Opportunity Wasted

I love reading blogs. I have a big list of news, theology and Christian blogs that I review every day. It's fascinating to get different viewpoints on news, politics and religion.

One thing that has been disappointing is how nasty some of the posts and reader comments can get. I was just reading one on Joel Osteen and the "prosperity gospel" yesterday, and it was so incredibly judgemental....mostly from people who have never even seen one of his sermons all the way through, much less visited his church.

I am not saying I agree with Joel's approach. I am saying that Christians have a HUGE opportunity to share their faith online, and this kind of bitter approach is probably not a great way to do it. I think it's important to discuss current trends in the church, and the prosperity approach is certainly worthy of discussion. If we have a problem with that type of preaching (and I do), it seems like the constructive discussion would be to site why we have a problem with it and what some solutions might be, instead of attacking the people. Who knows? Maybe they would even take some of those suggestions to heart, if they were offered in a positive and loving way. But I doubt they would take any suggestion to heart when it came from a blog that was completely trashing them and their ministry.

Ben Witherington's blog had an excellent post on "Blogging Etiquette" here. I hope you'll get a chance to read it.

We truly have abundant blessings, and one of them is the opportunity to share and learn from each other via blogging. I hope that I can use this opportunity in a most constructive way.

Love ya!