My Second Attempt at Blogging

When I first heard of blogging, I experimented with blogger and attempted posting a few articles as you can see below. I have since been commenting on many fundamentalist blogs and have earned the dubious title ‘the ubiquitous Don Johnson’. I am not sure about ubiquitous, but I seem compelled to speak up, not always intelligently, on various sites. Since my fundamentalist friends inhabit those sites, they think I am everywhere.

As a commentator, I have neglected doing anything with my own blog. I keep hoping to get back to it someday, but have really spent too much time inhabiting the comments sections of others. I especially have spent too much time on Sharper Iron. Yesterday, I foreswore Sharper Iron for a while. I am on a Sharper Iron holiday. Self-imposed, for at least a month. I will check in with them on September 11. I might re-enter the fray, or I might not. I am sure Sharper Iron will do just fine without me.

In the back of my mind, I have wanted to re-create my own blog. I have been planning for at least two different blogs and hope to sign up with a web-hosting company and have my own URLs in order to publish them with as much autonomy as possible. I mainly lack cash to get it started, but that situation looks to being remedied in a month or so.

As I traverse the blogosphere, it seems to me that certain qualities draw a coterie of followers around certain blogs. Generally, the better read blogs are inhabited by provocative writers. By provocative, I mean the blogger (or bloggers) have an angle on their subject matter that makes them interesting. As writers, they are usually adept enough to draw the reader in. (My greatest fear in blogging is being ponderous … I have a not so unique ability to say in ten words what could be said in three or four. Perhaps I can make up for it by being provocative?)

These are the blogs I follow (using BlogLines). I look at everything they write, and read most of it. I include in [brackets] what I think makes them provocative:

• A Thinking Man’s Thoughts; Frank Sansone [sincerely fundamentalist]
• BaylyBlog: Out of our minds, too; David and Tim Bayly [bulldog evangelicals – and long time online friends]
• Big Orange Truck; ReglerJoe [recovering IFBx]
• Every Thought, Every Word; Mark Perry [often insightful commentary]
• God Change; Wayne and Josh Mack [counselors extraordinaire]
• Immoderate; Ryan Martin [intensely serious]
• irrelevant; Greg Linscott [often wickedly funny and a fundamentalist at heart]
• My Two Cents; Chris Anderson [precisely analytical]
• Nescio Latinitatem; Mike Riley [compelling writer (when he writes!)]
• paleoevangelical; Ben Wright [almost fundamentalist]
• Pensees; Bob Bixby [just provocative (what else? sometimes we might be friends)]
• Religious Affections; Scott Aniol [an expert in his craft]
• Unsearchable Riches; Andy Efting [theologian deacon]

I also follow about five Canadian politics blogs. They aren’t just provocative, they are infuriating, mostly. That would be par for the course for our nutty politics.

What do I hope to accomplish by blogging? At the moment, I’m just practicing. What I eventually want to do is attempt two things. The most important attempt is to try to engage the citizens of my city in a religious conversation with a view to winning some to Christ. The other attempt is to learn how to articulate my fundamentalist philosophy in writing. I want my sons and daughters to be fundamentalists. As I write, I will write with them in mind. I want them to adopt the fundamentalist philosophy because it is biblical Christianity, not because their dad is a fundamentalist.

That sums up my place in the blogging world at the moment. This is my second attempt at blogging. I plan to practice with this a bit and then have a third attempt. May the Lord grant some productive purpose to the third attempt.

Regards,
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3