To magnify Christ

When news of the GodBlogCon came up, there were suggestions for various kinds workshops geared toward various types of “God-blogs.” I looked at the categories -- political, apologetics, culture, philosophy, home-schooling, etc. and thought, gee, I don’t really fit into any of those categories, per se. Though I touch on all of them, and perhaps fit the “culture” category best. I’ve thought about definition as it relates to my blog before, but not for long, honestly, because #1, I dislike categorization, and #2, I’d rather think about what I’m personally motivated and inspired to write about rather than what I should write about because of how I’ve defined my blog.

I realize that if I spent more time discussing certain topics, then my blog might have more appeal because it would offer something relatively consistent. But...to be honest, I’m not up to that. Nor, I confess, do I really want to be. It’s my blog & I’ll cry if I want to. Seriously, I write about what interests me at the moment, and sometimes it’s a piece that fits into a distinct category, and other times, it’s just, well...what comes off the, uh, top of my head. (Which may or may not have anything to do with the name of this blog.) In other words, my blog is basically representative of me, for whatever that’s worth.

Anyway, I’ve never attempted to sit down and spell out my view of blogging (or life in general), but now I don’t have to because Martin LaBar has done it for me. (I mean, he’s done it for him, but he might as well have done it for me too because it pretty much sums up my view.)

Professor LaBar quotes C. S. Lewis: (that’s not why I like his post; I like it not because he mentions C. S. Lewis but because of what both he and C. S. Lewis say)

I believe that any Christian who is qualified to write a good popular book on any science may do much more by that than by any directly apologetic work. The difficulty we are up against is this. We can make people (often) attend to the Christian point of view for half an hour or so; but the moment they have gone away from our lecture or laid down our article, they are plunged back into a world where the opposite position is taken for granted. As long as that situation exists, widespread success is simply impossible. We must attack the enemy's line of communication. What we want is not more little books about Christianity, but more little books by Christians about other subjects--with their Christianity latent. You can see this most easily if you look at it the other way around. Our Faith is not very likely to be shaken by any book on Hinduism. But if whenever we read an elementary book on Geology, Botany, Politics, or Astronomy, we found that its implications were Hindu, that would shake us. It is not the books written in direct defence of Materialism that make the modern man a materialist; it is the materialistic assumptions in all the other books. In the same way, it is not books on Christianity that will really trouble him. But he would be troubled if, whenever he wanted a cheap popular introduction to some science, the best work on the market was always by a Christian. The first step to the re-conversion of this country is a series, produced by Christians. . . Its Christianity would have to be latent, not explicit: and of course its science perfectly honest. Science twisted in the interests of apologetics would be sin and folly. (emphasis added)

C. S. Lewis, "Christian Apologetics," in C. S. Lewis, God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics, edited by Walter Hooper. Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1970, pp. 89-103. Quote is from p. 93.

The idea being that what we, as Christians, do and think in every single area of our lives – our roles, our giftings – is supposed to be transformed by the gospel of Jesus Christ. As are our relationships – and I view blogging as a relational thing as well as a place to share my thoughts (and photos.) How do we, as bloggers, treat our readers, or those we write about?

Hopefully, readers will note a spirit of grace and mercy in our writing, and maybe also a little bit of “tough love.” The difficulty in this, of course, is that we are relating via tiny characters on a computer screen (or photos). Our particular personality quirks may come across differently on the computer screen than they do in real life. (Actually, sometimes they don’t come off so well in real life...which is why getting to know one another is a good thing.) Humor, wry and otherwise, can be a useful communicative tool, but can be misinterpreted as well.

There’s so much categorization in life, and I guess we need that, to an extent. We need it to keep things orderly and manageable. But God doesn’t work with me that way. He meets me in all sorts of ways; some familiar and comforting, like an old friend; others completely unexpected and horrifically painful; others unexpected yet exhilarating. Much of my day is predictable (thank God!) and requires planning to make things work, but a lot of it also requires flexibility and ability to go with the flow.

I’m definitely more of a responsive-type person than a leader or trend-setter. And I blog that way too :-)

La Bar’s post concludes with this:

The greatest real influence is made by excellence. May I achieve this, and not for my sake.

Amen, Martin.