Comments, Spam and the Art of Self-Promotion

Everybody seems to have a cause for which to speak
Loudly from the rooftops they proclaim the thing they seek…

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Long before starting this blog, I was a regular reader of others. I’m not sure when I had the first impulse to leave a comment, but there was no doubt some issue on which I felt I was both qualified and passionate, and so I clicked the ‘leave a comment’ button. There I encountered a dialog box (aptly named in this case) which looked something like this:

Name:
Email (won’t be published):
Website:

The first two fields were mandatory, but I had nothing to put on the third line. Later, I would start a page which was annexed to the religion page at USAToday, but it was several years before I would start what became the project you are now reading.

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Once this page was up and running, I continued to read what others were writing, and the conventional wisdom was, if you want to bring readers back to your page, and build traffic, you need to leave comments on other blogs. There is a sense in which this works, but again I tried to limit myself to subjects on which I felt qualified to offer an opinion, introduce a secondary source or quotation, post a witty remark, or simply express my passion on a particular issue. However, it was evident that this wasn’t hurting traffic at all. Was I selling myself out for the sake of building audience?

“Go to the most popular Christian blogs;” I was told; “And leave a comment regularly.” Of course, part of this is based on the idealistic notion of building blog community. That online fraternity does in fact develop, but here it’s limited to a handful of people; people whom I should say I am better for having met, if not in person, via the next best alternative.

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WordPress bloggers: Have you ever actually looked at the spam comments that Akismet filters out? Blogger Clark Bunch recently received a massive template that is used by many such spammers, which someone had erroneously sent him as a single comment. Reading the text of those comments gives you a different perspective on the comments you do get.

My thesis is that there is a sense in which all of us have been partially corrupted by the goal of self-promotion. In a world filled with so many voices — and so much noise generally — we all want to be heard; we want to feel we’re making a difference; we want to voice ideas we feel are significant.

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A few weeks ago the impulse must have returned because I found myself on the website of a distinguished author and professor who was writing about the impact of book reviews. Before I could take an extra minute to reconsider, I had left a comment, completely missing that he was referring to what academics call ‘peer reviewing’ which is entirely different than the book reviewing we do here. Furthermore the comment was somewhat lame. Why on earth did I feel I needed to say something?

I quickly tracked down contact information for him, and asked him to remove the comment. He was more than willing to oblige.

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Deliberately using the contact information from others’ comments is not a bad thing. On at least ten different occasions in the past five years, there have been days when the Wednesday Link List was rather lean. I’ve surmised that if I’m looking for colorful content, the type of people who regular read Internet Monk, or Stuff Christians Like, or Pete Wilson are probably up to something interesting.

Similarly, there are times when I simply want to return the favor with people who regularly contribute here. So I’ll drop by the blogs of people who leave comments here and reciprocate, provided I have something significant to say.

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I was originally going to title this piece, “All Comments are Spam.” There are certainly days when I feel that everybody seems to have an agenda or a book to sell. But that title would have been insulting to some of the regulars here who, it must be said, comprise the majority of comments.

Decades ago, a friend gave me the book, How to Sell Yourself by Joe Girard. Like the movie Snakes on a Plane, once you know the title, you know what the book is about, and there is a sense in which in order to pursue what the world calls success, you have to adopt the principle of promoting yourself.

Around the exact same time, I was sitting on the grass at one of those large outdoor summer festivals, when Scott Wesley Brown drew attention to the wording of Psalm 75 in the King James version:

Psalm 75 (KJV)
6 For promotion cometh neither from the east, nor from the west, nor from the south.
7 But God is the judge: he putteth down one, and setteth up another.

Who knew the Bible covered promotion, marketing and merchandising?

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A couple of days ago at Christianity 201 (there’s some cross-blog promotion) I mentioned a quotation that I also posted on Twitter (there’s some cross-platform promotion) from Skye Jethani (guess it’s only fair to give him a link, too). While he doesn’t address commenting specifically, I love what this says:

Many books should be articles. Many articles should be blog posts. Many blog posts should be tweets. And many tweets should not be.

So true.

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At the same outdoor festival, I also learned this verse from Proverbs:

Proverbs 16 (NIV)
2 All a person’s ways seem pure to them,
but motives are weighed by the Lord.

Ultimately, it often comes down to what motivates our actions, not the actions themselves. Maybe my comment is actually quite valid, as are the comments of people here at Thinking Out Loud. But as I learned with my comment on the professor’s website, I need to take an extra minute to ask myself why I am weighing in on a particular topic. As the C201 article I mentioned above states, scripture seems to suggest that a theology of reticence; a time to keep ones thoughts to themselves.

