OK, I Broke

I did it. I leaped into the blogosphere despite my initial skepticism and reluctance. The more I kept trying to push it to the back of my mind, the more it crept to the front. What were some of the factors that convinced me to take my leap? Well, first there was listening to Hugh Hewitt and reading his book, Blog. Then there was Tod Bolsinger's post, Blog, for Christ's Sake, in which he offers persuasive reasons for pastors to join the fray. Most recently, it was an article linked to from Stand to Reason's blog which suggests that blogging is good for the brain.

A few words about my blog's name. It's my way of paying tribute to Harry Blamires, a man whose book The Christian Mind: How Should A Christian Think?, made a lasting impression on me. Tears filled my eyes when I read the quotation cited in the header. Someone had recognized and put into words the alienating experience that was often mine as a follower of Christ who enjoyed the world of ideas, study, and reflection. Someone was saying that the life of the mind need not be in conflict with life in the Spirit. Blamires' description of Christendom in the early '60's could have just as well been written today:

Christianity is emasculated of its intellectual relevance. It remains a vehicle of spirituality and moral guidance at the individual level perhaps; at the communal level it is little more than an expression of sentimentalized togetherness...The mental secularization of Christians means that nowadays we meet only as worshipping beings and as moral beings, not as thinking beings.