Book Review: Blog by Hugh Hewitt

Date October 17, 2005 Posted by Roger Overton

Even though it often seems that most people don’t really
know what blogs are, blogs are changing the way we receive information, what
information we receive, and who we receive it from. In Blog, Hugh Hewitt
puts forward the case that this “information reformation” will completely
change who has power in the “marketplace of ideas.”

In Part One, Mr. Hewitt recounts a few stories of how the
blogosphere has impacted our world including the fall of Trent Lott, the
exposure Dan Rather’s forged memos, and the investigation into John Kerry’s
“Christmas in Cambodia.” Without the blogosphere, these stories would never
have had the impact they did. This is followed up by a history of the
Protestant Reformation and an early history of the blogosphere.

Moving on to what’s going on now, Mr. Hewitt examines why
people are transitioning from television and newspapers (“old media”) to blogs
for their information. It mostly has to do with the loss of credibility by
folks like Dan Rather and the New York Times. He believes that bloggers blog
for two reasons: “to persuade, and to leave a record of having been there.”
(105)

The third part of the book deals almost exclusively with
blogging for businesses and organizations. Mr. Hewitt offers tips for starting
and maintaining blogs on multiple levels especially for internal and external
(primarily promotional) uses. The first appendix is an archive of Mr. Hewitt’s
writings on blogs from articles and chapters of previous books. In the second appendix
a series of emails are transcribed from his radio listeners explaining what
blogs they read and how often.

Hugh Hewitt makes an analogy between this reformation and
the Protestant Reformation with Luther and his use of the printing press. While
blogs certainly are changing things, which is evident from the impact it’s
already had, to draw too close a parallel between the reformations seems a bit
ridiculous. There’s no significant evidence that the blogosphere will change
culture and history to the extraordinary extent the printing press did.

For someone wanting to understand what a “blog” is and how blogs
have already made an impact in our world, this is a valuable book. It’s also
good for easily finding out which are the most popular conservative and
theological blogs out there. As usual, the writing style is easy to follow and
accessible to any reader, however, it’s also a bit disjointed and shallow.
Particularly in the areas of practical tips for new bloggers and companies it
felt as though Mr. Hewitt just wrote from the top of his head without really
developing his ideas. Overall this is a useful book for those who don’t know
much about blogs, however, those who currently blog will not get much out of
it.

Category Posted in Book Reviews, Main Page, Miscellaneous, Roger's Posts Comments No Comments »

Apologetics Blogging with The A-Team

Date October 17, 2005 Posted by Roger Overton

You can now listen to the workshop
Amy and I did at the GodBlogCon yesterday- “Apologetics Blogging with
The A-Team (Don't Worry, No One Will Get Hurt).” It's 1 hour and 15
minutes long, 21MB. If you get bored with me, you can skip ahead bout
half way to get to Amy's material.



A couple of
random notes. While snooping around Torrey stuff I discovered an
interesting article by Matt Anderson (the guy who did much of the grunt
work for the convention) “On Why We Like Tom Bombadil.“



How's this for a compliment…
“Now I have to admit that Roger did not look anything like I had
pictured in my minds eye and all I can say is that “He is the cutest
blogger I’ve ever met in my life!…besides my husband.” It's actually
Amy's good looks that drive the stats on this blog, but I'll take
whatever I can get. My only question is why I'm not even in the running
for the “Best Looking GodBlogCon Guy” poll. Is there a substantive difference between being cute and good looking?

Category Posted in Main Page, Miscellaneous, Roger's Posts Comments 6 Comments »

Could God Blogs Bring Men Back Into the Church?

Date October 17, 2005 Posted by Amy Hall

There was some discussion at the GodBlogCon about the lack of women on the panels (see here, here, and here).  As a woman, this didn't bother me.  The men were up there because they're successful, and there are more successful male bloggers because men are more likely to write about macro subjects (rather than personal) than are women.  They're more likely to engage in debate, discuss politics, and be driven to spread their ideas.  These are the types of blogs that attract the most readers.  This is not to say there aren't any women bloggers who do this–of course there are (e.g., La Shawn Barber would have been a great addition to the panel).  But in terms of numbers, it does seem to be generally true that most of the high-traffic blogs are written by men.  Therefore, we're more likely to have men on the panels.  I certainly wouldn't want women to be invited onto a panel just because they're women and not because they earned their positions there.

