Keeping the faith

The Evangelical Outpost comments with approval on a post by Mike Russell which suggests that the so-called “God blogs” should be subject to some kind of discipline to maintain their doctrinal purity.

But for every one blogger who is genuinely endeavoring to rightly divide the word of truth, there seems to be ten who are either careless in their study, with their words, or both. Fortunately, most of the above enjoy a wide audience; sadly, so do some of the less-than diligent bloggers.
So am I just whining to be whining? Maybe. Or maybe I’m saying that we - the Christian blogging community - need to be more discerning about who it is that we promote on our own blogs.

Joe Carter adds Should Christian bloggers hold each other accountable? If so, how would we go about it? Bene Diction weighs in with a thoughtful post that concludes that th cultural variety of the God blogs makes this very difficult, if not impossible

If we believe bloggers are careless in their study and their words, engage them. We have to start somewhere, and what better place than a person’s blog?
I agree we are all students of the Word.
However, we are looking at a vast cultural, social educational, age-gap and maturity demographic world wide.
The church is messy whether we like it or not.
Quality control is a commercial idea to me. I do my best, but I’m not always going to be 100% No individual can churn out high quality content 100 percent of the time.

I tend to think that Mike Russell has a point — there are lots of God blogs that I think are sub-standard, either in the level of Bliblical/theological insight they display and (much more important) in the lack of charity they show. But what is true of God-blogs is true of almost every subject. It is beauty and downfall of this medium that anybody with an index finger and access to the internet can share their opinions with the world, wheter hose opinions are worth sharing or not.

For myself, I believe that the democratizing (ugly word, but what else should I use?) benefit this brings is worth the disadvantage. Who am I to deny someone else their voice, whether it be about politics, religion or morris dancing? So I’d be against anything which tried to claim any sort of centralized regulating authority. The Christian blogosphere is not a denomination, and the simple creed of “Jesus is Lord” should be enough to allow anyone entry.

I’m much more concerned about the lack of charity that is often seen on Christian blogs, but even as I raise it I catch an image of pots and kettles. I bridle at the speck on my sister’s blog and manage to ignore the log on my own. But Christian bloggers can and do keep one another accountable, through post and comment and link and trackback. Accountability on blogs is perhaps greater than in any other medium by vitue of their global reach. Christians in Malaysia and Britain and Canada and Vanuatu and every other corner of God’s vineyard can give their perspective on each other’s writing. If it is done with charity, all can grow.

Perhaps the most controversial aspect of this accountability is the business of “delinking” when a blogger discovers that someone on their blogroll no longer belongs there. My rule would be that this should never be done publically with a fanfare. Disagreements can be conducted with the love the gospel calls for. I cannot see how public “banishing” can ever be called charitable.

And in the end it is our love which is the measure of our discipleship. It’s as true of our virtual lives as it is of our real ones.

Update 12/2/05: Dervish (a Muslim blog) adds some useful thoughts