{"id":1553,"date":"2006-07-26T04:30:18","date_gmt":"2006-07-26T09:30:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/community\/jesuscreed\/2006\/07\/26\/how-many-of-us-are-there\/"},"modified":"2006-07-26T04:30:18","modified_gmt":"2006-07-26T09:30:18","slug":"how-many-of-us-are-there","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2006\/07\/26\/how-many-of-us-are-there\/","title":{"rendered":"How many of us are there?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Jordon Cooper<\/a>, blogger par excellence<\/em> (I used that French because he\u2019s Canadian and want to establish a little credibility), posted about me yesterday and I aim to set the record straight today. He wonders if there is a clone out there writing in my name. He provides evidence that makes me think that there just might be someone else writing in my name.
\nHere\u2019s the pointed question he writes in his review of Praying with the Church<\/em>, which has to be the cleverest review yet:<\/p>\n

The book does ask some interesting questions. The main one is how many Scot McKnights are there<\/em> and which one wrote this book. Sure Scot may claim that there is only one of him but c\u2019mon, he can\u2019t expect us to believe that. He is writing a short book every day on his blog, he is watching sports, reviewing 18 books a day on his blog, teaching and then writing several books on the side. You draw your own conclusions but I am thinking he has a clone. I guess we will never know until Scot pulls a Terrell Owens and claims that he has been misquoted in his book or his weblog. Either way, the book is a good one and if you don\u2019t have it yet, make sure you pick it up.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

First, Jordon, thanks so much for noting this book on your blog. I really do appreciate it, but it\u2019s time now to turn to the real issue: How many of us are there?
\nLast night I was with an editor of Christianity Today<\/em> and he asked me when we got to the parking lot this question: \u201cHow do you do it? Do you just take 30 minutes off in the evening and work the rest of the day?\u201d
\nIt gets to where I think I\u2019m doing something wrong, like I\u2019m in that commercial where the woman peaks into the medicine cabinet in the bathroom of a friend and the shelves collapse and she wishes she \u201ccould get away\u201d on a Southwest Airlines flight.
\nJordon, there\u2019s one of us and that \u201cone of us\u201d lives a very, very, very simple life. On days I\u2019m home (which is all summer long), I get up early, I\u2019m at the computer by 7am usually, and I sit there \u2014 apart from tea breaks and a banana at 10:30am and lunch for 15 minutes at noon or so \u2014 until about 4pm, at which time my Bichon Frise bugs me to go the refrig and give him four carrots cut in half. Then I make our salads for dinner, turn on CNN or FoxNews (depending on whether I want to get into a fight or not), and wait for Kris to get home. During that time I read a chp or two in a book that I\u2019ll blog about, unless I\u2019m game for making a kind of dinner that makes me work \u2014 like Ligurian pesto \u2014 and if that happens I don\u2019t read.
\n(On days I teach, I get home between 4 and 6pm and slip right into the rest of this schedule.)
\nThen Kris comes home, we eat our salads, put on our walking shoes, and walk around the lake. Then I make dinner and we eat together. Then we say our evening prayers. And, that Jordon, is it: the rest of the night we chat, and take the dog outside, and I read and I check the e-mails and read some blogs, and then I go to bed about 11pm and get up to do it all over again.
\nI\u2019ve been asked this enough that I should say something in my defense. I wrote very little when I began my career and one of my colleagues wondered aloud to me if I was squandering my time coaching my son\u2019s basketball and baseball teams, but I really did work hard those years and built notebooks of information and I have been using that stuff ever since.
\nThen when I got to NPU it just all started pouring out of me, but I was still writing like a schmuck with a thick pen and lots of footnotes. The most readable I could make things was Turning to Jesus<\/em>, and that wasn\u2019t good enough in my opinion. So, I started working harder at learning to write in such a way that I was clear and fun and readable.
\nOne day my colleague, Sonia Bodi, suggested I read Joseph Epstein, and I read in three months eight or nine of his books. My life changed. I found \u201cmy form\u201d \u2014 the familiar essay. That discovery gave me a \u201cvoice.\u201d (I\u2019m telling you something pretty personal here, because this is what really happened to me and it changed how I write.) For 18 months, during which time I didn\u2019t write all that much, I read volumes and volumes of essayists, and it taught me that if you want to write well, read good writers.
\nNow I also have to admit that most of you wouldn\u2019t even know who I am had not Bob Smietana, the fine editor at Covenant Companion<\/em>, urged me to start a blog. The blog gives me the opportunity to indulge my \u201cscribbler\u2019s itch.\u201d I like to write, and this lets me write out thoughts without having to write a long article, find all the scholarly literature, and document it all with footnotes. I toss ideas out on the waves and see if they float, sink, or come back.
\nPerhaps this is obvious: this isn\u2019t work for me. This is fun, and I\u2019m grateful to get to do what I like.
\nOn top of all this, I have a wonderful wife who encourages me to do this blog (she\u2019s got ideas for me all the time but I can\u2019t convince her to write posts herself) and who prefers the kind of quiet life I also prefer. So, she creates tranquility in the home. (Our kids are married and out of the house, except this week. Luke and Annika are here with their two dogs.)
\nJordon, there\u2019s one of me, but I\u2019ll admit it is a simple, simple, simple life I lead.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jordon Cooper, blogger par excellence (I used that French because he\u2019s Canadian and want to establish a little credibility), posted about me yesterday and I aim to set the record straight today. He wonders if there is a clone out there writing in my name. He provides evidence that makes me think that there just […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":197,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1741],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1553","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writing-blogging"],"yoast_head":"\nHow many of us are there?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Jordon Cooper, blogger par excellence (I used that French because he's Canadian and want to establish a little credibility), posted about me yesterday 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\/jesuscreed\/2006\/07\/26\/how-many-of-us-are-there\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How many of us are there?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Jordon Cooper, blogger par excellence (I used that French because he's Canadian and want to establish a little credibility), posted about me yesterday and\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2006\/07\/26\/how-many-of-us-are-there\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2006-07-26T09:30:18+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Scot McKnight\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Scot McKnight\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2006\/07\/26\/how-many-of-us-are-there\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2006\/07\/26\/how-many-of-us-are-there\/\",\"name\":\"How many of us are there?\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2006-07-26T09:30:18+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2006-07-26T09:30:18+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/5919e847c58ffe6efb5899fb61797252\"},\"description\":\"Jordon Cooper, blogger par excellence (I used that French because he's Canadian and want to establish a little credibility), posted about me yesterday and\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2006\/07\/26\/how-many-of-us-are-there\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2006\/07\/26\/how-many-of-us-are-there\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2006\/07\/26\/how-many-of-us-are-there\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"How many of us are there?\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/\",\"name\":\"Jesus Creed\",\"description\":\"Scot McKnight on Jesus and orthodox faith in the 21st century\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/5919e847c58ffe6efb5899fb61797252\",\"name\":\"Scot McKnight\",\"description\":\"Scot McKnight is a recognized authority on the New Testament, early Christianity, and the historical Jesus. 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