 

Personally, I'm happy to see an area of Christianity where men are stepping up, taking the initiative, and contributing to the Body of Christ.  In the American Church today, while men tend to dominate in academic settings and in the top levels of leadership in local churches, there aren't nearly as many participating in the congregations.  Where I live (Los Angeles), I know of many churches struggling to keep any sort of men's ministry alive–the men are simply not motivated to get involved.  In terms of church attendance, men will come with their families but are less likely to come on their own.  This results in many more women than men in both attendance and service.  (Trust me.  As a single woman, I notice these things.)

 

Why is this?  Let's look at the state of the American local churches.  In general, there's an emphasis on qualities and pursuits that appeal more to women than to men.  For example, emotions and experiences are sought after and encouraged while serious theological study is almost completely ignored.  Let's face it–our churches have become places where women are more comfortable than men. 

 

When did this happen?  How did this happen?  Did the men leave because the church became feminized?  Or did the church become feminized because the men began to leave?  I'm not sure I know the answer to this question (although I'll bet John Mark Reynolds has a theory).  Either way, the lack of men is definitely an issue, hindering the proper function of the Body.

 

Now let's look at the God blogs.  In contrast to the local church, what qualities do these blogs encourage?  They foster strength, intellectual rigor, analytical abilities, and debate–all masculine-type characteristics that attract men.  What will happen as these blogs become more and more popular and the men in our culture begin to see that being a Christian can be a manly enterprise?  That Christianity envelops and enriches even the qualities and pursuits in life that are important to them as men?  That when Jesus calls them, he calls them to “act like men, be strong“?  They will come back, my friends.

 

Men, keep blogging.

Category Posted in Amy's Posts, Culture, Gender Issues, Main Page, Religion (General) Comments 8 Comments »

GodBlogCon Day 3 & Reflections

Date October 16, 2005 Posted by Roger Overton

Today was the final day of the GodBlog Convention. The only
scheduled activities were breakfast and two blocks of breakout sessions. I
attended DJ Chuang’s session on Emerging Church blogs. He co-led the discussion
with Aaron Flores of thevoiz. DJ did a great job outlining the history of the
emerging church and what’s going on with it in relation to the blogosphere. The
size of the group allowed for easy discussion, which was nice since Dr. Andrew
Jackson of SmartChristian.com was there and had plenty of good insights to
offer. The last thing we talked about was why there were so few emerging church
bloggers present at the convention, especially considering how central blogging
is to the emerging church community. The Smart Christian made a good point that
we can’t really say it’s economics since plenty of emergent folk go to their
own conferences and retreats like the one this past week in New Mexico. Rather,
it seems the main reason is some sort of separatism.

The second session I went to was one by The A-Team on
apologetics blogging. It was the best thing at the convention and entirely
worth the registration fee. So you know how sarcastic that comment was, I hope
to post the mp3 of the session here tomorrow. There was a late addition to the
schedule- the Narnia trailers and behind the scenes clips. Though I’d seen it
all before, it’s always fun to watch it on the big screen and get chills when
Aslan’s around. He’s good, but not safe.

Overall the convention was a blast. Definitely the best
thing about it was simply meeting people and hearing about their experiences
online. The networking and community opportunities would be good enough, but
the plenary and breakout sessions were also great. Matt Anderson and his team
of volunteers did an excellent job of putting the whole thing together. I was
disappointed at how many people weren’t there. There are so many Christian
bloggers, especially in southern California, who would have benefited from
this. There’s really no reason for anyone not to be at next year’s convention.

I’d like to lodge some minor random
complaints/suggestions hoping they’ll be helpful for next year… There was too
much emphasis in the panels on pastoral blogging- It’s an important subject but
it didn’t seem relevant to most of us. The last day should have at least one
group function (aside from breakfast). I’d like to see more lectures like what
John Mark Reynolds gave on Thursday night as opposed to a bunch of panel
discussions. Since we got Hugh Hewitt at the event, why was he just moderating
and not on the panel? I’ve heard some people say they’d like to see people with
moderate hit counts on panels and such- I think they really mean they’d like to
see themselves up there. The reason people with higher hit counts are on panels
is because they appear to be doing something right, and those are the people I
want to hear from. I do agree, though, that an absence was felt by only having
male panelists. Enlist a graphics designer to do the paperwork and logos.

Since Stacy Harp asked that I Iink to her again, here you go. I also had a great time at lunch with Lores Rizkalla, Aaron Pina, DJ Chuang, Charles Lehardy, Alex Jordan, and Christy Lynn Wilson.

