[#] "next blog" evangelism

Eventually, somebody was going to ask the question, "so what are you talking about, pinhead? One minute you're gabbing (inadequately) about theological stuff, and the next minute you're playing 'next blog' and wishing you were the 'Chris Rock' of internet apologetics."

(That somebody, btw, was not going to be any of you readers who simply don't leave comments. Over 700 unique views since the beginning of March, and you crackers haven't left one meaningful comment. Sheesh. STATS? It's embarrassing.)

Here's what I'm talking about: these things are intimately related. In all that jabbering about orthodoxy, and my limited responses to Tim Enloe about history and scripture and authority and the relevance of small-"c" catholicism, I mean to tell you few who are reading here that there is something in particular that matters which we are supposed to be preaching, as Jesus said, to every living thing.

Now at least one of you out there is thinking, "yeah, but if I start talking about the nuances of the anathema of Paul in Galatians to the avergae blogger, how is that going to win anybody to Christ?" And I think that's a great question, which is particularly framed by the game of "next blog".

See: I have been playing "next blog" for about, well, since I've been blogging, and I've run into a lot of people out there. Dad Gone Mad, Dooce, VeryMom, Brighton, Bitter with Baggage, the Macek Collective, Sarcastic Journalist, and a lot of others who are interesting reads, but -- and as I type this, I realize that they may accidentally be reading this -- they do not know anything about Jesus Christ. They are interesting because I can see the world through their eyes, and such an one of these have I been, and I realize that they need to hear the Gospel because they are lost souls.

Now, some of the people I have linked to on this blog -- like Rusty, and Mark, and even the TELIP-wearing Redgoatboy -- do make an effort to evangelize in real life. But I wonder: what would Rusty do if he ran into Brighton, married mom who is the stripper-by-night, or Bitter with Baggage, who would probably assail him with profanity before he could get to Romans 1? That's not a slam on Rusty: that's pointing out that we-who-blog-for-Jesus are very often so caught up in defending the faith against (ahem) popery and lies that we forget that the most obvious person we need to be worried about is the person who doesn’t care that Joseph Smith was a fraud or that Islam works from a highly-redacted text. The person for whom the Gospel is intended to be preached is the blogging mom who thinks she has to be Carol Brady 24/7 on her own to be a good mom and is suffering for her sickness. It's for all the bloggers who are scatologically-obsessed. It's for the ones who right now have a marriage which is pleasing to them but they are doing things which are destroying the basis of good marriage.

And beginning this week, that's what this blog is going to be about as well. It is important that we have a firm grasp of orthodoxy; it is important that we face the cross at all times with humility and gratitude. But if that's all we do, we have blown it. We have failed our call if we are only honing the point of our theological pencil and not actually writing letters truthfully in love to those for whom the savior died.

I'm staying linked to all the bullfrogs and tadpoles as I love them as brothers in Christ. They are better at the fine art of high theology than I am. Let's see if I can instead be shod with the Gospel of peace, and take it to all the "next blogs" out there in order that some might be saved.