ZEAL

Here's a question. In the attempt to find middle ground so much of the time, have we neglected zeal? Have we become too conciliatory, even complacent?

And then, in a "Screwtape" kind of twist, have we called our complacency good by affirming the importance of grace-filled, respectful dialogue to the detriment of zealous pursuit of God's mission in the world?

I know, I know. Just read the description of my blog in the header above this post and you'll realize that dialogue is important to me. The conversation really does matter, this I believe. I just wonder sometimes, at what price?

In John 2, the scripture for this week, Jesus marches into the Temple and makes a whip with which he scares away the animals being sold for sacrifice. He then overturns the tables of the people exchanging their money for Temple currency with which to buy the animals, now driven away by Jesus's zeal for God's house. Essentially, Jesus is pissed off! And by putting this story at the beginning of his version of the Gospel, John emphasizes that Jesus's entire ministry is motivated by his passion for God, for God's house, for God's people, and for God's way.

There is no respectful, grace-filled dialogue in this story.

See, I think maybe we shouldn't look for middle ground all the time. And furthermore, I think that when we disagree, we can do so with zeal and passion without worrying about violating some unwritten rule about not offending another person. There are times when another person needs to be offended, and I may just be the one to do the offending!

But maybe, just maybe this isn't an either/or proposition. Perhaps we can have respectful, grace-filled AND zealous, passionate dialogue, all at the same time! It is fear that keeps us from this pursuit. We are afraid of losing favor by expressing our zeal to it utmost. At our core, most of us just want people to like us. And there's really nothing wrong with that.

And what's more, we are afraid of the attacks that may come. Blogging has taught me a lot about the difference between expressing an opinion with zeal and being a jerk. One of the biggest issues with blogging is the freedom allowed by anonymity, which allows many people to disguise simple jerkiness with a veil of zeal. But it is a thin veil indeed, and very easy to penetrate.

But if we zealously confront that which is counter to God's mission in the world with righteous energy and restlessness for what is right, we can do so without being a jerk about it. Public figures who are trying to spout off sound-byte worthy phrases do not have zeal, they are being jerks. But, in another twist that "dear Wormwood" ought to try some time, the jerks plead zeal for their cause as an excuse for their atrocious behavior, making admirers and millions of dollars along the way.

So I would really like to reclaim zeal as a good thing, and especially within the context of respectful, grace-filled dialogue. Enough with the artificial middle ground; enough with being a jerk in zealous clothing. Let's really be "Christlike" again and show a bit of zeal for what really matters to God.

So I'll ask you - What are you zealous for? What fires you up? What really grinds your gears (and not in a Peter Griffin kind of way, but really)?

For what would you be willing to make a metaphorical whip of cords and drive some metaphorical sheep out of the metaphorical Temple?

Blogging Etiquette: Code of Conduct Proposals

There is a lot of buzz about online etiquette and maintaining civility in the blogoshpere. We had a little flare up a few posts ago here at Enter the Rainbow, in fact.

Today, Bill Tammaeus led me to an article (login required) about Tim O'Reilly that proposes a blogging code of conduct. (Aside: His blog is called O'Reilly Radar - love it!) Here is the checklist version:

1) Take responsibility not just for your own words, but for the comments you allow on your blog.
2) Label your tolerance level for abusive comments.
3) Consider eliminating anonymous comments.
4) Ignore the trolls.
5) Take the conversation offline, and talk directly, or find an intermediary who can do so.
6) If you know someone who is behaving badly, tell them so.
7) Don't say anything online that you wouldn't say in person.

Here's the full post.

BlogHer.org has a code of conduct that is worth checking out, too.

And Jimmy Wales at wikia.com is soliciting bloggers' comments to see about coming to some kind of consensus.

Interesting ideas, huh? This could be a really good moment for blogging, or it could be the "jump the shark" episode. I hope the blogosphere doesn't get institutionalized; I am drawn to the wide-open, emerging, rough-and-tumble feeling of it. But on the other hand, it does tick me off when comments get nasty, and I try to be civil as much as possible.

I'm interested to hear your perspectives. Is blog etiquette something that is unspoken and assumed, or should we make a list? Should the Methoblog community endorse these guidelines? Should we come up with our own "official" list?

Blogging Etiquette: A Developing Field

Recently, John convinced me not to respond to anonymous comments. That's a good rule, seems to me.

However, it is possible for a commenter to display a name, but stay pretty much anonymous by not allowing your profile to be viewed publicly. That happened in yesterday's string of comments.

So, what do you think? Should bloggers respond to anonymous or name-only comments? Or should bloggers limit the back-and-forth commenting to either people we know or who have a blog of their own?

Update: Cross posted at Locusts & Honey