Church blogosphere: fresh air or rhetorical smog?

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Posted in * Anglican - Episcopal, * Culture-Watch, Blogging & the Internet, Episcopal Church (TEC)

17 comments on “Church blogosphere: fresh air or rhetorical smog?

  1. justice1 says:

    Good PR.

  2. Gator says:

    But the funny thing here is that the link from the front page of Episcopal Life Online with this title goes to a sermon by KJS.
    http://www.episcopalchurch.org/episcopal_life.htm
    Look in the left column bullet points below the features with pictures.

  3. Gator says:

    Sorry–Forget pictures. The heading is a bullet below the lead links with this title: Church blogosphere: fresh air or rhetorical smog?

  4. KAR says:

    Didn’t Greg Griffith already have this as one of his titles before Episcopal Life decided to used it?

  5. Pageantmaster Ù† says:

    Well T19 is very much the original and still the gold standard. In part it looks as though T19 is what has encouraged other Anglicans of all persuasions to start their own blogs and the ex-lurkers like myself to start commentating.

    I read it as a good reasonably balanced article.

  6. Pageantmaster Ù† says:

    Perhaps that should be commenting!

  7. Katherine says:

    Not a bad article, all in all. I notice Jim Naughton zings anonymous posts. However, it’s tough for people still in TEC to identify themselves as dissenters when their memberships or livelihoods may be in danger in the current litigious climate. Naughton criticizes people who are “anonymously vicious.” We shouldn’t be vicious at all, anonymous or not.

    The link on the front page, from the “rhetorical smog” headline to a Schori sermon is unintentionally hilarious.

  8. Frances Scott says:

    I remember a cousin returning to Colorado from two years in Los Angeles remarking, “I don’t understand how you people can stand to breathe air you can’t even see.” My question is this, can those who are accustomed to the rhetorical smog emitted by The TEC leadership recognize fresh air when they encounter it?

  9. j.m.c. says:

    [blockquote]Readers grow to trust a blogger’s credibility based on the number of other bloggers producing worthwhile information who link to that blog, said Dave Kim, blogger and global sales intranet manager of Symantec Corporation, based in Cupertino, Calif. The more that other bloggers or trusted websites link to a blog, the more likely readers are to return there for information, he said, noting blog trust is similar to brand loyalty.[/blockquote]
    Readers familiar with search engine optimization will know that the number of links to a blog is reflected in how high they rank in google. Strangely enough, googling for “rhetorical smog” produced as its first 4 results 3 direct links to the articles’ reference on this blog or on Stand Firm, and one link to technocrati referencing the Stand Firm article.
    Qualification here: Episcopal News Service does a lousy job at search engine optimization on in their title tag, so that might be one reason why.
    Nota bene: I see only now that Stand Firm is now sporting “Fresh air or Rhetorical Smog” in their own title & it’s not a link to this article – I wonder who inspired who here?

  10. Jill C. says:

    j.m.c., Stand Firm has had that phrase in its heading rotation (or whatever you call those things) for awhile now — at least a couples weeks that I’ve noticed. I’d be inclined to credit one of the bloggers there, but I’m waiting to see if mention of it comes up. 😉

  11. Greg Griffith says:

    I lifted that phrase for our rotating home page title from the Episcopal Life article. It came in my diocesan fishwrap a couple of weeks ago, and I was amused at the phrase. I figured most everybody knew that it came from the article, but I guess this just proves how few people read the EL print version. 😛

  12. Jill C. says:

    Oops! Guess I’m doing too much skimming and not enough reading. Thanks, Greg, for that info.

    Our copy of EL doesn’t make it any further than the post office trash can. I won’t even bring it home to put underneath the litter boxes.

  13. Greg Griffith says:

    We can’t leave ours lying around because our six-year-old is reading on about a 5th-grade level, and the all-gay, all-the-time theme of EL just isn’t something we feel we need to explain to her right now.

  14. Jeffersonian says:

    Perhaps we should demand that EL be shipped in a plain brown wrapper.

  15. Greg Griffith says:

    Yeah… along with a pint of whisky.

  16. the snarkster says:

    Ah, Episcopal Life. I used to put it on the bottom of my bird cage but my bird had a hissy fit so I had to quit. I tried using it to paper train my puppy but, heck, he wouldn’t even pee on it. I finally just put a trash can next to the mailbox. That worked great and it gave me a place to put all my other junk mail to boot.

    the snarkster

  17. Jeff in Ohio says:

    Read the article in the dead tree edition. I thought it was much more balanced than I expected it to be, but it didn’t come close to answering the question in the title.

    Jeffrey A. Roberts