus and bringing glory to God, well, it's just not good enough.

Don't get me wrong. I was out Obama-canvassing in a battleground state yesterday. I believe strongly in liberal ideals. If I write here again, from time to time, I may well make those viewpoints clear.

But, if I do do it again. I want the target to be right. To glorify God.

Confession time: My guilty pleasure is Christmas music. I have over a day's worth of the stuff.

And, here's where it gets really disgusting: My other guilty pleasure is lead singers who have endeavored to copy the approximate vocalic tone of Darius Rucker. (Yep, that's Hootie if you were keeping track).

Finally, and bear with me here this is a dark, dark secret; I LOVE what happens when you cross the two: Christmas music sung by artists who sound like Darius Rucker. You may commence your chiding now.

Now, in fairness to myself I have been able to stave off buying 3rd Day Christmas albums, mostly because I find the 3rd Day clan (Klan?) and their ilk to be theologically questionable, at best--and downright heretical at worst. But this past weekend I picked up a new holiday album by Casting Crowns. I haven't been following CCM in quite some time, primarily because I find it to be tasteless and devoid of anything which might be considered, well, good, so I wasn't aware that this band was a CCM act. I started to get suspicious when during the fourth track (While You Were Sleeping) I started to hear about the rapture (or at least some theologically devious variant thereof.)

At this point I was curious so I checked out their website. And, lo and behold they decided to foist upon the world a "band blog". Great, I thought, let's take a trip inside the collective mind of a CCM band. One post in particular caught my attention. It seems that Casting Crowns website had a number of issues with hackers who somehow screwed with the content of the site. I don't know what it was, but it pissed the designated band blog-diety off something fierce.  Must've been really heretical.

Instead of taking the low road and, you know, updating security, Juan, the blogger in question, opted to take the Internet-high-road and started a flame-war with the hacker. Here's an excerpt of some Internet gold:

Now to the real issue.  I imagine that even though you're down in your mom's basement at 3 or 4 in the morning quietly giggling at the ever so clever time you're having invading other people's lives and sprinkling filth all over it, it doesn't seem to fill that hole you had when no one showed up to your 41st birthday party.  I'm sure it gives you goose pimples of excitement at the great adventure you're having...you know, doing things you're not supposed to do, but allow me to make a list of things that might fill your life with that sense of adventure that eludes you.

   1. Go outside - the big light might shock you, so bring protective eye gear

   2. Talk to a girl - might want to work up to this.  Try another human first

   3. Play a sport (hint: it won't involve pushing buttons)

   4. Plant a garden - that stuff under the grass is called "dirt", wait, do you know what grass is?

   5. Adopt a pet - No, dragons don't exist, try a puppy.

 Like I said, Internet gold.

Yes friends, these are the folks whose albums we want our kids to buy, the folks our youth groups idolize, the ones we trust to teach our children to follow Christ. Keep this in mind the next time you decide to toss your kid's U2 album in the oven.

Today, I officially gave notice to my old web-hosting company that I wouldn't be renewing my old domain name: badchristian.com. Anybody who knows of the shenanigans that went on there will be surprised to hear that I hadn't cancelled the official hosting service until now. After all, it's been over two years since I've written anything of substance there.

Much to my surprise, however, I found myself more than a little nostalgic about good-ole "badchristian.com". Deep down I know exactly why I miss badchristian.com. There are several reasons in no particular order.

1. When behind the thin veils of near-anonymity, I had the uterus to be a prophet. This isn't a special calling, I realize. We're all called to a certain bit of prophesy if we're honest with ourselves. I find myself burdened with a prophetic message to those on the pseudo-fringes of Christianity...and it ends up being uncomfortable to share. In short the message is this: If you're going to be a "fringe-dweller" at least be honest enough with yourself and your God to put Christianity before all else. Too many times self proclaimed Christians on the "fringes" of faith are more enamored with portraying themselves as cool/hip/culturally engaged for no other reason that being perceived as "fringe." Let's be honest, it's cool to be "fringe". It's not cool, however, to be mainstream and put on the sheep's fringe-wear. I used to have the guts to tell people that...and I miss that it's gone.

2. I miss the people. The Internet lets you share morning coffee with friends in Oklahoma, San Francisco, Michigan, the UK, any number of farther flung locales, and even to form new friendships with people you idolize. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. Since the mid 1990s Internet researchers have been theorizing that technological mediation may facilitate enhanced social interaction, I just hadn't thought it would happen to me. But, it did and I miss the connectedness blogging brought me.

3. I grew as a person--even as a person of faith--by being introspective. I guess I shouldn't be surprised about that either. Thoughtful reflection and meditation has long been one path of insight for many Christians. I miss that I don't do that as much as I used to do.

So, with a great deal of fear and trepidation, I think I'll give blogging another go. I'll probably post once and then quit, so don't get too excited. And, I'm fully aware that I'm writing for an audience of myself, so there's that too. Nonetheless, I've been voiceless for too long, and now that my Ph.D. is done I've got way too much time on my hands.