I am speaking at a small apologetics conference in April in North Carolina. I am one of the break-out session speakers. I will do two sessions. I am considering using one of my breakout sessions to talk about Apologetics Blogging.
I would like to hear from the community of bloggers. Please sound off and let me know what you think are the positives AND negatives to apologetics blogging. Here are some questions to prime the pump.
1) What potential does blogging bring to apologetics?
2) What drawbacks and limitations are there to apologetics blogging?
3) What is the most significant challenge to apologetics blogging?
4) Is apologetics blogging really just another form of "preaching to the choir"? If yes, why do it? If no, do you think has an impact based on your own experience?
Here are some of my regular reads that dabble (some more than others) in apologetics : New Covenant, Cadre Comments, Imago Dei, Reasons Why, Evangelical Outpost, Jolly Blogger, Prosthesis, Roger Overton, He Lives! and Every Thought Captive.
I wonder what they think?
Update: Phil Steiger at Every Thought Captive posted in response to the questions I posed. He makes cogent points, as usual. He suggests preaching to the choir ain't such a bad thing.
Update: Sozo at Reasons Why put together a thoughtful response. He makes a bunch of good points. I like the admonition he makes to blogger/apologists: "As a group of bloggers, I think apologists need to be careful to avoid a superior or snarky attitude. It's easy to ruffle feathers by the very nature of what's being written about. We don't need to offer additional offense by our attitude."
Update: Lots of amens in the comments to the notion that preaching to the choir is important and necessary. I received an email as well from some thoughtful apologist bloggers who use their blog to model how to think with a Christian mind about all of life. In their words: "We set out to write a blog that could be a bridge, easing people into the Christian perspective. To that end, we don't begin posts with scriptures or announce that we're going to defend some aspect of the faith. Rather, we tend to tell something that's interesting (at least to us), and then think aloud about what it means, its ramifications, etc."
Update: The distinguished apologists from Cadre Comments weigh in ... both on their blog and in the comments. Excellent points.
I read the following paragraph written by Ann Druyan in 2003 for Skeptical Inquirer. She was married to Carl Sagan, who died at the age of 62 back in 1996. Sagan was a best selling author and popularizer of science. He was also an outspoken atheist. I was a big Carl Sagan fan in the late 80s. I have often wondered if his atheism ever cracked in his final days. Ann writes poignantly on that very question.