Blogotional

As far as I know the now ubiquitous phrease "guilty pleasure" was coined by Roger Ebert. With it, he meant movies that you knew were bad, but enjoyed anyway. This from the man that wrote "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls" - is it surprising he would coin such a term?

My guilty pleasure is professional wrestling. Since Vince McMahon went national and admitted, finally, that it was all a put-on, opening the door to going completely over the top, it is just a hoot. Low-brow hoot, but a hoot nonetheless.

I can't help but wonder if there is not a bit of the guilty pleasure/pro wrestling phenomena in all the traffic, all the heat, that gets generated in the great smackdowns of the Godblogosphere. The combatants preen and pose, announce their superiority and deliver their "closing moves" with the necessary panache.

Unfortunately, what makes pro-wrestling enjoyable - that it is in fact fake, and no one gets hurt - does not hold in Godblogging - people do get hurt. Says Amy Lauger writing at Common Grounds Online

I learned early about the tragedy of friendly fire in combat operations. We in the church need to understand that friendly fire is also a dangerous threat within the church. I have been dismayed that many in my tradition systematically trample on those who disagree with them on anything, no matter how small. I have been horrified to see several people for whom I have much respect fall prey to such hunters, sometimes over the silliest points of contention. This atmosphere is rampant in our churches and on the Internet. In my discussions on this subject with friends, some of whom themselves have received such treatment, the solution seems to be to ignore the insults. The theory seems to be that certain people are not going to change, so it is a waste of breath.

While it hurts to see friends sullied and letting it slide, the truly horrifying part of it is what it is doing to the church as a whole. We only weaken the army of God when we make casualties of each other instead of building each other up.

She is absolutely right, while Internicene Smackdown may be fun to watch, it does not reflect well on the people of the Cross. And when it does not reflect well on us, it does not reflect well on Him.

Joe Carter pointed out the other day how backwards things can get in the Godblogosphere. Extracting his major points as bullets:

• We hope for. . . community But we often reward ... individuality
• We hope for. . . eternal perspective But we often reward ... focus on the trivial and ephermeral
• We hope for. . . wisdom But we often reward ... foolishness
• We hope for. . . depth and breadth of interest But we often reward ... shallowness and narrowness of concern
• We hope for. . . unity But we often reward ... division
• We hope for. . . faith, hope, and love But we often reward ... doubt, pessimism, and uncharitableness

In blogging, those rewards are so easily given, we read and spin the sitemeter, worse, we link and send it whirling like the reels of a slot machine.

We need to be smarter in our blogging. We need to link to the things we want to reward, and when it becomes necessary to criticise, we need to do so without the links, for if we link our criticism becomes reward. The iMonk, writing at Boars Head Tavern, recently did an excellent job of following this principle. He managed to describe the "Three Assured Presuppositions" of the "Truly Reformed" (also his terminology) whose bigoted statement concerning the Roman Catholics I have lately been lately been addressing.

(Speaking of which, let me insert this brief parenthetical paragraph. Can you believe people of faith, people that claim Christ, are guilty of the same bigotry as the adherents, if such a term may be applied, of the Da Vinci Code? Which is remarkable since that same group has spilt so many electrons debunking the DVC.)

There is an exception to this rule - link with those you disagree with, provided you think they will engage in actual debate. Something the targets of my recent criticism are sorely lax in doing - they obviously know too much already to bother with debate. Besides if they linked it would give away their precious traffic - precisely the traffic that is their reward.

If you are like me and would like to engage in genuine discussion on matters of real importance, then stop reading them, definitely stop linking to them. Blogging is fun, but it is not about fun. It is also not a popularity contest - if you think it is, then go to MySpace.

I am here to lift up my Lord, and hopefully myself and some other people in the process. I hope you will join me.

Related Tags: Godblogging, popularity, reward, feedback, links, uplifting, friendly fire