I'm going to interact with this person's post

Confession for Theoblogians
September 13th, 2005
Inspired by a conversation with Russ Rankin today at lunch. For some theoblogians, this might be the first step to improving a blog:

I Repent
of pretending to know more than I do,
of speaking without listening,
of correcting without caring,
of passing judgment without understanding,
of talking at people instead of with people,
of using words that hurt and do not heal,
of writing without grace, charity, love and kindness,
of writing with arrogance and pride,
of being more critical than redemptive,
of presuming my words are more valuable than others',
of uncovering problems without pointing to solutions,
of being more zealous for a system than for a Savior,
for I am a man with an unclean blog, and I write among a people of unclean blogs.

"of pretending to know more than I do" - The word pretending in this line suggests the person has had run-ins with regenerate individuals who talk in a way and about things he has yet to experience and so he denies them their own experience. This is common vanity and pride at work protecting vanity and pride. From a practical standpoint if a person is writing about more objective matters they don't have understanding of or are just pretending to know about they will be exposed soon enough if they interact at all with other people.

"of speaking without listening" - This is a legitimate problem on the internet. I once engaged in a twenty or thirty (or even more) post exchange debate on theology with a Roman Catholic deacon on a liberal forum who was responding to me as if he had a mental disorder compounded by drinking problems. He later admitted he'd not read one of my responses. My experience is: people who take doctrine seriously tend to listen to what people are saying. For the most part. (I was reading every word of the deacon.) Other 'not listening' issues occur in the realm of things like mistaking agreements for attacks (little misunderstandings like that) that can occur in the heat of an exchange (especially if you are commonly in environments where it is 30 to 1 and you are the '1', and if you're a real Calvinist you know).

"of correcting without caring" - Correction is always difficult to accept. It always comes across as an assault to one's vanity and worldly pride and self-will. So actually nobody ever admits correction, but only in time as the wounds fade and things sink in (and the person comes into the new understanding 'on their own' ha, ha). So with this in mind I just state directly and boldly whatever I state. I don't expect agreement. You can just present things and they manifest down the line in the person or they don't. The real correction without caring is banning or silent treatment that cuts off conversation which is typical of man-fearing fools at many if not most Christian forums and similar sites. Their prerogative though if they own the controls to the banning tools... So be it. The level of worldly maturity among church level Christians is not high. They don't know how to just talk.

"of passing judgment without understanding" - This is not an impressive one here. Maybe reword it: of giving advice about a situation you don't and or can't know anything about. Or passing judgment based on second hand testimony (very common). Anyway, 'passing judgment' is such a ill-defined bogey man of a thing in the minds of immature liberal and immature Christians (not to mention what 'understanding' constitutes) that this particular repentance is best left alone until better stated.

"of talking at people instead of with people" - But what is the one thing people with bad doctrine want? Dialogue? To have their side taken seriously? So the moment you don't give their doctrine the legitimacy they demand you are suddenly 'talking at them' and not 'talking with them'. I think debating someone is talking WITH them. They think they're being talked AT. Whatever. On the mark is on the mark. It can be defended. If things come down to foundational principles like what is your authority then of course when I talk about the Word of God being authority I will be seen as 'talking at' people at that point.

"of using words that hurt and do not heal" - I've hurt people with words. Positively, but also negatively. Usually people who wander into an environment where weapons have been in use and who maybe don't know what they've wandered into, yet you deal with them as with the others in the enivornment. I've never been quite convinced though that the hurt party wasn't just indulging a pleasurable resentful victim's status. We all though imagine the nightmare of a precocious child coming on the 'net and getting torn to shreds by out-of-control gunfighters. That would be an uncommon case though. I think what happens is people lurk and get a sense of an environment and then jump in or don't based on what they see... I.e. they know what they're getting into.

"of writing without grace, charity, love and kindness" - Obviously writing is relative regarding these qualities. A sharp, on-the-mark rebuke can be packed full of grace and love and charity and kindness. It all comes down to on-the-mark off-the-mark. Using the four words above (grace, charity, love, kindness) as a weapon to make everybody talk like blithering, lukewarm idiots is a tactic of political-correctness and is a sure recipe for creating dead environments. If that's what you want... It's also a way to allow the devil the upper hand.

"of writing with arrogance and pride" - A person who is able to be on-the-mark can also fall into this (obviously an off-the-mark person can fall into too). If you have a team behind you or some instutition you can fall into this because you don't have that feeling of being a stranger in a strange land like the lone wolfs do. Lone wolfs can obviously be arrogant and prideful but it's tempered by having that 'outsider' status and certain survival issues people in a group don't have. The lone stranger will learn more, potentially, because when alone he's really alone and things can take root. The group person retreats to his group and the reinforcing noise of his group.

"of being more critical than redemptive" - This one is just too mushy for me to comment on.

"of presuming my words are more valuable than others'" - Alot of these sentences are just obviously lame (i.e. they carry lame meaning or are worded lamely, and obviously express much of the immature (and devilish) demands one finds in various politically-correct, intensely policed environments such as in left-wing academia and in socialist government. As for your words having more value than other people's words: you're either on-the-mark or you're not. We can also talk about what you deem to be ultimate authority.

"of uncovering problems without pointing to solutions" - Whining is a problem in most human environments. But we're talking about theology here and writing about theology, and not fixing the garbage disposal. The answer to most any problem related to Christianity or the Christian experience is getting serious with the Word of God and with doctrine. Just getting serious period. Counting your days and getting serious.

"of being more zealous for a system than for a Savior" - The system that is the Savior's system is the system I'm zealous for.