…Oh, by the way, your comments are invited!

Book Review: These are the Days of Elijah

Much as I hate to admit it, while I’ve been aware of him for many years, this week was the first time I finally got around to reading one of the more than fifty books by R. T. Kendall. The American born author and pastor is best known for being the pastor of London’s Westminster Chapel where he succeeded the likes of Glyn Owen, G. Campbell Morgan and Martyn Lloyd-Jones.

The book I asked to review is These Are The Days of Elijah: How God Uses Ordinary People to Do Extraordinary Things (2013, Chosen Books) which was compiled from a series of Sunday evening sermons given at Westminster in 2000-2001; and if those Sunday night sermons were this good, I can only imagine what his preaching was like on Sunday mornings.

The book is an exposition of the story of the prophet Elijah. That said, you would expect the book to rest firmly in a Old Testament setting, but it’s as though Dr. Kendall can’t complete a paragraph without reference to a New Testament character or narrative. There is a great satisfaction in reading something where the Old and New Testaments are so clearly and strongly linked; where the character of God is seen as consistent throughout the two very different eras of our spiritual history.

But in addition to making the connection across the Biblical timeline, Days of Elijah is filled with application to our 21st century situation. Elijah was a man like us; he had his weaknesses, his rants, his frustrations. Several times the book quotes the phrase, “The best of men are men at best.” The prophet who led the showdown on Mount Carmel had his days of despair. A few times, Kendall links the Elijah story to periods in his own ministry where he felt rejection and failure; his journey as a pastor in two countries making this good reading for those who find themselves in that vocation today.

This is a book with what I call ‘rich text.’ I certainly see why Dr. Kendall has the following of readers that he does. I’m thinking this will be the first of several books by him to fill my bookshelf.

Top Ten Books by R. T. Kendall according to Send the Light Distribution:

1. Total Forgiveness
2. Totally Forgiving God
3. God Meant it for Good
4. Word, Spirit, Power
5. Jealousy: The Sin No One Talks About
6. These are the Days of Elijah
7. The Power of Humility
8. How to Forgive Ourselves Totally
9. Why Jesus Died
10. The Sermon on the Mount

Top Ten Books by R. T. Kendall according to Spring Arbor Distributors:

1. Total Forgiveness
2. These are the Days of Elijah
3. How to Forgive Ourselves Totally
4. Totally Forgiving God
5. Word, Spirit, Power
6. Sensitivity to the Holy Spirit
7. The Power of Humility
8. The Sermon on the Mount
9. The Anointing: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow
10. Did You Think to Pray?

A copy of These are the Days of Elijah was provided to Thinking Out Loud by Graf-Martin, a literary marketing and promotion agency based in Elmira, Ontario, Canada.

Related:

• From three years ago, a review of Sun Stand Still by Steven Furtick, which is also about the life of Elijah.
• R. T. Kendall Ministries website

What Not To Post Online During a Crisis

When tragedies happen, you want to post something like this:

not something like this:

Michael Frost was kind enough to post on Twitter: ‘John Piper should sack whoever writes his tweets for him.” giving Piper a pass on the responsibility. Tuesday night the post had been removed from JP’s feed. 

UPDATE 5/24/13 — Piper explains why the Twitter posts were removed.

Wednesday Link List

Welcome to yet another installment of “Let’s see what everybody else is doing online.” Actually there are some really strong links here this week, you won’t be disappointed, but I think both guys in the above cartoon are going to be.

• Our lead link this week isn’t lighter fare. The Dictionary of Christianese worked hard to provide you with the meaning of all things kairos, such as kairos time, kairos season, kairos opportunity and kairos moment.
• Todd Rhoades invites you to play: Who Said It? Oprah or Osteen? Before peeking at the answers, why not phone a friend or use this as a small group icebreaker.
• Jamie the Very Worst Fundraiser admits that some of the pictures — and descriptive language — you see in missionary letters may not be entirely representative of what is taking place on the mission field. Partner with someone to read this. 
• The church once known as the Crystal Cathedral will be renamed Christ Cathedral, while the people who once worshiped at the Crystal Cathedral will gather under the name Shepherd’s Grove.
• The Christian teen whose song Clouds recently reached 3 million YouTube views, Zach Sobiech, died Monday surrounded by family at his home in Lakeland, Minnesota. He was 18.  
• As of last night, Oklahoma pastor Craig Groeschel reported that 71 families from Lifechurch had lost their homes.
  
