{"id":2477,"date":"2011-08-17T06:00:14","date_gmt":"2011-08-17T12:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rsx28.justhost.com\/~fromlaw2\/?p=2477"},"modified":"2011-08-16T22:58:30","modified_gmt":"2011-08-17T04:58:30","slug":"sbc-blog-wars-my-blog-friends-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/?p=2477","title":{"rendered":"SBC Blog Wars & My “Blog Friends!”"},"content":{"rendered":"

I call them my “blog friends.”\u00a0 <\/em>Quite simply, these are people who I have “met” through blogging and who I now consider “friends.”\u00a0<\/em> Whether or not they view me as their friend maybe a different story entirely!\u00a0 Most of my blog friends I have never met face-to-face.\u00a0 I had every intention of meeting some of these good folks during the SBC Annual Meeting in Phoenix this past June, but that was not what the Lord willed <\/a>as I ended up sick in the hotel for almost all of the Pastor’s Conference and Convention.<\/p>\n

In one of two brief ventures from my hotel on the Monday of the Pastor’s Conference, I did run into SBC Tomorrow’s<\/a>\u00a0own\u00a0Peter Lumpkins.\u00a0 We spoke briefly prior to a meeting we were both attending.\u00a0 I had every intention of talking with him more following the meeting, but not feeling well, I had to excuse myself and head back to the hotel before the meeting concluded.\u00a0 And, it was at the\u00a0Radisson\u00a0where I stayed\u00a0\u00a0until\u00a0I finally could get out of bed on\u00a0Thursday.\u00a0 But, by then, everyone who I wanted to meet was gone.<\/p>\n

One of those who I had looked forward to meeting was Dave Miller, Iowa Pastor and Editor of SBC Voices<\/a>, a Southern Baptist group blog for which I am a “regular”<\/em> contributor (not as regular as I would like because of my own schedule and failure to submit posts).\u00a0 I think that Dave thought I was trying to avoid him in Phoenix.\u00a0 I told him that wasn’t true, but, just between us, after seeing a photo of\u00a0him in a hideous-looking suit (which, providentially for him, I cannot seem to locate at the moment), I’m not sure that I would want to be seen with him.\u00a0 But, then again, that’s like the pot calling the kettle black.\u00a0\u00a0Dave probably doesn’t want to be seen with a lawyer-turned-pastor!<\/p>\n

I don’t need to be reminded that I am a strange animal — part lawyer, part pastor.\u00a0 As if my wife reminding me of that fact on an almost daily basis were not enough, one need only look at my blog friends to know that I march to the beat of my own drummer.\u00a0 And as one who has absolutely no rhythm (as members of my congregation will gladly attest), that makes for what some might call odd or even slightly weird.\u00a0 I really don’t mind you calling me names.\u00a0 With a first name of Dixie, I’m used to just about anything.\u00a0 You can call me odd, weird, conservative, fundamentalist, moderate, liberal, or what have you.\u00a0 The only thing that I will get upset over is if you call me late for dinner!\u00a0 I am a Baptist pastor, after all.<\/p>\n

If I were to be judged on the basis of my blog friends, I’m really not sure what the verdict would be.\u00a0 Some of you\u00a0already have reached a verdict, but you are wrong!\u00a0 Since starting From Law to Grace in July 2010, the Lord has opened doors of friendship with a variety of people.\u00a0 And, these people don’t always (often?) see things from the same perspective.\u00a0 That’s okay.\u00a0 I don’t always\u00a0view issues the same way\u00a0as everyone else either.\u00a0\u00a0 From Peter Lumpkins, Tim Rogers, and Bart Barber\u00a0to Dave Miller, Mark Lamprecht, and Jared Moore to William Thornton, Aaron Weaver (aka, the Big Daddy Weave<\/a>), and Stephen Fox, I have become blog friends with people who\u00a0span the theological\/methodological spectrum within Southern Baptist\/Baptist life.<\/p>\n

