Against Blogging

Satisfying his occassional urge to go long, SI writer Dave once again decides to make you read for a while. And he gets smart with you at the same time. Hope you enjoy!

People blog. Lots of people blog. Experts blog, idiots blog, smart people blog, stupid people blog. People blog about cats. People blog about cars. People blog about theology, about politics, about their friends, about their enemies, about their former church, about those blogging about their former church. People blog. Some blog and blog and blog. Some blogs are informative, and some give way too much information. Some blogs are helpful, and some need help. Some blogs add to our lives, and some add to our annoyance.

I blog. And I am against blogging. Already. Maybe I’ll change. Your blog might change my mind. But then some other blog will re-confirm my opinion.

There are good reasons to be against blogging. One reason is that people talk too much. In the multitude of words, there wanteth not sin. Ecclesiastes 5:2 gives good advice to budding bloggers: let thy words be few.

Another reason to oppose blogging is that blogging is vain. What do we accomplish with all this blogging? We are like the boy sitting on the back porch blowing bubbles with all his might, blowing big bubbles, and little bubbles, and middle-sized bubbles. He blows and blows, and he hardly notices how quickly the bubbles pop, because he already started on the next batch.

To the vanity of the exercise, we add our own opinion. Opinion is vain. Now, Americans think opinion is pretty important stuff. Of all the American idols, opinion might be our greatest. But opinion is vain. Opinion adds as much to our mental diets as jet-puffed marshmallows. And considering the amount of opinion we devour, we shouldn’t wander that so many are mentally obese.

Blogging is vain, and blogging makes people vain. Readers become vain, but bloggers become vain as well. We set up our blogs, write our posts, post our writings, sit back and watch it all happen. Look at all those readers! Look at all those comments! These people think I’m great! I should write a book or something.

And it gets worse. We start believing the things we write about ourselves. We start believing the things people say about us in the comments. We get impressed with our last post, or the one before that. Our heads swell, jet-puffed style.

A related reason to oppose blogging has to do with how little we know compared to how much we write. Some people write more than they have read, and it shows. They insist on proving it to us. They blog us down, they blog us to death. And they ran out of good ideas right before their second post. They told us everything they know the post before. The river of treacle might overflow its banks, but Bob will insist on adding more blog.

And that brings up another point. Blogging gives a new venue to cowards everywhere. Not that all bloggers are cowards. But many cowards blog. You can be pretty big man with a keyboard. You can hide there and snipe at people. You can thump your chest and toot your horn and rattle your saber. But that doesn’t mean you are courageous, just because you hide behind your keyboard. If you don’t have the courage to discuss the matter when you could, you are a coward. No matter how brave you sound.

Blogging gives a voice to the slanderer. Church members become disgruntled, leave the church, and start a blog about it. It would be sin to send e-mails to a few select members against the pastor. But to blog about it, so the whole world can get in on the issue? That is worse. But bloggers do this. They are doing it now.

Matthew 18 applies to the blog world. James 3 applies to the blog world. Gossip, slander, deceit, and malicious lies are sins in the blog world, just the same as anywhere else. For that matter, the World Wide Web would do well to remember that God rules and reigns everywhere. His laws apply, even to your blog.

Blogging has much potential for good. Through it, we can attack the wickedness and idolatry of this world. We believers have an opportunity like never before in the history of the world to get the message out. We have the power of the pen like our Puritan fathers never had. But what do we do with all that power? They (the Puritans) wrote magnificent works that we still find relevant and useful today. And they wrote it by hand. We write drivel, long rivers of treacle, hundreds of miles wide, but only about a half-inch deep. We must consider our ways. I am not for blogging. I am for repentance. Judgement must begin at the house of God. We must blog for the glory of God, or we must blog off.