Religion and Blogs (Sort Of…)

This piece from WaPo detailing a slight shift in the ideology of the Southern Baptist leadership would be completely uninteresting if it weren’t for one little passage. The bulk of the article seems to be E.J. Dionne hoping for the decline of conservative evangelicals and their role in politics. It ends with his assertion that moderates, liberals and even conservatives think the conservative movement has gone too far and needs to snap back.

It is really an unbelievably insipid column, but I’ve come to expect that from Dionne. This article seems to be his wishful thinking – a dream that the conservatives will move left.

So what’s the one passage that makes it interesting? This one:

One other force was at work in this year’s Baptist voting: the rise of the blogosphere.

Over the past several years, an active network of Baptist bloggers has opened up discussion in the convention and given reformers and moderates avenues around what Parham called “the Baptist establishment papers” and other means of communication controlled by the convention’s leadership. Thus may some of our oldest and most traditional institutions be transformed by new technologies.

I find it fascinating that he sees in religion what I see in politics every day – the break down of message control. I’m not a religious conservative, and I don’t subscribe to any of their materials, but I find it interesting that they see a strict message control within religion that blogs are breaking down. I hope that’s true.

Throughout history, the barrier to the rise of man has always been information. Those with more information control it, and dole it out in small bites. If blogs (or the Internet specifically) can tear down the hierarchy of politics, religion, and government, perhaps the three great burdens on people will be lifted.

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