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Vox Blogoli and The Death Star

In the recent Vox Blogoli, Hugh Hewitt focused the Blogosphere?s collective attention on a Jonathan Rauch piece from the new Atlantic. Unfortunately, most of us couldn?t read the entire article because you needed a subscription?that being the case we fired our turbo lasers and blogged away. The written word proved to be the Blogosphere?s Death Star?it’s greatest weapon with a huge weakness.

After the reaction to the illustrative climax of his article, Jonathan Rauch came onto Hugh?s show and is quoted on Hugh?s site as saying: ??Better they [religious conservatives] should write anti-abortion planks into the Republican platform than bomb abortion clinics? is not a sentence I would have included if I had thought harder about it. It shows carelessness on my part, always blameworthy in a writer.?

Mind you, I don?t condone what the writer said?even in context of the entire article. It hints at an undercurrent throughout the media that marginalizes and trivializes Christianity and morality.

Regardless, I?ve misspoken in the past, so has everyone else. So much, in fact that we offer a condiment for the foot that has been placed neatly in the mouth. It?s an everyday problem of the real world and yet the problem is that the real world got a whole lot smaller?and closer.

Speaking to God-bloggers, this should really temper your reaction to ?breaking news? in the digital world as much as in the real world. We may reserve judgment when looking at an evolving case on television but for some reason, on the web, we?re automatically jumping up and down crying ?foul? or ?heresy!? I know it?s impossible to know the full picture of anything in the news?but getting more than the offered information should be an imperative responsibility of the Godblogging community. We?re to represent our Lord to the world and if we jump on bandwagons we may find that we have ruined our testimony by merely being on the same ride.

Secondly, if this was done to a man who was writing an article on culture wars how much more will it be done to us who the world sees as enemies. The Lord tells us that we are hated by the world?not individualistically but as a whole. The world hates us because it first hated Him?and we know what the world did to Him.

His words were pulled out of context and used in His trials. His miracles were dismissed as being deeds of the Devil. If the world did that to Him, I would imagine that they would do it to us especially in this digital medium where any of our words can be pulled out of context and used for any purpose.

I?m not comparing Jonathan to Christ, not at all. I point to the words he wrote and how our attention on those words illustrates a potential trench run to our own public testimony.

So let?s take care when using those tactics against others?and take great care when speaking online lest those tactics are used against us.

-r-

John 15 in context of John 13 – 16; Also read the passion story in all of the Gospels.

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