The Southern Baptists passed a resolution passive-aggressively condemning “certain people … for divisive and destructive rhetoric at the expense of peace among the brethren.†Because the moderates took back the Southern Baptist presidency through a blogger-based campaign, this carries a certain edge to it.
We UU bloggers are a polite bunch, I have to say. I’m not sure what “peace among the brethren” means, but instances of outright nasty blogging are few and far between—if there indeed are any.
So, no, I’m not proposing we ban blogging. I’d rather we picket and petition it instead. (With apologies to Chalice Chick.)
It sounds like what is happening in the SBC is that blogging about the need for institutional reform is being conflated with blogging in a mean and nasty way. There are a number of UU bloggers critiquing our institutional structures, but I have not seen many personal attacks. As you said, UU bloggers are quite considerate of one another. Maybe in part this is because we are a small and tight-knit denomination.
Oops – I meant to say “small and tight-knit religion.”
I’m wondering if lack of exposure to blogs helped the resolution pass. It would be pretty easy to drum up fears of nasty, unaccountable bloggers among folks who don’t read blogs. Not too far back, I read a study showing evangelicals preferred mainstream media over online media compared to the general population, so this might have been easy to do.
Whatever. A tofurkey* in every pot and a free press in every basement, that’s what I say.
(Please, no. I simply don’t want to express myself in a way that excludes my vegan brethren. But please, don’t make me it it…)
(sigh)
Where “it it” should be “eat it.”
Just ignore me; I hab a hedcode.
Nooooo! No picketing…