Is the Sword the absolutely best periodical in fundamentalism? Maybe not. But the reactions to the editorial were weird. They had nothing to do with what was said and everything to do with an axe that keeps getting ground at certain blogs. Methinks those protesting protest too much and become an example of what Smith was editorializing about. From a knee jerk antagonistic reaction to Smith and the SotL, the invective becomes a rant against the whole of fundamentalism, caricaturizing it in a way consistent with the blogs involved, but not consistent with the reality I have experienced.<\/p>\n
These are bro. Smith’s recommendations for the blogosphere. They are well worth heeding:<\/p>\n
1. I\u2019m all for free speech! Our First Amendment freedoms have come at great cost, and they are precious!<\/p>\n
But Christians (of all people) should use their freedoms responsibly. Opinions, rumors, etc., should be checked, rechecked and fully certified before being repeated or published. …<\/p>\n
2. Scandals (even Christian ones) should be exposed! If and when there are issues of scandal, the scoundrels should expect to get some bad press. But the blogosphere so often has no journalistic credibility whatsoever. It often is \u201cmy thoughts\u201d and \u201cyour thoughts\u201d which are given with no other purpose than to smear good people. …<\/p>\n
3. Gossip is not a Christian activity! Even if you do it with a computer, it is not right! The fact that you have your own blog does not give you scriptural license to peddle gossip. …<\/p>\n
4. Christian integrity demands accountability of all of us. Don\u2019t open your mouth unless you\u2019ve done your homework and know for sure whereof you speak.<\/p>\n
5. It is neither faithful nor fruitful, neither pious nor prudent to tell everything you know\u2014even if it is true! Some things serve no public good by being spoken. …<\/p>\n
6. Some things are issues of sufficient public interest and for the public good that they must be reported. But even then, it should be done in a responsible manner. Facts must be checked and rechecked. Primary sources must be consulted. Be accountable for your actions. Sign your name to whatever you say or write.<\/p>\n
7. Christians ought to be Christian! As I review the Christian blogosphere, I see a lot that doesn\u2019t look certifiably Christian to me.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
All Christian bloggers would do well to abide by these recommendations. In particular, the question we should ask is this, “Is it necessary?” Perhaps it would reduce our output, especially posts such as this one that holds others up to criticism. The temptation is to simply let fly. Better to wait. Think it through, and ask God’s guidance.<\/p>\n
Regards
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Shelton Smith, the editor of the Sword of the Lord, wrote an editorial regarding the blogosphere here. I don’t know how many people blogged about it, but I first became aware of it here, at paleoevangelical, a post linked by Greg Linscott at Current Christian. Later Bob Bixby unleashed on it over at Pensee’s. Paleo […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[30,37],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2fYWj-6S","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=426"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}