Recently I’ve been participating in a debate at Challies.com on forms of church music. It’s actually a bit of an anachronistic debate that hearkens back to the “worship wars” of the early 1980’s. My own participation has got me thinking, though, about why I blog and comment on others’ blogs. Is this really a worthwhile activity, or is it a divisive distraction?
The truth is, I love arguing. What’s worse, I’m trained as a lawyer and litigated cases for thirteen years, so I’m pretty good at arguing when I want to be. Occasionally I take positions in blog comments that might not be exactly what I really think, in order to make the other person think through his position more carefully or just to play around with an argument. (The stuff I posted on Challies recently, however, is really what I think). I quite enjoy doing this on sites like Challies, where some of the positions people take, it seems to me, are a bit extreme and not well thought out. (Tim Challies, the blog’s author, is usually thoughtful and articulate, although I often disagree with him; its his commenters who sometimes seem to speak without thinking).
I wonder what this kind of discourse accomplishes. Are we just engaging in the sorts of disputes scripture warns us against? Or is it iron sharpening iron, with the occasional glimmer of better understanding being granted to the participants or to outside observers? Are we compromising unity, peace and love for the disembodied, hermetic arguments we can indulge in online?
I don’t know.
3 replies on “The Spiritual Value of Blogging”
I think the problem with blogging is that we are not a Christian community or congregation getting together and trying to work through some issue. In a real Christian community, people work through many issues over time and our behavior on an issue today will affect our relationships and how we work together tomorrow. It is also easier to “put another first” when you are together looking eye to eye.
Blogging has its place. I have learned some things from the Challies debates but mostly have been disappointed in the overall tenor of the conversations. The subject matter is different, but the attitudes don’t feel different from the world at large. You can’t really look at the give and take and say, “I see the fruit of the spirit here.”
On the internet, it is too easy to be of the flesh and try to win.
Face to face you can argue a little because people already know you. You have built a relationship with them that is more important than the debate.
You know, I agree with Phil that many conversations over at my site have been disappointing. I think, though, that that is quite typical for Internet conversations. I have yet to find a place where things are discussed as rationally and as respectfully as they are when people are face-to-face. Blogging is outside of the fellowship and accountability of the Biblical model of the local church and community, and I think this allows people to act differently than they might otherwise.
I haven’t followed the comments at Challies too much. But I know that I, too, like a good debate, when people can speak rationally. Generally, I’m disappointed overall with people’s willingness to THINK in our society today. It’s (disappointingly) possible to show that someone’s position is inconsistent and have them remain quite happy to continue holding that position. I guess it comes back to the old saw that you can’t reason someone out of something they were’t reasoned in to.
But even if I don’t persuade anyone else of anything, I suppose I like it because it makes me think carefully about what I believe and why. And I think that’s valuable.
I guess the important thing — which is what you’re pointing out — is that it’s done with charity and love, not out of a desire to prove I’m a better debater or know more.