One of the things that I’ve noticed after a few years of blogging is that it sometimes threatens to absorb all of one’s regular writing. Since I’m no longer a professional student, I’m not regularly writing things of essay length, and believe it or not, I’m not automatically inclined to draft monographs in my spare time. I still read as much as possible, of course. And I blog about it. But that tends to be the bulk of my writing, at least in terms of theological writing.
Now, on the one hand this is fine and good. There are actually a great many virtues to the kind of writing that theological blogging is. But, there is clearly something to be said for regular writing that is less as hoc and more extensive in scope.
But the real point is that blogging lacks patience. That’s probably one of the main reasons I like it. The payoff–such as it is–is pretty immediate. The writing of theological essays, in contrast to blogging, has a better chance of teaching us the sort of patience that is necessary to the task of Christian theology.
I think your about right here. The quickness and clumsiness of the blog post and the com box probably feel much more sensational and scandalous. Doesn’t much cultivate patience.
Though I think you’ve argued previously for the value of the type of theological dialogue that occurs in blogging; convincingly I think. There are blogs I read that don’t seem to post anything unless there at least 15 footnotes. You could always balance yourself out by deciding to write an essay every now and again.
This is the main reason why I mostly use my blog for news on books, publishers, journals, etc. I try to throw out good resources for people interested in theology, but don’t usually present my own thoughts in too extensive a fashion.
I also don’t because of what mike says… things can get sensational and scandalous much more quickly online than elsewhere. I’d rather save that sort of thing for when I’ve thought through my statements more thoroughly and subjected them to peer review. I look at my blog as supplemental to navigating that process, for myself and for readers.
I also do not find myself “automatically inclined to draft monographs in my spare time”. I have found writing articles for semi-theological publications has been an interesting and important exercise as well as a happy medium between the quick and concise blog and the more developed paper. I’m not sure what is available in your geographical area, but publications like the Canadian Mennonite, the Mennonite Historical Bulletin and the Mennonite Quarterly Review come to mind. (If you are familiar with those) Just a thought.