In world crowded with blogs, how can I justify adding yet another potentially solipsistic site? Happily, the overcrowding of the virtual world does not come with the same set of consequences as does excessive "development" or too-aggressive exploitation of natural resources in the physical world. So I need not be too concerned if my justification fails: at worst this blog will divert my time and energy from other, more important, matters.
On the other hand, as perhaps any writer does, I harbor the secret ambition of someday writing something that the world - at least theologians and even the churches - will not happily forget. This blog is unlikely to become something (if "thing" is really the appropriate category to use) the world could not do without. I confess that I hope one day it may make a meaningful contribution to cultural and theological discourse, as does a blog like Faith and Theology. For the time being - all the time we have really, and therefore time to be redeemed, as W.H. Auden might remind us - however, I have more modest hopes for this blog.
I hope that "Wanderings" will be a laboratory of ideas, a space to test out various questions about the Christian faith that life in general and my studies as a divinity student in particular might raise. I hope that the more public nature of a blog (i.e., the possibility that others might actually read what I write here) will challenge me to more carefully conceptualize and articulate my thoughts. In the event that this site attracts other readers, I hope to learn from their comments and criticism.
Ultimately the justification for this blog lies in Anselm's famous and Augustinian dictum: Theology is faith seeking understanding, fides quaerens intellectum. I have described this blog as a travelogue precisely because I have faith (but how did I come to this faith? and can I rightly call it "mine"? - questions for another day) and because faith by its very nature longs to see that which it now does not see, I am on a journey to understand that faith. "Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen" (Heb 11:1); faith is certain of that for which it hopes, but it longs to make sense of the whys and wherefores of that hope.
Why create this blog? To think through the whys and wherefores of the Christian faith I hold in a space that invites further conversation with others.
4 comments:
The tar and feathers will be waiting for you when you get back to Durham!
;)
Chris, for what it's worth I want to confirm your desires for this blog. Whether my blog generates a readership or not, for six years I've used it to help me clarify and put to "paper" thoughts that rummage, sometimes intemperately, through my head. My blog has performed a great service to my development as a thinker and writer. I know that's a relative judgment. But there's nothing so good to the budding theologian as the discipline of writing. Whether that writing is careful writing or muddled writing, isn't really the issue. The issue is the discipline.
As we say in the artworld, the only way to make better art is by making art. Nothing always is guaranteed to produce nothing. But something can lead to something else, and the hope is that those cumulative somethings will add up to a few good things.
Well done and welcome.
Matt: Can tar and feathers be justified under a commitment to Christian nonviolence? :-)
David: Thanks for the support. You are right about writing, I think, and the good the about blogs is that they offer the potential to have others critique what you've written. Cheers.
Glad to see you writing here, Chris! Thanks for sharing this with us. I look forward to learning with and from your insights. Peace!
Cullen
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