The Spiritual Perils of Blogging

Recently some Christian bloggers have suggested some ways Christians can increase their influence in the blogsphere. Evangelical Outpost constructed a new ready-made Evangelical blogroll and sponsored his well-received symposium, for example; Hobbsonline is working on “ChristianPundit”; 21st Century Reformation has issued a call for bloggers to use their technological platform the way Luther used the printing press; and It Takes a Church notes that pastors and theologians should blog so that Christian truth can be communicated more rapidly and more in depth than through other media. Some of the recent interest seems to have been generated by Hugh Hewitt’s new book, “Blog”. (I haven’t read Hewitt’s book yet, but it’s on the way from Amazon….)

Many of these commentaries are quite insightful. They focus on blogging as the next “popular” (in the sense of being widely accessible) means of communicating information, and on how blogs help free us from captive information outlets such as the national news media. Obviously, as an active blogger and reader of blogs, I’m on board with these comments.

I would add to these commentaries that blogging often helps the blogger as much as the audience for whom the blog is written. Perhaps this even is the primary function of many low traffic blogs (like mine!). Blogging helps me internalize, structure and express ideas about theological issues I’m studying or wrestling with, and gives me valuable insights from the perspective of other bloggers from different corners of the Christian faith tradition. In many ways, blogging often feels like those middle-of-the-night theological debating sessions I used to have with my college roommate (and if you stumble across this site, Doug, drop me a line!).

In all of this, however, I think we who wish to maintain a distinctively Christian voice in the blogsphere ought always to beware of the blogsphere’s many temptations. If thought quite a bit about this as I’ve wrestled with why I blog and whether I ought to continue blogging. Here are what I believe are some key problem areas for Christian bloggers:

Self Aggrandizement
Envy
Argumentativeness / Competitiveness
Substituting / Neglecting Physical Community
Disaggregating Theory and Praxis
Ghettoizing Dissenting Voices
Confusing Popularity with Substance
Reverting to the Mean

I’m planning a series of posts on these problem areas. My first post in the series, on “Self Aggrandizement,” follows this introductory post.