Blake Huggins shared his thoughts on this great quote from NT Wright…
“It really is high time we developed a Christian ethic of blogging. Bad temper is bad temper even in the apparent privacy of your own hard drive, and harsh and unjust words, when released into the wild, rampage around and do real damage. And as for the practice of saying mean an unjust things behind a pseudonym – well if I get a letter like that it goes straight in the bin. But the cyberspace equivalents of road rage don’t happen by accident. People who type vicious, angry, slanderous and inaccurate accusations do so because they feel their worldview to be under attack.†– NT Wright
Blake continues…
I couldn’t agree more. Blogging is at the same time both great and dangerous. It brings out the best and the worst in us. I am grateful for the many friends that I have made through this platform but I get really put out with the slander and hateful words that are put forth under the auspices of speaking the truth or defending the faith, or whatever else. As Christians we have a great opportunity to have rich and robust conversation and to model what charitable dialogue and respectful disagreement might look like. At our best we do that well, but sometimes we blow it.
I totally agree with both. I’ve twittered and blogged several times in the past about how difficult it would be to go a whole day without complaining about something online.
I’m not totally sure what it is (perhaps its the pseudonymity), but it seems that the the medium (whether it’s blogging, twittering, facebooking etc. etc.) lends itself to an easy avenue for complaints.
It’s so easy to gripe about politics, religion, co-workers, weather or traffic online.
Whether people are listening or not – we feel they are – and that seems to be all that matters.
We want our points, ideas, ideals validated by someone and online mediums offer that (real or perceived). And for those who disagree with us, they quickly become the monsters and our enemies.
“The idolatry of ideas has left me puffed up, narrow-minded and intolerant of any idea that doesn’t coincide with mine.” – B. Manning
So I would love to see myself and others adopt a more positive, proactive approach to our online conversations. Let’s up the conversation rather than diminishing them with name calling and negativity. Let’s find the beauty in things rather than the ugliness.
“Grace finds beauty in ugly things. Grace makes beauty out of everything. ”
What do you think? What would you include in this ethics of blogging?
This will be my starting point ::
Imagine if today we talked/twittered/blogged more about what we’re for rather than what we’re against.
What about you? Where do you struggle with this the most? Could you fast from being negative online for a day – a week – a month?
Photo from lamentables
I like where you took this because it reaches beyond the blatantly slanderous and pejorative activity that goes on. Now that I think about it, though I don’t write in an angry tone, many of my posts are more negative than they are positive…talking about what I am against rather than what I am for. You make a good point about that. Thanks for bringing it up.
I like where you took this because it reaches beyond the blatantly slanderous and pejorative activity that goes on. Now that I think about it, though I don’t write in an angry tone, many of my posts are more negative than they are positive…talking about what I am against rather than what I am for. You make a good point about that. Thanks for bringing it up.
sure thing! thanks for the initial thoughts.