A blog isn’t a real conversation

Posted by Helen on: 07.18.2007 /

Here’s my response to a comment posted by Ronald on the blog entry Conversation or Declaration?

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Hi Helen

A blog isn’t a real conversation, IMHO.

There is a certain amount of the communication in a blog that is subjectively inserted there by the predisposition’s (intelligence, wit, insight, intuition, stupidity, foolishness, etc) of the reader.

That happens in real-time conversations too, doesn’t it?

It’s not a real-time conversation. I don’t get to see you raise your eyebrows. You don’t see me fidget my legs or cross my arms. I don’t get to hear your voice inflections. You don’t get to look me in my eyes. I don’t get to ask questions to find out more information in real-time to clarify what you may mean or didn’t mean by what you said before I begin commenting. There is much more than a nuance missing that makes a blog woefully inadequate compared to a real conversation.

I like real-time best, but I think on-line can work too. What you’re saying about visual cues seems to imply that blind people can’t have ‘real’ conversations. I think they can – they adapt to not being able to see the other person. Can’t we do that online too?

It is, therefore, easy to make a caricature of those you don’t agree with. It’s easy to take some words written on a screen and make them say what you want them to say, to sit in judgement of someone you don’t know.

For what it’s worth, that’s what I think you have done with me. Although, in this response you’ve asked me questions rather than just making declarations. I see that as a step in the right direction although there are still a number of (incorrect) assumptions about me in here.

Thanks David H, and Joe, for stating what should be obvious: we all make declarations.

Yes – I agree. That’s why I clarified that it’s the declarations others make about me – especially if they don’t know me – which bother me. I’m fine with people making declarations about themselves.

Why is it assumed that what I said wasn’t said out of humility, with a humble and sincere heart?

If someone who is blind is standing at the intersection asking me what color the street lamp is, am I then arrogant, full of pride, and not being humble to kindly answer her declaratively “the light is green” or “the light is red”?

Ronald, to me this wordpicture strikes me as arrogant, because it presupposes I am blind and you can see – by way of metaphor it presupposes you have superior wisdom, knowledge, or understanding to me.

You don’t know my background, yet you presume I haven’t walked a walk worthy enough to provide anyone here an answer?

You’re welcome to join in the conversation. It’s declarations I said I don’t appreciate. Here, you haven’t walked the walk yet – that is true – you are new. If you stick around we might get to know you and might even like you, even though this isn’t a real conversation. :-)

Again, if we had a real conversation, you might have found out I was once an agnostic, almost atheist. Surprised? Go ahead, and do that double-take and shake your head.

You’re making assumptions about me and you’re wrong. It doesn’t surprise me to hear a Christian was once an almost atheist. Before I was a Christian I wasn’t one.

I went back and read the posting with your history in it, so I know a little bit more about you now. You still know very little about me.

True, and thank you for reading, but – evidently you still don’t know enough about me to make the assumptions you make in this post.

Do you really expect bloggers to go and find and read all about you before they post their first response to a blog you have here? Blogs would cease to exist if this were the case!

No, I expect them to respond to what I posted. To say something relevant. That’s all. If they presume things or ask questions about me, then I direct them to other things I’ve written, so they can learn more/have their assumptions (hopefully) made more accurate.

If we were having a real conversation, I may never have prayed that prayer over you face to face. We probably would never had become intimate enough for that to have happened. Face to face with you, I probably have only prayed under my breath during our conversation—if at all, unless and until the moment was right and if it seemed right to do so. (Again, blogs are not real conversations with real people!)

So why do you assume permission online to do something you wouldn’t do in person? I think that’s unwise relationally. I didn’t appreciate it.

Did you really just honestly want the answer to 3 questions in Freeing-Jesus? No, not really, right? (pause for effect—this isn’t a real conversation, so…) You have an agenda—a web site—a cause to maintain—with speaking engagements based on a certain expected philosophical/theological position being promoted. Your questions themselves were making their own statements/declarations. (Now, if that’s wrong, you could kindly correct me. If it’s right, and you hate the truth of it, you could still vehemently protest and posit another explanation, or if I’m right and your aren’t offended I guessed correctly, you could say “yeah, you’re right”, or you could coyly ignore that question and say “I’m going to quote you in a conference I’m going to ” and be thinking “I’ll make you sound like a fool, an “ass”, a egotistical conservative christian, a pharisee, a _____ (?) in front of everyone there to take my revenge on you publicly (mu-hahahah)”.

