(I wrote the following to a cyberfriend earlier today and am posting it for anyone who is interested.)

I did something a few days ago that I should have done months - or years - ago: I deleted all the blogs in the “Favorites” folder of my browser; I did this for essentially one reason: it was hurting my relationship with God.

For whatever reason or reasons, I just couldn’t take anymore. Everywhere I went I ran into blogs, posts, and comments where no one wanted to learn something “outside the box” - “the box” being their own preconceived notions, doctrines, biases, and theological categories/strangleholds. People were either like lap dogs drooling about what their “master” had just written or, conversely, like pit bulls attacking and defending themselves (or their masters) from those that didn’t see things exactly the same way. I can’t remember ever reading a blogger who responded to criticism by saying, “Wow, thanks! I never thought of that before. I’m going to have to think my way through this in light of what you just said and/or reminded me of. Praise God for the faithful wounds of friends!” Not once.

I also burnt out because it pained me to watch people flock to untrained, unqualified bloggers because (I don’t think I’m overstating this) they tickle their ears, i.e., they tell them what they want to hear. Definition of an Online Authority: someone who sees things the way I do. The Christian blogging community is like what Tolkien says of hobbits:

. . . they like to have [blogs] filled with things that they already knew, set out fair and square with no contradictions.”

At best, much of what I have encountered is little more than this sort of confirmation of biases; at worst, it’s the bickering and baiting befitting the Brandybucks, Bolgers, Bracegirdles, Burrowses, and - of course - the Sackville-Bagginses. It’s like having to eavesdrop at The Ivy Bush night after night after night and listening to them go on and on and on, ever reading and talking but never really learning anything. Has no one ever read Confucius? - “If one’s words are not better than silence, then one should keep silent.”

I’ve never been much of a hobbit nor have I ever wanted to be a hobbit. I’m far more a Ranger who seeks to protect those who do not know the danger just out of sight. Or, again citing Tolkien,

. . . [The hobbits] heeded less and less the world outside where dark things moved, until they came to think that peace and plenty were the rule of Middle-earth and the right of all sensible folk. They forgot or ignored what little they had ever known of the Guardians, and of the labours of those that made possible the long peace of the Shire. They were, in fact, sheltered, but they had ceased to remember it.”

(There is an obvious difference online, however, and it is this: there are already false sheep and false shepherds in the community. But they enjoy the popular support of the masses and will not be moved. Maybe this is part of the appeal of soft, shallow Christianity in the West these days. I really don’t know.)

It is probably not without significance that Rangers did not hang out with hobbits: the latter were not even aware of the existence of such Guardians and believed Gandalf - a premier Guardian - to be little more than someone who performed magic tricks. Gandalf did spend time with hobbits, of course, but Gandalf was an angel. I am not.

So I’m disappearing from this dreadful “cyber-Hobbiton” that has emerged online. I will, when I can, post at both my blogs but I don’t know that I’ll allow comments. I might allow some - such as you - to have authorial or even editorial access to the blogs: not everyone is bad for my spiritual health, after all - perhaps not even most. You, as always, are like a refreshing drink of cold water on a sweltering day. I must confess that I have kept a link in my Favorites to one blog only: yours. I’ll have to be careful even there, though, since you sometimes quote others who are terrible busybodies and who seem to enjoy stirring things up just for the sake of being different or driving traffic.

I hope this doesn’t sound judgmental. It isn’t supposed to be. It does, however, reveal who and where I am right now; I may be fooling myself and actually be quite arrogant, proud, and judgmental.

If so, so be it. I’ll let God deal with me on it.

Update: I have yielded ground, upon reflection, and allowed a total of six seven blogs to enter my Favorites folder. Three are composed by thoughtful, gentle, encouraging souls whose words are comforting; three are from individuals and groups who are often irritating or troubling, but to whom I listen because I need to: they are legitimate authorities in their fields (theology, philosophy, and sociology) and often poke me where I need to be poked. So I am not completely isolated or insulated after all.


2 Cor 1.13