Category Posted in Main Page, Miscellaneous, Roger's Posts Comments 6 Comments »

GodBlogCon Day 2: Donahewitt

Date October 15, 2005 Posted by Roger Overton

Today Hugh Hewitt broadcasted live from Biola’s library,
enabling many of us to sit and participate in his radio show. I’ve done this
before, but it’s always a blast. Throughout the day I had a conversation with
Alex Jordan about Billy Graham and Roman Catholicism, one with Brant DeBow
complaining about how early breakfast is in the morning, Stacy Harp’s husband
talked about how those John 3:16 signs at football games led him to the Bible,
and Jay Hawthorne talked about some of his thoughts on the Emerging church.

This evening was the grand Hugh Hewitt moderated panel with
John Mark Reynolds (I might have mentioned him before), Mark D. Roberts, and
Tod Bolsinger. During the session Lores Rizkalla (Just a Woman) and I instant messaged
each other- that was fun. Hugh asked the panel a series of questions and then
opened it up to the audience for questions. As I told Lores, Hugh bore a
striking similarity to Phil Donahue. It wasn’t just that he has white hair and
he was running around the audience with a microphone, but he also scratched his
head and folded his arms just like him. He even broke into a couple of
mini-monologues. This obviously means that Hugh Hewitt is really Donahue in a
cheap disguise- including mostly good political views.

The panel was spectacular. I’m not at all familiar with Tod
Bolsinger, but he made some great points and fit in well with Mark D. Roberts
and JMR. An important point of the discussion was our reactions on our blogs
and refraining from being reactionary and posting out of anger. Tod offered a
great one-liner, “Don’t let the send button go down on your anger.” JMR also
assured some of us that his next book will be done soon. Since I heard about
this phantom book some time ago (seems like a couple of years), I’m very
excited. You can bet you’ll hear more about it here when the time comes. Mark
D. Roberts latest book, No Holds Barred, was published earlier this year, which
means that it’s a contender for the A-Team Book of the Year Award. So look for
a review of that in December.

The conference has been a blast. It’s been so great
meeting people in person that I’ve conversed with online. Here’s the global
church getting a little closer. Christian bloggers who aren’t here should make
plans for next year’s convention in August. More details will be announced
later.

Category Posted in Main Page, Miscellaneous, Roger's Posts Comments 2 Comments »

GodBlog Con Day 1-2: John Mark Reynolds

Date 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.

Category Posted in Main Page, Miscellaneous, Roger's Posts Comments 3 Comments »

GodBlogCon Day 1

Date October 14, 2005 Posted by Roger Overton

Tonight at the GodBlog Convention the bloggers were introduced to the
convention and treated with a plenary session by John Mark Reynolds (as well as the
Elizabethtown screening). I'll tell more about his talk tomorrow after
I attend his workshop.




This evening was a great chance to meet some of the other bloggers around. First we met DJ Chaung who will be doing a workshop on Emerging Church blogs. Before the orientation we met Pastor Mark from Runalong with Pastor Mark. He's already been liveblogging the event like crazy. After the orientation we had a conversation with THE blogging pastor, Mark D. Roberts. Before JMR's talk we had a nice chat with Joe Carter of Evangelical Outpost and World Magazine Blog fame. He remembered that I had a blog prior to this one, a fact I often forget. We also got to talk with Dr. Andrew Jackson, the Smart Christian.




Over the course of the conference Face and I will be posting our reflections on the workshops, sessions, and people we meet. Hugh Hewitt will be broadcasting live
on Friday from Biola from 3-6pm PST and will be interviewing several
bloggers. This is a good chance for those of you who couldn't make it
to the convention to hear about what's going on, and perhaps you'll
hear the A-Team on the radio… Either way, we're also hoping for a
successful recording of our workshop on apologetics so we can post it
here. More to come…

Category Posted in Main Page, Miscellaneous, Roger's Posts Comments 2 Comments »

Inconsistency

Date October 14, 2005 Posted by Amy Hall

Yesterday on the Al Franken Show, Franken's guest, in describing a candidate for Senator, said (condescendingly) regarding the man's inconsistent views on the death penalty, “As a person, he opposes killing criminals, but he says he'll support the decision if that's what the jury decides.”

 

Franken (sarcastically):  “Well, that makes sense.”

 

You're right, Al–that doesn't make sense.  Now, let's see…what else could we apply this to…?

