Some of you may have noticed that the blog has a slightly new address (instead of patheos.com/community/jesuscreed it is now patheos.com/blogs/jesuscreed — I’m told the old address redirects to the new one), we have an upgraded WordPress program (which is good for us who write on this blog), and Patheos now has a new App for your Smart Phones.

Anyone care to make comments about the changes?

Kris and I and RJS monitor the comments on this blog, and RJS does only her own posts so I take the responsibility for most of it. Here’s a core value — to use the jargon of our day — of this blog: we want to have civil conversations.

I once did a series on conversations on this blog and need not rehearse that all now — it was called The Art of Conversation (so you might see if you can chase it down through the search button here).

Here’s how it works: I have to make the decisions on the basis of what I think is civil and what is not. I’m not infallible but I have to make the call.

Before I give the ruling analogy, a brief observation: comments on blogs reveal the underbelly of humans. I can’t read the comments at CNN.com or at many other sites because they are frankly too ugly, insulting, and irresponsible. In a word, they are uncivil.

When we got this blog going one of the major values was to have civil conversation and that means we can disagree but we can’t get too strong or accusatory about it. Again, yes, I have to determine when the lines are crossed. But that means this… [Read more...]

This morning I had a friend write and say she was offended by what I said about divorce, and it took me off guard because I wasn’t sure what I had said. So she pointed me to a post … and I read the post … and for the life of me couldn’t figure out what “I” was saying. Instead, as I told her, I was summarizing what an author had written and not really giving my point of view at all. “We’re good then,” she said.

Scott thanks for all your comments and push back. Always appreciated.

Clearly we’re playing with semantics here. I don’t say that
dismissively. Semantics matter–some times more than other times. I’ll
let others judge whether it matters here. It may be that we agree
after all.

First, my language in the video was less nuanced than it might have
been in written form. That is my tendency in a spontaneous oral
interview. I will try to be more precise here.

[Read more...]

Some of you — like us — have both a blog and a Facebook account. Some suggest the future blog will be on Facebook while others say Facebook is so much more for networking and interpersonal stuff and e-mailing that it will never replace the more content- or conversation-shaped blog. What do you think? What are the advantages of Facebook? Of a blog?

For about six months we have been in communication with a large website that has expressed an interest in hosting the Jesus Creed conversation. At first I had no interest, but I want to lay out for you today why we have made the decision to shift the site over to Beliefnet.com. |inline

If you’re interested in my take, this is an example of how not to write for a blog. I don’t know Chad Hall, and I’m sure if I met him in a different setting it would be different, but this post is like entering into a room and asking for a fight just for the sake of a fight. I see no attempt to understand, to sympathize, to empathize — and out of understanding, sympathy and empathy, to engage in a critical conversation. Sorry, but this didn’t do it for me. In my opinion, Hall was unfair both to Mark Driscoll and Tony Jones.

Helmut Thielicke, in what has to be one of the finest little (absolutely must-have) books ever written for those in school and considering pastoring or a teaching ministry, A Little Exercise for Young Theologians, said something like this some where in that book: “During the period when the voice is changing we do not sing.” |inline

Today we’ve already had some record-length comments. Here’s what we need to remind ourselves of: |inline