Believing Men, Beware the Blog

The following article was written by my friend Ryan Corbett. I think he makes some great points and that his challenge deserves to be taken seriously. Join me in determining to use blogging as a means to a noble end (the spread of God’s glory and the edification of self and others), rather than being used by blogging for a selfish aim (the spread of the glory of self and the avoidance of fulfilling God’s call for us as men).

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I have in mind an online medium which poses, I believe, a dangerous threat to the faith and usefulness of Christian husbands, fathers and ministers in our age. No, it is not pornography, adult chat rooms or online gambling, though these widely recognized vices have, in their own ways, shipwrecked the faith of a good many in the past decade. What I have in mind is far more innocent, subtle, and even wholesome: The Christian blogosphere. I by no means mean to suggest that blogs with Christian content are unuseful. Quite to the contrary, they offer an incredible forum for the exchange of ideas and information and have connected people and movements to one another like never before. Many a man has, I’m sure, come to a fuller understanding of the character of God, been stimulated toward a more radical lifestyle and even experienced conversion through the agency of Christian blogging. I can personally testify to the role of the World Wide Web in connecting me with mind-changing and soul-edifying doctrinal material which I was once in the dark about. But we must not casually think that because of their theological content, blogs of this nature have no capacity to become weapons in the hands of the evil one to steal, kill and destroy. Recent observation has led me to ponder the reality of this threat, specifically to Christian men in the prime of their strength with a tendency toward the life of the mind (I describe myself here). The threat can be summarized as follows:

1. Christian blogs can quietly take the place of the disciplines of Word and devotion. If a Christian man is checking golf stats or monitoring his stocks, there is no sense of spiritual fulfillment. But if he is making his rounds on Christian blogs, reading stimulating articles, posting biblical comments and downloading podcasts of sermons, there is the tendency to feel that the spiritual duty of communion with God has been satisfied. In a couple of hours before dinner he has, perhaps, read a Christian review of a current movie, skimmed through a debate over eternal security and watched a clip of an interview discussing church growth trends. Is he not valuably spending his time? And if a few days go by in which his Bible was not cracked, did he not get devotional stimulation anyway? I suggest that hours spent surfing Christian blog sites are no replacement for earnestly going after God with an open Bible and notebook. Rather, a dependence on the blog can train us to get our spiritual insights second-handedly, and to think about communion with God mainly in terms of hot-button issues, arguments and polemics. These have an important role in the Christian life, but they can never take the place of routine devotion through the disciplines of Word and prayer.
2. Christian blogs give men the opportunity to flaunt themselves, something we’re all geared to enjoy doing. Where else can an average guy get himself published for his Christian buddies to read? He may manage his own blog, or he may borrow space from another by posting comments. In any case, his potential to be read and recognized has suddenly increased manifestly by the advent of the blog. He finds himself checking to see how many hits his blog received in a week, and re-reading his own posts with a sense of pride. Let’s face it, men, we love to see our names out there. We love to read the comments people post in response to that clinching point we made. Whenever that insightful reformedguy79 (you know him only by his webname) picks up on a comment you typed, you give yourself a pat on the back. How many unconsciously allow their egos to be stroked by faceless interactions online, and continue to be drawn back in pursuit of more opportunities to win a moment of fame?
3. Blogs have the tendency to reduce people to one dimension — a dimension in which men feel particularly comfortable — the intellectual and argumentative. The blog is impersonal. It talks back, but not immediately, and there are no tears, no emotions or confrontations. It is just nice, clean, manly exchange. It is a lot easier than initiating spiritual dialog with a wife, who is inclined to bring in messy emotions, spot your hypocrisies, and require a personal vulnerability that we would rather avoid. Can the fellowship of the blog really fulfill Christian one-anothering, transparency, and serious accountability? If we think it does, we are in danger. Hell is hungry for men who have let these necessary disciplines slip away.
4. Blogging, not engaged in responsibly, has the potential of consuming a lot of time which is stolen away from family, bible study, communion with the saints, ministry to poor, orphans and widows and radical mission to the lost. Log the hours you spend online weekly and ask whether that time could have been redeemed for activities more befitting one called to be the head of his home, a solider in Christ’s army and a worker of righteousness in an unjust world. Healthy, soul-refreshing activities like bike-rides and walks in the park on autumn days can also suffer neglect. TV makes men lazy, and too much time in the virtual world of blogging has similar potential to make men lazy.

The fact that something is dangerous does not make it wrong. Fire is both valuable for life and deadly. It would be foolish to completely disregard this means of access to quality biblical teaching, contemporary ministry ideas, and yes, some devotional stimulation. But with Christ’s return at the door, the deceitfulness of sin and the brevity of life, we cannot afford to be unwary. Consider the following ideas as a means of guarding yourself for God and family.

First, for every minute spent surfing the Christian blog world, spend at least as much time with God, on your face, seeking Him and pouring over His Word. This will have the effect of either radically limiting your time online or radically increasing your time in the Word until it truly is sweeter to you than the drippings of a honeycomb, more valuable than fine gold, and more attracting than the blog. Second, as a finite being with a finite amount of time, choose a handful of blogs which are truly, consistently spiritually stimulating, which are grounded in Word, devotional in nature, and which leave your heart more inclined to Jesus. Seek out these, and avoid the temptations to eternally blog-shop about on other sites and links. The sheer size of the web can be overwhelming and time-squandering if one doesn’t restrain himself to a few familiar and most helpful pages. Third, you may find it wise to take periodic blog fasts, especially if you discern a distraction from real-life interaction with Christian believers, ability to lead your family in a vital walk with God, and a personal hunger and thirst for the Word. Such fasts may give insight into ones level of attachment and dependency on the blog for spiritual health and satisfaction. The blog is certainly a valuable tool, but let us not forget that the spiritual giants of the past with the depth of spiritual insight and communion with God for which we admire them, had not the availability of this medium, and carried out their prolific writing ministries with a pen and paper. Could it be that their lack of access to this wide range of information and ideas actually enabled them to be more singleminded and useful than we?

Christian brothers, take care and make every effort so that the Christian blog is for you a means of perseverance and not a detraction from it.

Ryan Corbett

Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.
(Ephesians 5:15-17 ESV)