Category Posted in Amy's Posts, Main Page, Politics Comments 1 Comment »

Movie Review: Elizabethtown

Date October 14, 2005 Posted by Roger Overton

Tonight Face and I were privileged to catch an advanced
screening for bloggers courtesy of Grace hill Media. We weren’t quite sure what
to expect, but who can turn down a free movie?

The central character of the film is Drew Baylor (Orlando
Bloom). Drew made a shoe that flopped and lost his company, well, if you around
it up about 1 billion dollars. The fiasco inevitably lost him his job in Oregon
and self worth. But just before he commits suicide he receives a call from his sister
that their father had died and it is his job to go to Kentucky to retrieve the
body. On his flight there he meets Clair Colburn (Kirsten Dunst), an eccentric
flight attendant who won’t leave him alone.

The stage is then set for the bulk of the movie- Drew’s
interactions with his family and his love affair with Clair. There is a strong
emphasis on authenticity and community, though it appears that the central
message is to love life well no matter what trials occur.

Surprisingly, most of the movie was hilarious. Perhaps the
greatest strength of the film is that it’s a feel good movie. It leaves you
feeling like you should love life and be a better person. However, it doesn’t
really offer a reason why. You would think in going to Kentucky, religion would
come up at some point in Drew’s large family, but it doesn’t. Clair has some
minor New Age-ish tendencies but that’s about as deep as the spirituality goes.

Some aspects were extremely well-written and creative, but
there were some significant plot holes left unexplained. For example, Clair
says she’s going to Hawaii for work but then randomly shows up at Drew’s hotel.
Wouldn’t her airline have a problem with that? We got to know Drew fairly well,
but after all of that we don’t really know much about Clair or any of the other
characters in the film. Too many of them seem flat. Drew’s mother (Susan Sarandon)
does and says some things that really don’t make any sense.

This might be a good family film except for a few
unnecessary sexual references. Despite the plot and character problems, I would
still recommend the film. Sometimes in spite of all that it’s nice to see a lighthearted
movie that will make you laugh and help you appreciate some of the simple
things in life.

Category Posted in Main Page, Movie Reviews, Roger's Posts Comments No Comments »

What Publishers are Learning about Books & Blogging

Date October 13, 2005 Posted by Roger Overton

I posted this yesterday on the GodBlogCon Blog. FoxNews has an article on the convention.

I remember
not so long ago hearing from those who were troubled that people watch
too much television and therefore don’t read much any more. This may
have been true a few years ago, but not so much today. People still
watch too much television, but they do read- just not what they used to
read. The Internet has changed our media consumption. No longer do we
get our information from the anchor on the 5:00 news. Now we receive
instant updates at the click of the button, so that what the anchor
talks about is outdated by the time we hear it.

It
appears that newspapers are, for the most part, not read by the younger
generations. But the young and old have flocked to the Internet,
especially the blogsphere. The information we receive is now in our own
hands- we select it and we only digest what we want to hear. Over time
we gravitate toward those sites and blogs we’re familiar with; we
become a captive audience once again but to sources of our choosing.

What
does this have to do with books? It seems that more books are published
today than at any other time in history. But there is a problem
inherent in the system for publishers- people typically gravitate
toward authors and titles they’re already familiar with. Publishers can
do some traditional advertising in magazines, bookstores (do people
still shop there?), etc., but that will have minimal impact on the
younger generations. The bridge is the blogsphere.

Publishers
are becoming anxious to get their books in the hands of people who will
blog about them. They realize the potential the blog medium holds for
easily reaching these captive audiences. Initially, they will only sell
a few books through one blogger’s review. But that review will be read
by hundreds, sometimes thousands, of people. Multiply that by a dozen
blogs for each book and the publisher has effectively created a market
for a new book or an unknown author. This is aided by sites like the Diet of Bookworms, which collect book reviews done by bloggers.


I now receive about 3-4 books a month from publishers, and I know
bloggers who receive more. Some books I personally request, others I
don’t, but I’ve never been turned down because they realize that the
few dollars it costs to send me a copy of the book will ultimately pay
off. I got started through Mind & Media,
a business dedicated to placing books in the hands of bloggers. It’s
free to any blogger who will commit to reviewing the book on their
blog. Sites such as Mind & Media
are showing that as the blogsphere continues to grow and gain more
readers it will become a fundamental avenue for publishers to promote
their books.

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