You will note that I have not been blogging over the last couple of days. This is because I have had a kind of bloggy holiday. What’s that, you say? Well, in my various travellings I came across an entry by Messy Christian. I was interested and a bit concerned about the content of one of her posts, so I posted a comment. Well, I got into a couple of rather long conversations which have detained me somewhat, using up all my limited bloggy time – I was camping out contributing to someone else’s blog! Now I’m back.
It was interesting. I can’t say I came back unscathed. The people I was dealing with have formed/are forming a particular blog-based Christian subculture which seems to have real problems with visible expressions of the church. I have really only, scratched the surface, but the discussion I got into concerned the place and role of elders in a church. For them, there seems to be no concept of elders ‘ruling’. Right at the start, on the basis of a few sentences I was called a ‘churchianity freak’! Charming.
I notice two problems that immediately stand out, both from the interaction, and from other related articles: firstly that is poor exegesis of scripture to back up views. What there is is exegesis of the English, not the Greek – plenty of scope for anachronistic interpretations. I also notice a lack of interest in church history (well, it’s evil and corrupt isn’t it?). As a result the primitive church is idealised.
I’ll keep my eye on this. It’s quite interesting as a sociological development, but of some concern for biblical Christianity. I may review some articles which have emerged if I get the time.
Doggie's Breakfast 
As insane as the proverbial balloon. The cyber-geek has a new set of friends out here in the blogosphere: the misfit-self-congratulatory-accountabilityly-challenged-semi-Christian-cyber-geeks.
Not that I wish to be in any way insulting to any of our fellow bloggers, you understand.
Pah.
Pencils.
PS – This new blogger commenting system is a pain.
Having slept on it I think I may agree with you. It’s difficult to see how any progress could be made in iteracting with such people. There are more important interactions I need to be having. Nevertheless there is an interesting (though not necessarily good) way of thinking developing. They believe visible church will change as a result.
BTW you missed out ‘narcissistic’ in your list.
BTW again, glad to see you are back blogging.
Yeah… people think that they get listened to on this blogspot thing… eh-eh… they merely get tolerated…
I have a feeling that the early church is only idealized because people can virtually claim what they want about it without being challenged. As soon as you quote an actual early Church Father one soon finds that they represent movements away from the original innocence of the Church and are not representative of what the real early Church believed on Church government / the Lord’s Supper / Baptism / women ministry / spiritual gifts, etc.
Stephen – this is David at Jollyblogger. I have found Messy Christian to be quite humble and genuine in her searching – she’s having some real struggles. I haven’t read the posts that you got involved with but I have found her to be pleasant to deal with. However, there have been some who have jumped in to “help” her out who are exactly as you have described. You are accurate in that a blogging subculture is developing that is very anti-church. Adrian Warnock speculated something to that effect awhile back and I didn’t understand what he was getting at as I was new to the blogsophere at the time. But, this is happening. I have been the recipient of a bit of the charming invective myself. I would be interested in hearing your reviews on articles if you get the time, but I agree with what I think one of your other commenters said – I am pessimistic that it will make an impact on this group of folks. There is a sense of woundedness combined with a sense of prophetic calling on the part of some that will prevent them from hearing sound exegetical arguments.
Hi David,
Yes I should point out that MC was fine. It was her ‘pals’ that presented me with the problem. Thanks for your views though.
The idea of reviewing is a bit of a pious hope at the moment – I have exams coming up. Got to get my head down…