I can’t speak for anyone else, but I think the diversity of blog friends that one can have is positive, not negative.\u00a0 Oh, there will always be those\u00a0nattering nabobs of negativism <\/a>who cannot seem to grasp that Christians can have a wide variety of friends, both in “real life”<\/em> and in the blogosphere.\u00a0 There will always be those who would\u00a0rather\u00a0verbally spar with\u00a0their theological enemies<\/del> opponents than enter into constructive dialogue.\u00a0 I should know — I was trained and paid to\u00a0verbally joust with opponents\u00a0and I still often have to keep my inner lawyer in check <\/a>(not always successfully, I must\u00a0confess).\u00a0There are only a few in the Baptist blog world who I have encountered\u00a0who have tempted me to “go all lawyer”<\/em> on them.\u00a0 Thankfully, that\u00a0has never happened on my own blog.\u00a0 Usually it happens only at other blogs, but I am getting better at ending certain conversations before I write things that I would later regret.<\/p>\n

Someone asked me the other day if I thought that people would talk to each other in person the way that they talk to each other through blog comments.\u00a0 I’m generally an optimist, so I would like to think\u00a0that our language and tone would be much different (i.e., softer) in person.\u00a0 However, I am enough of a realist to know that how one communicates on a blog — either through posts or comments —\u00a0will probably not change a whole lot if we were sitting in the same room as one of our theological opponents.<\/p>\n

And,\u00a0herein lies the problem.\u00a0 Far too often, we have no intention of\u00a0becoming “blog friends” with someone whose theology or methodology differs from ours in any substantial way (and I’m just talking about those within the Southern Baptist Convention).\u00a0 We may allow for a small variance, but not too much.\u00a0 When we begin to view brothers and sisters in Christ as opponents — and sometimes even as “enemies”<\/em>\u00a0— then our dialogue will be counter-productive.\u00a0 It’s one thing to argue strong and hard for a Biblical position that you believe is true and right — I plead guilty of doing that all the time.\u00a0 It is quite another to begin to call into question someone else’s salvation or love for God just because he or she happens to interpret\u00a0a passage of Scripture differently than you do.<\/p>\n

So, what’s the solution\u00a0to these “blog wars”<\/em> that keep breaking out within the SBC blogosphere?\u00a0 Call me naive or overly optimistic, but I think that if we really did\u00a0talk to each other through blogs like we would if we were\u00a0hosting someone whom we had invited into our home, then our fight clubs<\/a> would turn into fellowship clubs.\u00a0 No, we wouldn’t always agree with\u00a0our brothers and sisters in Christ on every\u00a0theological doctrine\u00a0or methodological practice, but we would find it far easier to “agree to disagree.”\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

So, the next time you are tempted to “go all lawyer”<\/em> on someone who you view as your\u00a0opponent,\u00a0choose instead to make a new “blog friend.”\u00a0<\/em> In the end, it makes for better blogging and better witnessing.\u00a0 At least it has for me.\u00a0 What about you?\u00a0<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I call them my “blog friends.”\u00a0 Quite simply, these are people who I have “met” through blogging and who I now consider “friends.”\u00a0 Whether or not they view me as their friend maybe a different story entirely!\u00a0 Most of my blog friends I have never met face-to-face.\u00a0 I had every intention of meeting some of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6,8,9,35,37,39],"tags":[1244,99,112,113,1243,1239,1246,3368,3370,285,1121,1248,1242,775,3392,868,1240,876,1241,3393,1247,1245,982,1184,1189],"class_list":["post-2477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogging","category-christianity","category-civility","category-religion","category-southern-baptist-convention","category-theology","tag-aaron-weaver","tag-arguing","tag-baptist-bloggers","tag-baptist-blogs","tag-bart-barber","tag-blog","tag-blog-wars","tag-blogging","tag-christianity","tag-dave-miller","tag-jared-moore","tag-lawyers","tag-mark-lamprecht","tag-peter-lumpkins","tag-religion","tag-sbc","tag-sbc-today","tag-sbc-tomorrow","tag-sbc-voices","tag-southern-baptist-convention","tag-southern-baptist-convention-pastors-conference","tag-the-big-daddy-weave-blog","tag-theology-2","tag-tim-rogers","tag-william-thornton"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1LP7G-DX","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2477","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2477"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2477\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2494,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2477\/revisions\/2494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}