Philosophy of Blogging

I think I agree with most of these comments by Halden at Inhabitatio Dei: My Philosophy of Blogging

My basic philosophy about blogging is something that I only came to be aware of after doing it for some time. The key thing that I think readers and commenter’s should understand about (what I take to be) all good blogging is its inherently fragmentary, exploratory, and unfinished nature. Blogging, including theology blogging is all about pressing issues, responding to recent discoveries, and engaging thoughts that one is only cursorily familiar with. Blogging is not like writing books and articles on theology. It is much less certain and more playful that those genres. All good theology bloggers will be eager to bend on most (but definitely not all) of the things they post on. Theology blogging, at least as far as I’m concerned, should not be a sounding board for one’s own certainties, but a space within which to rigorously explore one’s uncertainties. A good blog post is one which understands itself as merely the opening of a door to different vistas and discoveries in regard to the subject matter discussed. A good blog reader is one who understands this fundamentally tentative and exploratory nature of blogging.

Much like keeping a journal, theology blogging is something that is actually quite embarrassing half of the time. Try reading posts you wrote two years or more ago and you’ll see. That is what I love about this mode of theological conversation. It is inherently unfinished, exploratory, and playful. I always write with the knowledge that much of what I post I will eventually come to express and understand very differently as a result of the conversations that follow. This is what, to my mind, makes theology blogging such a potentially good form of theological conversation. It lacks the strictures and confines that attend the other venues of writing and discussion in academic circles. It is in some sense, a safe realm in which genuine change of mind can safely occur. This is, I think one of the most rewarding things about theology blogging, the chance to have one’s own mind changed and to witness the change of mind of others as we all seek to journey on in our pursuit of the gospel.