Top 98 Blogs: Somebody’s Idea of “Best” Isn’t Mine

I suppose if you want to draw a lot of traffic to your blog, all you have to do is notify a number of the hottest blogs that they have been “selected” to appear on a list of the Top 98 Christian Blogs, and then watch as they mention your site and engage the question; Why 98 and not 100?

That’s what the people at Christian Counseling Degree did — nope, it’s not going to be linked here; they’re getting enough traffic — last week.   I’ve actually seen their list before, and I’m not 100% sure that they even bothered to do an update.

John Saddington wrote:

We’ve written a few times about lists like these and how it’s pretty subjective at times. We’ve come to the conclusion is that, in general, our audience is mature enough to handle these types of lists and see them for what they are: Lists.

To save you some time looking…

• A couple of these blogs have totally lost their way in terms of faith focus… they’re great blogs and they’re written by Christians, but the similarity between them and the rest of the list ends there
• A couple of them haven’t posted anything new in six months; instead of being “top” blogs, I would call them “dormant” blogs.
• The list is very strongly biased toward blogs with a bent toward Reformed theology; it doesn’t stand up to the test of being a true list of the top Christian blogs, because Christianity is so much wider than a single denomination.

Okay, so now you’re curious.   Fine.  Go ahead and read the list, but read it at John’s Church Crunch blog.   I still refuse to give in.

When you have a minute, check out this blog’s blogroll.  There’s a site section called “Oh, Oh, The Places You’ll Go;” which is a mixture of various websites;  but then further down the page is a list of just blogs called “A Sampling of My Weekly Blog Stops.”   If you hover your mouse over each one, you’ll see that some of them comprise a wide range of doctrinal perspectives, including a Quaker, Charismatic, Catholic, Wesleyan; and writers in the U.K., Australia, South Africa supplementing the usual suspects in Canada and the U.S.

Recommendations are welcomed — I’ll bookmark them and follow them for a few weeks — and if you find a dormant blog on the list, let me know.   (I know one of the cartoon blogs fits that category, but his perspective was unusual and I’m hoping he’ll be back.)

BONUS ITEM:

The list Kent Shaffer posts annually is also a little skewed doctrinally — perhaps Calvinists just blog all day while the rest of me is out saving the world — but is much more scientific.   Click the image below to see the entire list.

RELATED POSTS:

The above reference to Reformers reminded me about another group that does a lot of talking, Christian academics.   Here’s my concerns with that group, as expressed in January, 2009.

The predominance of Reformers and “New” Calvinists in the Christian blogosphere may represent the kind of necessity that exists when you’re spearheading a change in direction or starting a new movement.   I see that happening in so many ways, as I wrote just a month ago, in August, 2010.