When I first began blogging a year-and-a-half ago, it was with a purpose: to change the perspectives of any readers, albeit ever so slightly, and to produce a little more charity, mercy and grace among Christian bloggers.

My first blog (not post) was entitled, The Non-Prophet Church, a name I dropped when I realized that there was at least one, somewhat-obscure denomination that actually had a “sub-denomination” with the same title. Not wanting to be confused with that group, I switched the name to Eternal Perspectives (I later found out that Randy Alcorn’s ministry uses Eternal Perspective and wrote him, offering to change the name of my blog if he so desired. He didn’t respond so, as my lawyer friends inform me, he who is silent is assumed to agree.).

The goal of this blog was never to change anyone’s doctrinal beliefs and only on occasion to present or defend my own. Of course, my writings – including reviews of books and comments on passages – reflected my theological positions but I didn’t seek to proselytize. I know what I believe and why I believe it, know what others believe and why they believe it, and only desired to change the tone of the conversations that took place in cyberspace.

I might as well have tried to catch the wind (HT: Donovan).

Realistically, I don’t think any of the blogging I’ve done here over the past 18 months – all 239 posts and 567 comments – have made any difference in the acerbic and vitriolic nature of blogging on many of the more popular blogs. Like the Orcs to which I refer at my other blog, these reckless and loveless blogs seem to delight in slashing and hacking their way through the Christian community, leaving in their wake a swath of bruised, battered, and bewildered bloggers whose only sin was to disagree with the big bullies of Godblogs. The trousered apes with laptops continue their ways: it is the essence of their nature, I suppose, reinforced by a doctrinal tradition that allows them to withhold mercy, grace, and love from anyone who is different from them on even the minutia of Christian truth. If this is a reflection of who God is, is it any wonder unbelievers are repulsed – not by God Himself but – by His self-styled ambassadors?

Those who agree with my positions and cry for decency towards others – not snuffing out a smoldering wick or breaking off a bruised reed – have only been more confirmed in their own positions. This is not a bad thing – i.e., to encourage others – but it was not the purpose of the blog initially. That is, however, the purpose of the other blog: it is a place for eirenic discussion and a place where the knuckle-dragging bullies will be ousted immediately and with great joy. No Orcs or servants of Saruman allowed, thank you very much.

All this does not mean that I will never post here again: some issues simply won’t fit at The Lord of the Kingdom and I will post them here as they arise. But it is to say that the initial purpose of this blog is unattainable, the dream and hope of an idealist, and far beyond my grasp. As a Romantic, I imagined the bullies would listen to reason; they won’t. Like the arrogant, secular philosophers and critics they so resemble, these blogging bullies’ “greatest joy is to be shocking, and their greatest fear is to be ignored” (Peter Kreeft, p. 15).

Here’s to being shock-proof and ignoring those who sow discord among brothers.


2 Cor 1:13