This here blog is part of Patheos’ “progressive Christian” channel — an odd-sock drawer of mainline Protestants, emergent types, and various “post-evangelicals” blessedly banished by the gatekeepers of that tribe.
The progressive Christian channel is home to 55 blogs, and the diversity of that line-up remains something of a work in, well, progress. The channel remains lopsidedly white and male, with 33 of those 55 blogs — including this one — written by white dudes. That needs work. The world is not 60-percent male, and certainly not 60-percent white male, and having 60 percent of the blogs in the progressive Christian channel coming from white males is a failure to live up to the equality and diversity that we progressive Christian types are supposed to be about.
Please note, though, that Patheos’ progressive Christian channel is also home to 22 blogs that are not written by white dudes. So in criticizing the lack of diversity in our little “channel” of blogs, I want to be careful not to dismiss and disrespect those writers and those voices. Nor do I want to dismiss and disrespect those writers and those voices by citing them defensively against such criticism.
This can be tricky. I’ve seen folks on Twitter complain that this “channel” is “nothing but white males” and I want to say Wait — that’s unfair to Kimberly Knight and Enuma Okoro and Ellen Painter Dollar and Caryn Riswold. But if I cite their blogs only as a defense against the criticism that our channel is insufficiently diverse, then I’d be treating them just as dismissively and disrespectfully. And both of those forms of dismissiveness overlook what I think is the more important point here: Kimberly Knight and Enuma Okoro and Ellen Painter Dollar and Caryn Riswold are terrific bloggers and more people should be reading them.
First, here are a bunch of blogs from Patheos’ progressive Christian channel. Give ’em a look and give ’em a listen, not because they prove the channel is hunky-dory when it comes to diversity (it’s not), but because these are smart, wise, good people and you should check them out:
• Coming Out Christian, by Kimberly Knight
• Dry Bones, by Kathleen Mulhern
• Feminismxianity, by Dr. Caryn D. Riswold
• Heavenly Creatures, by Joanne Brokaw
• Irreverin, by the Rev. Erin Wathen
• A Musing Amma, by the Rev. Elizabeth Northquist
• Re-Generación, by Dr. Arlene Sanchez-Walsh
• Reluctant Pilgrim, by Enuma Okoro
• Sarcastic Lutheran, by the Rev. Nadia Bolz-Weber
• The View From Dixon Hall, by Dr. Maria Dixon
And, second, since we’re on the subject of diversity and blogs, let’s try to use the comment section to this post to generate as much traffic as we can for any terrific blogs you read written by someone other than straight white males (whether or not those blogs are “progressive Christian” as well). Post links and recommendations, sing praises, self-promote, share, spread, have at it.
