{"id":13361,"date":"2012-12-07T06:00:08","date_gmt":"2012-12-07T11:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.geneveith.com\/?p=13361"},"modified":"2012-12-07T06:00:08","modified_gmt":"2012-12-07T11:00:08","slug":"this-blogs-next-step","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2012\/12\/this-blogs-next-step\/","title":{"rendered":"This blog’s next step"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

I started blogging when I wrote small posts for World Magazine\u2019s blog back when blogs were new.\u00a0 Then I had a blog of my own under World\u2019s auspices, and then, after World changed the way it was doing its website, I signed up with a hosting company and started my independent site.\u00a0 Thanks to you loyal readers, the blog has grown and grown until we typically get over 2,000 visits a day and some 90,000 page views per month.\u00a0 Recently, I was approached by the mega-religion site Patheos<\/a> and invited to let them host this Cranach blog.<\/p>\n

If I did, they would pay me for each page view.\u00a0 No longer would running this blog cost me; rather, it would actually bring in some income.\u00a0 Not enough for me to quit my day job, but enough to be felt in our monthly budget in these hard times.\u00a0 (Patheos, with all of its blogs and resources, gets over a million <\/a>page views a day, which enables them to attract big advertisers and thus to pay their writers.)\u00a0 Not only that, this blog would be on a server with vast capacity and round-the-clock tech support at my beck and call.\u00a0 No more crashes!\u00a0 No more quirky dropping of comments!<\/p>\n

\nAnd yet, I hesitated.\u00a0 Patheos is a multi-faith site.\u00a0 I\u2019d be on their \u201cevangelical channel.\u201d\u00a0 (That\u2019s all right, since we Lutherans are the first evangelicals.\u00a0 In fact, just as Calvinists are more properly termed \u201cReformed,\u201d\u00a0 Lutherans were always more properly termed \u201cevangelical.\u201d\u00a0 Then other groups claimed the title.\u00a0 But it\u2019s a good word, referring to the centrality of the evangel<\/em>, the Gospel.)\u00a0 There is also a Catholic channel and a \u201cprogressive Christian\u201d channel.\u00a0 But there are also channels for Mormons<\/a> and Buddhists and Muslims and just about every other world religion.\u00a0 Even atheists have a channel (which is a neat trick, making atheists admit that atheism is a religion).\u00a0 But I was assured that Patheos is NOT \u201cinter-faith.\u201d\u00a0 That is, it does not pretend that all religions are the same and equally valid, squishing them all together into some syncretistic new religion that would be unrecognizable to any actual religion.\u00a0 Patheos instead thinks of itself as a religious marketplace, an arena for different beliefs to battle it out, as well as a place for people to learn about the different traditions.\u00a0 Surely, I reasoned, confessional Lutheranism needs to be in this mix.\u00a0 I know about altar and pulpit fellowship, but I don\u2019t think there are rules about blog fellowship.\u00a0 The internet, by its nature, jumbles everyone together, and it won\u2019t really be any different if my blog happens to be on the Patheos server.\u00a0 (Here is more about Patheos<\/a> and still more<\/a>.)\n

I also worried about some of you loyal readers thinking I\u2019ve sold out to the big corporation, which will take over what was once a down-to-earth small business, whereupon it would change the original recipe and make the gravy taste like wallpaper paste.\u00a0 (I think what happened to Colonel Sanders.)\u00a0 But the corporation is not taking over anything.\u00a0 It\u2019s still my blog.\u00a0 I will still post whatever I want to.\u00a0 The hosts exercise no control.\u00a0 Nothing is really going to change in the way I run things.<\/p>\n

So after some prayer and agonizing, I agreed to move the blog to Patheos.<\/p>\n

There will be some cosmetic changes.\u00a0 Patheos will re-work and update my site and its design, something that\u2019s been needed for awhile anyway.\u00a0\u00a0 The familiar Cranach banner will remain, though probably tweaked.\u00a0 The winged dragon, crowned, bearing a ring (Cranach\u2019s seal) will be there as our logo.\u00a0 (Which some of you, I know, find too scary and would just as soon it fly away.\u00a0 But I\u2019m trying to hold onto tradition right now.)\u00a0 The biggest change will be a Patheos banner at the very top.\u00a0 Also ads, but instead of the pathetic and sometimes embarrassing Google adsense ads for Mormon matchmaking services and the like, there will be advertisements for real products, like cars and hotels.\u00a0 Also, the comments will be nested; that is, when you reply to someone else\u2019s comments and then someone replies to what you say, the comments will be indented and placed next to each other accordingly.\u00a0\u00a0 This will allow digressions and rabbit trails to wander off as people have interest in discussing them, but those who don\u2019t can concentrate on the main thread.\u00a0 Most blogs have that feature today, and I think this will serve well our particular kinds of discussions.<\/p>\n

We will all probably notice the visual changes and complain about them for a few days, but then we\u2019ll stop noticing them.\u00a0 Your bookmarks should still work.\u00a0 When you click on the old web address, you\u2019ll be automatically re-directed to the new one.\u00a0 Your RSS feeds should still work, but if they don\u2019t, they can be easily set up again by clicking a button on the site.\u00a0 Same with Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know exactly when the change will happen.\u00a0 Probably next week some time.\u00a0 But when you see the new look, you\u2019ll know what has happened.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve got a quite extraordinary little community of discourse here.\u00a0 I don\u2019t want to lose that.\u00a0 I do want to share it with other people and draw more people in.\u00a0 I\u2019ll depend on you to make Patheos drifters feel welcome.\u00a0 Are you all right with this?<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I started blogging when I wrote small posts for World Magazine\u2019s blog back when blogs were new.\u00a0 Then I had a blog of my own under World\u2019s auspices, and then, after World changed the way it was doing its website, I signed up with a hosting company and started my independent site.\u00a0 Thanks to you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1281,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13361","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nThis blog's next step<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I started blogging when I wrote small posts for World Magazine's blog back when blogs were new.\u00a0 Then I had a blog of my own under World's auspices, and\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2012\/12\/this-blogs-next-step\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"This blog's next step\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I started blogging when I wrote small posts for World Magazine's blog back when blogs were new.\u00a0 Then I had a blog of my own under World's auspices, and\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2012\/12\/this-blogs-next-step\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Cranach\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/cranachblog\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-12-07T11:00:08+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Gene Veith\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Gene Veith\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2012\/12\/this-blogs-next-step\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2012\/12\/this-blogs-next-step\/\",\"name\":\"This blog's next step\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2012-12-07T11:00:08+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2012-12-07T11:00:08+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/#\/schema\/person\/f9ca8670bcc51908a78994c0484dbfa1\"},\"description\":\"I started blogging when I wrote small posts for World Magazine's blog back when blogs were new.\u00a0 Then I had a blog of my own under World's auspices, and\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2012\/12\/this-blogs-next-step\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2012\/12\/this-blogs-next-step\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2012\/12\/this-blogs-next-step\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"This blog’s next step\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/\",\"name\":\"Cranach\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/#\/schema\/person\/f9ca8670bcc51908a78994c0484dbfa1\",\"name\":\"Gene Veith\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/054d79faea5d476edd8f99e5f14fb17f?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/054d79faea5d476edd8f99e5f14fb17f?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Gene Veith\"},\"description\":\"Gene Edward Veith, Jr. is a writer and retired literature professor, serving as Provost Emeritus at Patrick Henry College. 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