• At Parchment and Pen, perhaps the reason many adolescents and young adults have faith collapses is because they aren’t properly conditioned on dealing with doubts. Must reading for Christian parents. 
• Also for parents: If you’re wondering what to do with your teens (or tweens) over the summer, you won’t be after reading this list.
  
• Catholic readers should note that there are some rosaries on the market that aren’t exactly kosher.  William Tapley guides you to spotting the iffy prayer beads.
• This just in: “No man whose testicles have been crushed or whose penis has been cut off may enter the Lord’s assembly.” Actually, it’s in Deuteronomy. A must-read for guys.
  
• A music therapist at Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital in Nashville gets kids to write songs, and then gets the songs recorded by the city’s best. A seven minute documentary; keep the tissues handy. (Love what the kid said who had a song covered by Amy Grant!)
• Pastors’ Corner: What if your weekend sermon was more like a TED Talk? Could you deliver the same content in 18 minutes or less? 
• So in a debate of house churches over traditional churches who wins?  This article includes discussion of The Meeting House in Canada which reflects the best of both.  (Be sure to continue to page two.)
  
• Graphic of he week: A conversation at the atheist’s car garage.
• Top selling Christian music in the UK this week is the band Rend Collective Experiment, according to a new music chart service there.
  
• …And graphics for your Facebook or Tumblr each week at Happy Monday at The Master’s Table.
• The subject of the Soul Surfer book and movie after losing an arm to a shark while surfing, Bethany Hamilton is getting married.
  
• My video upload this week for Searchlight Books — sponsor of our Christian classics collection — was a scratchy 45-rpm single of Roger McDuff (the gospel music guy) doing Jesus is a Soul Man circa 1969. To get on this YouTube channel, the songs have to not be previously uploaded.
  
• Baptist book publisher Broadman and Holman aka B&H wants to stop publishing fiction in 2014 unless the book in question can have a tie-in with Lifeway curriculum product or other brand merchandise.
  
• Ron Fournier aka Tehophilus Monk has a short excerpt from the book Why Priests? by Gary Wills which calls into question the entire concept of priests in the ecclesiastic hierarchy.
• We can’t do it by ourselves. Sometimes we need Outside Help. Classic pop/rock some of you might remember from Johnny Rivers.
  
• Not enough links for ya this week? Dave Dunham’s got another 15 for you at Pastor Dave Online. 
• During the week between link lists, I invite you to join my somewhat miniscule band of Twitter followers.
  
• The lower graphic this week is from an article at the youth ministry blog Learning My Lines.
  

Internet Graphics in a Post-Biblical Literacy Environment

This is oh so very realistic. Sourced at Cake or Death in case you want to contact Alex Baker about using it.  

Last week I was trying to explain the basics of grace to someone who is searching through a number of spiritual options. I alluded to the story of the woman caught in the act of adultery, and also the story of the lost (prodigal) son, and realized in both cases that the person I was speaking with was not conversant with either story, so I had to backtrack and fill in the details.

Honestly, it felt strange to have to go back and say, “So there was this woman who was caught in the very act of adultery;” or “A man had two sons and the younger wanted his share of the father’s estate without having to wait around for his father to die;” especially in the environment that I was in sharing the story. I was cutting directly to the punchline as it were, but the person on the other end of the discussion had no idea who these characters were.

Firsthand Faith: Making the Family Beliefs Your Own

Like authors Ryan and Josh Shook, I grew up in a Christian home. Years ago, I remember giving my testimony to the church high school group and being very clear that it wasn’t enough to simply ‘adopt’ the faith of your father and mother because that’s all you had; you had to take ownership of it in a more objective sense. Just because you were born in McDonald’s doesn’t make you a hamburger.

The Shook brothers — sons of Kerry Shook whose book One Month to Live attracted much attention — have developed this concept into Firsthand: Ditching Secondhand Religion for a Faith of Your Own (Waterbrook Press). Although the book is written expressly to people in this particular faith situation, early sales of the book indicated that Firsthand struck a cord with Christian kids in their late teens and early twenties; the very people that statistically experience a great faith upheaval in what can be pivotal and transitional years. Here’s a sample:

We watched our parents step out in faith and plant a church when we were boys.  They had very little money at the time, just a dream God had placed on their hearts to reach the lost and hurting.  They started with fifteen people and from there it dwindled to eight after the first gathering.  Five were our family!  Now thousands are part of the church.  But we know all the little miracles God did along the way as our parents would step out in faith and watch God come through.

