A while back, I posted something like "Blogs 4 God has ditched me", and not soon after, I got an email from someone there saying, "NO we didn't". My observation back then was that since the election season, and ever since, there has been ZERO linkage to me other than the lone listing I have there. Before the Election season and all its issues, on which I coimmented regularly and often as to my opinion of the Bush administration, there were pointers to my blog on a fairly regular basis. Since then, and even after the denial of that charge, still NOTHING. It's not that I even want them pointing to me if it means what I think it means: that they would do so in the context of disagreement. Perhaps that is why they DON'T point to me any more. IN that case, that's fine. I really don't want to attract any "trolls" from the ranks of those who consider it tantamount to blasphemy to criticize the Bush administration.
But it also seems to me to be another instance of "ghetto-ization" of many such "Christian" blogdoms, and it seemed so at the GodBlogCon as it seemed quite heavy if not exclusively Pro-Bush Pundity bloggers. I know that such is so with LeShawn Barber and Hugh Hewitt.
I saw the general makeup of Blogs4God when I signed up, but wanting to be ecumenical, I joined. And prior to the election season and all my theologizing about the Bush administration, Blogs4God regularly linked to my posts. I understand that they may well have a few more "godBlogs" in their aggregation tasks now, but to fall to ZERO menti on?
It's even more disturbing that this "political" marginalization has happend considering that I have made a complete U-turn in terms of theological-to-political rant ratio. Much of my blog has been centered on church and the need to Authentic church. Prior to my trip to DC, I wias reading heavily in Radical Orthodoxy writings, via Stanley Hauerwas and James KA Smith, William Cavanaugh, etc. It would SEEM that such things might be of interest to "God bloggers". I'm not quite sure now what the criteria is for selecting links.
Just as the Southern Baptist convention, ala the likes of Al Mohler, have basically narrowed the scope of theological inquiry to their choice topics and issues, and "cut off" discussion (Mohler has no comments on his blog), and NEVER talks about the Bush administration's war policies ----I mean, completely ignores it-----it seems that opposition to war and to Bush is also anathema to Blogs4God. And that is extremely sad. They (the "keepers" of Blogs4God, don't have to agree, but if they are going to purport to represent the totality of "Blogs that explore the things of God" , then a huge contingency is missing from their "coverage".
From what I read of the GodBlogCon, the "featyured" attenders and "linked" reviewers and "name-dropped" people are all pretty rabidly right wing (except for DJ, with whom I am familiar from past blog comments and blogger meetups----plus DJs being a rep of American Bible Society brings a certain "ecumeniucity" to the "right-heavy" leanings of GodBlogCon.
The "First Impressions" list at http://www.godblogcon.com/blog/ are batting 1.000 for total absorption in the right-leaning blogosphere, seemingly oblivious to the fact that there even exists things like Progressive Chritian bloggers, or anything "other" than , well......Why was that?
This all bothers me.
By the way, for whatever its worth I've still got your weblog in my news aggregator, even though I think you're incredibly pig-headed and wrong in your political thinking! :-) I don't agree with your thinking, but I still read it.
Hey Dale. I used to be the Meta-Blogs moderator (and was the one who wrote you the last time you posted about this a few months ago). That was before Dean changed the site to be considerably more user-driven. It used to be a moderator-driven site, in that a handful of moderators took responsibility for keeping up with a group of weblogs and posted stuff from them.
That got to a point where it just wasn't working. Frankly, because we moderators all had lives and things came up. I took a new job and moved and have only just started regularly posting to my own weblog again in the last week or so. I'm still not a registered poster at the revamped blogs4God site.
Long story short: Yes, you are wrong in thinking there has been something slanted in that there have been zero links to your posts recently. It hasn't been a year, as the last one I did was on February 22, but I get your point. For the last couple of months, there have been no links to your stories because you've not written a story with them. Granted, there are many other people posting on blogs4God now, but none of them have "responsibility" for keeping up with your site.
Dean (at least I presume it was Dean) explained the new blogs4God to you in a comment or two. He's right. If you want your posts linked, register, write up something, link the dickens out of it, and send it into the queue. Chances are it will get posted.
One more tid-bit: Trackbacks are a useful item for this kind of discussion. I'm not a big commenter, although I can go on a binge now and then, when something raises my ire or touchers me enough. Trackbacks allow posters on their own blogs to "contribute" their two cents or related comment to the source of their links----by way of pings that inform the blog that is capable of recording them and displaying them as a feedback item. Many blog tools do this, although they have to get moderated like comments , since spammers have also discovered them as well.
Everyone gets aggregated equally - I caught an incoming referrer so I decided to check it out. We all do that sometimes don't we?
Look - if you're passionate about the peace plaftorm - and it sounds like you are, then post on blogs4God.
Yes, we aggregate - but we're also driving traffic into the aggregator via posts. Your viewpoint would help that effort while expressing what will probably be an intelligently presented and valid point of view.
As for being mum and neutral, we tried that and everyone on both sides went away.
So post, let your voice, your side, your opinion be heard!
Speaking of tag-ons :-), I wonder if any of this would have evben crossed the radar if I hadn't put Blogs4God in the title of this post. I think I've had quite a bit of good, deep, theological thought going on here from me and my commenters, but none of that has even warranted a mention. I haven't seen much if any discussion of a best-seller all about the issue of God and politics (Wallis' God's Politics, even though every secular media outlet seems to have noticed how well he;'s resonating with scores of Christians). So these a re few of my rants on this topic.
I think it would be healthy and interesting to see many more of the non-Religious Right bloggers represented and summarized/reviewed/aggregated by such services as Blogs4God. There is a "blog-based" movement in United Methodism at bloggingmethodists.blogspot.org where people in the UMC are attempting to bridge the gap between the "left and right" and go beyond that.
I don't really intend to post something on the Blogs4God site. I thought the purpose of Blogs4God was to point out/aggregate what has laready been posted by participants.
My point was that that used to happen (links to various articles fairly often, like one every week or two.....since the election and all my problems with the Bush administration.....nothing.)
If that's not the mission of Blogs4God anymore, then that's OK. But seeing there is an "Aggregator", and doing a search on theoblogical and finding nothing (I usually spy it on Technorati first anyway) , it put me in a frame of mind (related to the GodBlogCon, as I mention) of being a little put off by the presumptions of groups who use the GodBlog or GodWhatever designation that this represents the Christian blogosphere. I would think that Peace issues might be further up on the discussion/issue list than what I see here, for instance, since Bush's approval has slipped to such lows, that there might be SOME place for the voice of Progressive Christians. It seems the secular media does a better job of noticing that than the Religious Right does.
Am I wrong in thinking there is something a little slanted when there have been ZERO references to nay of my posts in over a year, when prior to that, say in 2003 and early 2004, there was a regular mention/link.
Sorry for the tag-on. One big favor? Hyperlink the h-e-doubletoothpicks out of your site if/when you decide to post a disagreement story.
I know, entirely unreasonable, but what's the fun in owning a ghetto if you can't get some diversity in the cooking?
(post wouldja?)
Sorry for the tag along- but if you do decide to voice your disagreement by posting a story on blogs4God, please make sure to include a link back to your website.
I know, I'm being entirely unreasonable but hey, better than the fortress alternative.
I have made it clear - blogs4God is accepting content from ALL points of view.
I have recently put a particularly sharp edge on some of my commentary in hopes people would create a debate in the form of submitting content.
Instead, you take a pot shot!
Seriously, if you disagree with me - post a story, backup your premise and go for it. I'll publish it provided it's not some long boring rant (keep it brisk and pithy).
Sheesh - everyone wants to complain rather than debate. Post a story wouldja?