Having read your speculation, which is mostly incorrect, by the way, here are the facts.

My questions are real questions I haven’t found satisfactory answers to within Bible-believing Christian systematic theology. Hence I still have the questions. Why would they not be real? I think if there were good answers within Bible-believing Christian systematic theology I would have had them presented to me by now so I am thinking it’s unlikely there are. However, if there are, bring them on.

It didn’t occur to me to use the responses in my workshop until I read yours.

I wrote Free Jesus (you didn’t even get the title right, Ronald) for the local newspaper, showed it to Jim and he said “Let’s put this in our monthly Idealab e-zine”. I said fine.

The way I was going to use your comments is – you presumed things. You said “let me take the speck out of your eye” and I hadn’t asked for your help. It wasn’t even relevant to my post, which was about, let’s discuss Jesus freely. It wasn’t even about me. (I see you address the way you responded lower down – thank you for apologizing)

I don’t take revenge – I want my workshop to be a constructive friendly environment and I’m hoping people will learn something there. It seems relevant to use comments which didn’t endear me to the comments poster in a workshop called “Helping lost people like you”. I may as well make use of them since I have them. Why not?

Or wait, you might say to yourself, “I need to drum up more quotes to use at my conference, so why not defame this guy now in another blog and hold him up for ridicule for all my groupies to post how great I am and how bad he was for posting what he said”. Hmmm.

I might not know anyone at my workshop Ronald – ‘groupies’ is another wrong assumption of yours. Do you think I would have been invited to lead a workshop if the topic was “How great I am”? Now you have insulted the conference organizer who invited me.

Again, a real conversation with you might let me realize what a nice person you really are, and that you aren’t possibly capable of that kind of behavior. :-)

Or you could pay attention online and believe that the Holy Spirit could show you through my words what sort of person I am. Why is that not an option?

I’m not here to crash your party per se. I try to crash the devil’s party when I’m not running away from his devouring teeth myself.

It’s not a private party, so, nothing to crash. I do hope people who come will show each other respect.

WARNING: About to say something that may offend some blog readers here—but remember, this isn’t a real conversation, and for all you know, I’m a real nice guy in person, who you wouldn’t dream of calling an “ass” behind his back on another blog—

I don’t understand why, if you’re nice elsewhere, you couldn’t be nice online. Maybe you could ask God to help you learn how – seriously – because I have worked hard not to be meaner online than in person. I used to ask God to help when I prayed.

At the top I said “IMHO”, but apply to my declarations whatever politically correct tag is required on this blog to not offend the thin skin sensitivities of those which are perpetually in a state of “there is no knowable truth”, so let’s attack anyone who says they know the “truth” because that’s just too arrogant of them to say so.

I don’t require tags but I do ask people to be respectful of one another.

I prayed for you today Helen because I cared about you. Is that real enough for you?

Well, I don’t feel any different, so – being honest – it’s not very real to me, no. Your bothering to write all this is real. I do believe that you care according to what your definition of caring is. I suspect our definitions may vary to some degree.

If you aren’t too offended by what I’ve written, I think I may be able to contribute to the “conversation’ around here a bit.

You’re welcome here, but I do try to encourage people to learn about each other from each other, rather than making assumptions about each other, or declarations about each other. The Christian world is already too full of people who think they know more than they do about other people. That is also going to be in my workshop (that was in there before this week).

I’m sorry if you thought I was too presumptuous to direct my conversation at you personally, instead of your 3 questions.

Apology accepted. Thanks.

OTOH, isn’t this whole blog thing just a wee bit about you, your thoughts, your philosophy of Jesus, your adventures at conferences, your fame, your diary with “conversational’ jesus droppings etched into the ether of your own personal blog-sphere?

I invite other people to post here, actually. Look at last week – two of the five posts were made by other people.

I mean, in this context, YOU are the text to reply to, not whatever sub-text questions you toy over your readers like bait for fresh fish. So, I can’t be blamed too harshly, can I?

I think you have it backwards – the text is the questions and the subtext is me. And I’d rather have us talk about the text – which we all can see and make judgments about – than the subtext – which we can’t.

TO ALL US BLOGGERS: It’s just too easy not to be a real person online. Too easy to be phony. To easy to put on a mask and be somebody you’re not. To say things without thinking about the consequences, or without a mind about who you are hurting, or a care if someone’s feelings got hurt? It’s just too much power for one to resist, don’t you agree?

