GodBlog Con Day 1-2: John Mark Reynolds
October 14, 2005 Posted by Roger Overton
Last night John Mark Reynolds gave a talk to kick off the convention and it was followed up by a workshop this morning. Last night was straight lecture while this morning involved a very interactive smaller group of bloggers. The overall theme was “preserved text” versus “live performance.” The conversation in our group tended toward blogging from within a Christian worldview. However, after the group discussion a few of us stuck around and continued talking about the “preserved text” issue with Dr. Reynolds.
Books, movies, and CDs constitute preserved text. We can’t change them, they exist as they are regardless of who interacts with them. On the other hand, when we attend a live performance such as a play, we can impact what happens on stage. The audience has a voice, in a sense. Blogging is much more like live performance than it is like a preserved text. 50 years from now people will not being reading the archives of our blogs, and if they did, they wouldn’t understand everything going on because there’s a unique context generated by the conversations blogs entail.
One thing I disagreed with JMR about is that we shouldn’t worry so much about our grammar and typos in our posts since it’s more like a conversation and the content is more important. Something I’ve learned from Greg Koukl is that writing is an art form. Even a short email is something written with my name attached to it. And though it may only be read by one person I don’t want to represent myself poorly. I respect my readers and myself too much to be careless. Obviously I do miss many of my typos, and some of the readers have helped by correcting me, but I do feel a responsibility to at least be concerned about the quality of my writing.
Also today I’ve have the privilege to meet Stacy Harp of Mind & Media, Cecilia Henderson of Kicking Over My Traces, and Simon Shull of Thinking Deeply. Simon's a cool guy even though he's Arminian.
Related posts:
- GodBlogCon 2007: John Mark Reynolds
- GodBlogCon Day 1
- Book Review: An Army of Davids by Glenn Reynolds
- GodBlogCon Day 3 & Reflections
- Bloggers, What Are We Doing Here?
- GodBlogCon Day 2: Donahewitt
Posted in Main Page, Miscellaneous, Roger's Posts
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October 15th, 2005 at 1:43 am
Great point about writing as an art form, Roger. I heartily agree. (WARNING: SOAPBOX AHEAD!) More than that, though, it's a basic communication tool that has been adversely affected by technology.
There's enough misunderstanding between people just because we're sinful human beings. Add to that the flatness of the digital medium — I think we've all had the experience of someone taking a well-intended e-mail the wrong way, taking offense at something we meant as a joke, etc. — and there's even more potential for harm. I think the final straw comes when we're no longer speaking coherently on the page (or screen), such that understanding each other takes on yet another layer of difficulty.
Slang has always been part of language, and the digital age has ushered in its own vocabulary, but when carelessness becomes standard practice, we lose not just the beauty of language but also a very important component of human relationship.
As Christians, are we not supposed to live lives of excellence before God? Why should our employment of language and communication — the very tools God has given us with which to reach out and share the Gospel — be exempt?
October 17th, 2005 at 3:47 pm
hehe … well, I think you are a really cool guy even though you're a Calvinist!
:) 
And to hold you to your word, in the sentence, “Blogging is much more like live performance then it is like a preserved text” it should actually should read “than” rather than “then”.
October 17th, 2005 at 3:58 pm
eh, I don't realy care about grammar… j/k
Thanks Simon!