Are blogs evil?

The Restored Church of God claims that “blogging is simply NOT to be done in the Church. It should be clear that it is unnecessary and in fact dangerous on many levels. Let me emphasize that NO ONE—including adults—should have a blog or personal website (unless it is for legitimate business purposes).” For a good laugh, read the article here.

(Any church that calls itself the “Restored Church” is not only highly suspect but on the fast-track to cult-status. Furthermore, they write: “The Church of God is made up of seven separate eras, recorded in Revelation 2 and 3. Today we live in the Laodicean era (Rev. 3:14-21)—the seventh and last era of the Church. Last century was, for the most part, the time of the sixth era, Philadelphia.” They go on to assert that blogs are indicative of our Laodicean era. This is a point worth ridiculing on its own.)

Comments

dw said…
Alan Jacobs doesn't think blogs are evil, but he certainly makes his case for giving up on them as a worthy form of communication.

dw
Anonymous said…
Dw: Your blog is one that I read daily, (I was first attracted by the Eliot quote, by the way.) My one complaint is that you don't start with "Current mood ____." Seriously, thanks for your blog, it's been a huge inspiration to me as evidence that the church is not completely lost to 'fundies.'
Ben Myers said…
"NO ONE ... should have a blog or personal website" -- I love the fact that they publish this on their own website!
Anonymous said…
In all honesty, the bit about "Idle Words" didn't seem to be that far out...
Jim said…
Oh for pete's sake. I'm with Ben, telling people not to have a blog or a website on a website is the depth of hypocrisy.

Now, on the other hand, no one should use myspace or enter chat rooms. Those are just evil.

;-)

In fact, come to think of it- no one should visit any website or blog but mine! Yeah, that's it!
Chris Tilling said…
Oh that was fun!!

"Should teenagers and others in the Church express themselves to the world through blogs? Because of the obvious dangers; the clear biblical principles that apply; the fact that it gives one a voice; that it is almost always idle words; that teens often do not think before they do; that it is acting out of boredom; and it is filled with appearances of evil—blogging is simply not to be done in the Church. It should be clear that it is unnecessary and in fact dangerous on many levels."

'unnecessary and in fact dangerous on many levels'. A bit like reading anything apaprt frm teh bible (and their webpage) and publishing, watching the TV, breathing the same air that is within a hundred yards of a sinner, radio programmes, advertisments on cereal packages, nay, existing in the world at all.
Gabrielle said…
I was actually attacked verbally by a man (dave that guy who came to the one romans group you went to that said that we have to ability to not accept God's grace, or something like that.) anyways, he said that Myspace was breathing voodoo spells and the fact that our church is on there is appalling and I need to get off of there. His reasoning was that our zodiac signs are on there and can't be taken off and that was the portal. Anyways, the idle words part and vanity, I believe, are valid problems.
Anonymous said…
Actually, I thank God for blogs such as Ben's and Chris' and Jim's and Alastair's and several others. (There are too many good blogs to read them all).

I've learned a lot from these blogs and they have encouraged me to get back into the personal study of theology again.

Now I'm off to hear Miroslav Volf in a couple of hours or so!
Anonymous said…
OK, first of all Ben and Jim aren't getting it. It's not ironic. They were saying that no individual should have his or her own website and thus publish stuff before it's checked by brothers and sisters.

Their post was on their organization's website and presumably went through peer review, perhaps the author was even asked by someone else to write it. They're against the individualism of the blog/personal site, not against the internet per se.

They're wrong, they're misinformed, but they're not being hypocritical.

Secondly, the idea that these guys are "on the fast track to becoming a cult" shows a lack of research. These guys have been a cult for decades. In the USA in the middle of the 20th century a guy named Herbert Armstrong went off the doctrinal rails and founded a church called The WorldWide Church of God, he had a huge radio "ministry" and his magazine was called "Plain Truth."

After his death, the guys he entrusted to run the Church began to realize that his doctrines didn't square with Scripture. They publicly repented and sent their leadership to evangelical educational establishments for retraining en mass -- in the States it was Fuller, in the UK it was LBC, now LST.

Some folks in the church could not hack the public repentance and move away from Armstrong. THESE guys founded the church now called The Restored Church of God because they cannot get the legal right to use the name Worldwide Church of God.

These guys are a cult. That tells you why they're against individual blogs or, for that matter, independent thinking.