We feel as though we’ve had front-row seats to watch God working in our parents’ lives as they’ve taken risks in faith to obey God’s call.  But in a sense it’s been their experience, not ours.  We need our own experiences of stepping out in faith and watching God act. We don’t want front-row seats anymore.  We want to be in the game! We want to see God at work up close and personal in our lives.   (p. 108)

The structure of the book is notable. Each of the chapters is followed by a section called Making It Real, which is itself divided into Other Voices (quotes from people in similar situations) Think About It (a short study guide) and Might Try This (a variety of action steps and links to short films by Ryan). In addition to the Other Voices section, the book is very much the product of interviews with young adults whose journey contains the type of faith crisis the book addresses.

Firsthand is a resource worth knowing about that allows a specific audience to reconstruct the foundations of their faith. I’m not sure why the religious publishing division of Random House chose to do this in hardcover — especially when its target market is the demographic most likely to download rather than purchase a print copy — but the $17.99US/$20.99CAN price has not dissuaded buyers. It should also be must reading for anyone who works in high school and college-age student ministry.

A copy of Firsthand was provided to Thinking Out Loud by Waterbrook Press’ Canadian distributor, Augsburg Fortress.

Bibles Worth Coveting

(Yes, I get the post title contradiction.)

I work a few days a week at a Christian bookstore. Some days it’s about retail, but some days I get into some really amazing conversations with people who have little to no faith background, which truly justifies the existence of the place.

There are a number of Bibles in the store that I always say I would grab if the store ever caught on fire. They are the Bibles I covet, and I do have a birthday coming up soon. (Okay, don’t anyone actually act on that, since I have connections you don’t.) So as much as I love my NIV Study Bible, here are few things I would gladly steal if I thought the boss wouldn’t catch me. (Yes, I know. You’re thinking, “First coveting and now stealing.” It’s just literary license, I actually am the boss.)

So here’s my personal wish list:

Note: None of these are weird, esoteric or scholarly editions that only hardcore Bible junkies or geeky academics would want.  This is for the average person reading this.

• The Voice Bible — I’ve reviewed a book here that describes the making of this translation, and at the sister blog to this one — Christianity 201 — I’ve been using quotations from The Voice now that it’s on BibleGateway.com but I don’t actually own one. Not yet. (Thomas Nelson; various prices)

• The Contemporary Parallel New Testament — As mentioned above, you can do a lot of passage comparison online, but there are still times when a physical printed page holds some advantages and grants greater impact.  Includes: KJV, NASB Updated Ed., NCV, CEV, NIV, NLT, NKJV, and The Message (Oxford University Press; $49.99 US)

• NIV Compact Giant Print Bible — While admittedly it clocks in around 2,400 pages, nobody told this 12-point type, NIV Giant Print Bible that it wasn’t supposed to be huge and clunky. The size is surprisingly manageable. Perfect for vain people who don’t want to admit they otherwise use reading glasses; and the only giant print Bible of any translations that I’ve seen that’s worthy of taking with you. (Zondervan; various prices)

• NLT Full Verse Cross Reference — This one is not pictured as it’s out of print. Tyndale House Publishers is notorious for taking all my favorite Bibles out of print. We’re not good friends. But I loved the idea of spelling out all the cross referenced verses instead of having to flip back and forth, assuming the cross referenced verses are truly relevant.

Currently on our coffee table is the aforementioned NIV Study, the ESV Study, The Message New Testament (we appear not to own a full edition), a copy of the Common English Bible (CEB) and the Quick View NIV which I reviewed here in November. (The part about the upcoming birthday is true, however.)

Baptist Sex Abuse

Okay, so it turns out there’s a blog called Stop Baptist Predators.

Okay, so it turns out there’s a blog called Stop Baptist Predators and it’s been around since late 2006.

Okay so it turns out there’s a blog called Stop Baptist Predators and each blog post deals with a new case of abuse or a new article in the media on the topic, and in the years 2007 to 2010, they published 122, 109, 109 and 113 posts respectively. Things slowed down in 2011 and 2012, but then again, I would get weary of dealing with this topic every 2-3 days for four years.

And I had to quote this comment from April 18, directed to Ed Stetzer:

Since LifeWay provides research and data on so many other topics relevant to Baptist life, I often wondered why you yourself weren’t keeping track of Baptist clergy sex abuse cases. I imagine that most parents would find it “enlightening” to learn how widespread the problem really is – and how easy it is for clergy predators to simply church-hop their way to new prey.

It’s a shame that someone has had to devote nearly seven years to documenting this type of thing online.

