10 Years a Blogger

Today's the tenth anniversary of my first blog post. If you are a young scholar thinking of blogging, here are my reflections.

Pros
1. I have a platform. I view my near daily posts as something like a newspaper. People scan the headlines of all sorts of info sources and if my title strikes a fancy, you might just take a gander. The discipline of such regular posting means that I have a voice, for good or ill.

2. I have grown from the interactions. I have learned from critique. I have probably become less provincial, because I get reaction from all sides. I have developed a thicker skin. I've had a taste of what it must be like to be a politician.

3. I have cranked out a number of popular Christian books here, including some self-published one.

Cons
1. While I have written nearly ten books by blogging through, my scholarly writing has slowed down. I don't feel like I can blog through scholarly writing for more than one reason. It's hard to set aside time for the slow and arduous task of scholarly writing when you put the near instant gratification of blogging next to it.

2. I have made myself more controversial than I prefer. A blog inevitably blurs differing social roles. There is a way of being with family, with a local church, with a group of scholars, with friends who have one perspective versus friends who have another.

So I am just not sure if it's a good idea for Scotland to leave Great Britain. Most of you don't care. But James Petticrew does! I thought about posting something on the upcoming vote, but in deference to James I won't. :-)

In normal conversation, a polite person moderates their thoughts. A blog makes all thoughts accessible. You can't escape controversy without graying everything out.

On the whole, I think the pros have probably outweighed the cons, although I'm determined to write more on a scholarly level, even if it means backing off daily posts.

P.S. I think Word Press is probably the way to go if you're just starting out.

Ben Franklin was a blogger.

I have long thought that blogging and self-publishing are playing a role today that the small movable type presses of an earlier age played. Tyndale was able to publish his English translations of the Bible that way under the radar (at least for a while). Philosophers whose opinions didn't fit the status quo were able to publish under pseudonyms and thus escape persecution. Even biblical scholars like Reimarus could publish unpopular ideas without people knowing it was them.

So when you think of people like Thomas Paine or Benjamin Franklin, they were the bloggers of the late 1700s. You think of how easy it is to self-publish these days. America at large highly values free speech, but it would be easy to publish under a pseudonym today. I can think of a couple instances where people have even gone around posting comments under pseudonyms (e.g., Norman Golb's son).

So I'm pretty sure that Ben Franklin would be a blogger, if he were around today. It fits a certain personality that likes ideas and likes to talk...

Jim West, Chris Tilling, and Christian Brady

It is a strange feature of our current age that you can feel like you know people, maybe even are close friends with people you have never met. So I ran into the dubious trilogy above today in the book room: Jim West, Chris Tilling, and Christian Brady. I suppose the most surprising thing was to find out that Jim West actually seems rather normal in person.

But then again, I probably do to...

9 Years of Blogging

After hearing that Keith Drury was doing it, 9 years ago today I quietly posted my first blog post.  I didn't publicize it to be sure, because it had to do with politics. Keith had warned me that politics would get you in more trouble with our circles than just about anything.

I can't tell you whether the net effect of this blog has been positive or negative for me.  I would say that here are some of the consequences:

• I have had significantly more impact on my circles than I otherwise would have. For good or ill, when people in my circles are looking for resources and perspectives, my thoughts are quick at hand. There may be many thinkers in my church with better thoughts, but only their students have heard them.  I have had an impact disproportionate to my significance because I'm here.
• I have gone from having pretty much everyone think of me as Ken the nice guy to sometimes being Ken the lightning rod. Most people who meet me think of me as easy-going and quite accommodating. There are advantages to keeping your thoughts to yourself or at the dinner table. 
• Although at some point I have probably given everyone delight, I have also probably at some point raised everyone's eyebrows. My scholarly friends are no doubt occasionally surprised at some of the pragmatic things I say. My broader Christian friends are no doubt surprised at some of the Wesleyan things I say.  My Wesleyan friends are no doubt surprised at some of the scholarly things I say.  
• I have written a lot more popular books than scholarly ones.  While I have found it very easy to crank out books through the blog, they have almost all been popular rather than scholarly in nature.  Young scholars might ask themselves that question, will blogging get me off task or help increase my name recognition as I begin to write scholarly articles and books? 

So I really can't decide whether the net benefit has been positive or negative.  At times it has kept me sane.  At times it has caused me fits of insanity. At times it has allowed me to have an impact I wouldn't have had on important issues and situations.

What do you all think? :-)

Re-orienting my blogging

I've developed a pattern of trying to post something here at least once a day.  Topics vary from whatever is on my mind--Bible, church, politics (I have a political blog but I haven't used it lately).  Often I have used the blog to help with writing projects.

I think I'm going to try to shift how I function.  I suspect I am friends with most of my church family on Facebook, so I think I will move in the direction of posting some of my more "local" Wesleyan thoughts to Facebook.  So I posted several thoughts there on District Conference last week.

I also want to shift the locus of my writing to Microsoft Word ;-)  So I would more report here on things I'm writing there than use the blog as the locus of my writing.  This seems especially appropriate since in the Fall I will be writing more scholarly material.  I may or may not post every day.

Basically, I used to blog because I was bored intellectually.  At least for the moment, I have so many things to write pouring out my ears I'm going crazy, since the seminary is pouring out my ears, eyes, mouth, and nose as well. ;-)

We'll see what happens.

The Blog Eclipse of 2011

Blogger has been down for a couple days in an unprecedented and cataclysmic event.

What?  You didn't notice? ;-)

Winter 2010 Blogging Resolutions

1. Be nice nice.
Sometimes I feel like Hawkeye in that MASH episode where he proves he can be serious for an entire day. There is so much material out there for sarcastic humor, and I'm good at it when I'm on a roll. Maybe I missed my true calling...

But it's not really appropriate for the Dean of a seminary. By God's grace I'll do my darnedest to let most of it just flow on by. When significant political events happen, I'll try just to report them without bleeding over into my hunches too much and I'll be nice to Craig Moore even when he's begging for a spanking :-)

2. The Year of Josephus
I've dipped into Josephus repeatedly of course, but I have never read his entire corpus from front to end. I've set up a blog, not to post every day, but to give me a reading schedule to get through Josephus in a year. It turns out to be about 34 paragraphs a day.

3. Dunn's Remembering Jesus... again
I didn't get through this volume last year. By goal is to get through it by Easter... again.

There are many others, but I'll leave it at that. I hope to post something toward writing goals at least every other day or so. January is philosophy. We'll see what shakes out after that.

Have a blessed New Year!