It’s also a good thing that someone has chosen to devote nearly seven years to documenting this type of thing online.  On behalf of the survivors you serve, thank you Christa Brown.

Read more at Stop Baptist Predators.

How to Disagree with a Blog Post

So we’re still getting great numbers of page views at James MacDonald Preaches on Finances on Easter Sunday, and not a small number of comments, especially for this blog.  Some of you haven’t been back there since it appeared, but I later added an update to clarify some of the comments I got both on and off the blog:

Update 4/4/13

Basically what you’re seeing in the comments section is four possible responses:

• Supportive (objectively) — People who feel J. MacD. was within his rights to preach this topic on Easter Sunday because it was a legitimate message even for “Holy Week.”
• Supportive (subjectively) — People who rally around J.MacD. as their pastor or shepherd and want to defend him.
• Opposed (subjectively) — People who choose to criticize J. MacD. on whatever grounds or based on whatever leadership criteria, or choose to examine this particular topic in light of other information about James and/or HBC.
  
• Opposed (objectively) — People who — regardless of whether or not they liked the message — feel the topic was inappropriate for Easter Sunday. 

It was the two objective type of comments we were hoping for.

I don’t want to people to comment on the particular issue here — you should do that at the original post — but I was intrigued with a graphic I found at Wikipedia. From the days of letter writers responding to newspaper editorials to modern forums and blogs, writing tends to follow this hierarchy:

Exploiting Communion to Make a Political Statement

I believe my good-better-best approach to the whole gay debate is much healthier response to the issue of Christians and homosexuality than the hardline, binary right-and-wrong approach that’s more prevalent.   In that respect, I think the Christian gay community have a better ally than this blog than I might get credit for; though some progressive Christians will consider me conservative nonetheless.

But the decision by Jay Bakker to create a rainbow themed communion bread on the occasion of the opening of his church’s new location in Minnesota clearly crosses a line — for reasons I get into below — though not everybody feels that way.   For example, if you don’t know the story, Tony Jones describes it:

Last night, Courtney and I were on hand to help our dear friend, Jay Bakker, launch the new Minneapolis site of Revolution Church.  You can hear Jay’s inaugural sermon, “Vulgar Grace Throws the First Stone.”

The photo above is a detail shot by Courtney of the rainbow communion bread that we contributed to the service. We baked that loaf — the same loaf that Courtney baked with our friends Rachel and Rachet for our (sacramental) wedding — in support of marriage equality. Jay has been an outspoken proponent of marriage equality and has performed several same-sex weddings. When he broke the bread last night, Jay told us to remember not just the broken body of Jesus, but also the broken bodies and spirits of many GLBT persons who have been persecuted for their non-heterosexuality.

At the blog Juicy Ecumenism (yes, that’s its name) we read another account:

Complementing the rainbow bread, Bakker spoke on grace and inclusion, focusing on St. Paul, who “gets grace the most,” as he was a ruthless persecutor of Christians before his conversion. “The Bible is full of unperfect [sic] people” and it was “murderers and traitors … literally starting a faith, being part of a faith and that’s what I would call the good news,” Bakker said. He added that Martin Luther King, Jr. and Ghandi also “Really got the idea of what inclusion was meant to be, what loving your enemy was meant to be, what loving your neighbor.”

At Huffington Post:

Bakker reports that the rainbow communion has gotten people questioning his orthodoxy. He responds that “I don’t think Jesus is insecure about sharing communion with others, including gay folks who suffered. So many lives have been lost because of what Christians say and preach. Heterosexisim and homophobia are deadly.”

I don’t want to give a lot of space to this issue. I know this is an issue about which Bakker and Jones and many others are truly passionate.

However when you are also remembering the plight of people in the LGBT community when you are supposed to be remembering the death of Jesus, then you are creating a mixed meaning to the communion service, and making the remembrance of Christ’s death share the stage with some contemporary social issue.

But there is also the issue of altering the symbol used in the sacrament. True, Jesus lived in a world without food coloring, but we have to believe that when the scriptures say “He took bread and brake it;” we are looking at bread that free and clear of any additional symbolism, references, advertising or fortune cookie message. The formula is: The bread = Christ’s body, broken for you. There is no room here to add anything or manipulate this Eucharistic formula.

And why stop at rainbow coloring? There are other “ribbon” colors. Shall we observe a particularly colored bread on behalf of those who suffered child abuse or are fighting cancer? 

No.  The broken body of Jesus Christ is for the forgiveness of sin. And woe to anyone (see Rev. 22) who adds anything to that.