No, I don’t agree it’s too much power to resist. Nor do you, because you believe “no temptation has seized you except what is common to man – and Jesus will give you a way of escape or help you to stand up under it”.

Most people I know are ‘real’ online; however, the part about not caring is an issue – it IS easier to be mean online because you can forget there’s a person at the other end.

It’s certainly a test of character, as one jots down word upon word, sentence upon sentence. Soon, it begins to flow like the pen of a ready writer. Soon, one can be castigating one, soothing another, demeaning one person, and praising another. Oh, and it’s all so satisfying, isn’t it? Endless chatter and talking, without ever coming to a conclusion. Never finding a succinct truth to hold on to, and slashing with words like fiery daggers to all those that would offer their truth to the conversation that we don’t like.

Ronald, this is a picture in your head and maybe you’ve seen it elsewhere. It’s not this blog. Please set it aside and see what we really have here. (Even if your Christian training has made it hard for you to see what is real – mine did so I can imagine yours may have also)

I know this blog is not perfect, but it’s not what you just described either.

It would be a terrible tragedy to be stuck in such a blog-sphere having to fulfill an expected role, settled in a faithless existence.

I’m not ‘stuck’ in the blog-sphere, so I don’t see any tragedy there. And I am happy with my almost-atheist existence, so, I don’t see any tragedy there either.

Is is possible, Helen, that you were born-again and received the Spirit of Christ so long ago and then strayed so long you don’t know you are His still. Is it possible that though you deny Him, He hasn’t yet denied you, because He remains faithful?

Is it possible, that if you were to but venture there again, you’d find the knowledge of that same Holy Spirit upon/within you again? That presence you cannot explain, but know to be real.

What I really like is that you have believed me – you have not set aside my Christian testimony – thank you.

I can’t go back unless my questions get resolved.

In my experience, I know there is a difference between a time when I made an “emotional” commitment to Christ, and the time I made an “intellectual” commitment to Christ, and the time when I first sensed the presence of God while reading the book “The Cost of Discipleship” by Detrich Bonhoeffer.

All three of those things happened to me (so I believed at the time) at 10:15 (or a little after) October 28, 1984 – although they often don’t happen all at once, as you have pointed out.

If you were touched by Christ, even if it was many years ago, don’t you know deep down inside you could pick up where you left off if you only would? Don’t you realize that that feeling was not like any other emotional experience you’ve ever had? Wasn’t there something different about sensing His presence, even if it did effect your emotions? It wasn’t just the emotions, was it? Didn’t you know in your knower, in your gut, that you were in His tangible presence beyond mere emotion?

No, I truly don’t know those things anymore.

I love how you were then led to Phil. 3:13-14 about forgetting your past. Didn’t that resonate with you that God was speaking to you personally in reality?

At the time it was very powerful and very helpful.

After you had experienced that revelation, how could you then adopt point #2 of your Five key Choices? Further, how could you give up on prayer?

Because I have a mental illness diagnosis and my head gets messed up and part of the problem is that, when it’s messed up I don’t know it is.

So I can’t trust what happens in that ‘internal dialog talk-to-Jesus space’.

Regarding Arminians and Calvinists, have you read anything by Gregory Boyd, like “Is God to Blame” and “God of the Possible” or explored “Open Theism” view? It could help provide an alternative to a Baptist or Orthodox foundation which might be useful to you.

I liked A Myth of a Christian Nation – I reviewed that here – I think he wrote it? Someone else here (Stephan) has recommended Boyd’s theology to me. It’s helpful to him. But for me, it’s like trying to – um, tow a car with a piece of cotton thread. Open theology can’t bear the weight of all my questions about God and resolve them.

When you concluded (re: Arminians and Calvinists) “hey, maybe they both are right and the Bible contradicts itself”, I myself have thought the first part, but it was really odd to me that you would conclude the last part, and this be the basis for your departure from scripture. I would not conclude “and the Bible contradicts itself” from resolving the tension between A’s & C’s. Doesn’t the resolution just mean that God is bigger than we can conceive in A & C terms? Doesn’t the resolution mean that God is still a God that provides an inner peace that goes beyond mental understanding? Jesus said a source of err is the lack of the knowledge of the scriptures AND the power of God.

For a long time I thought like you – I accepted the first part and the second part didn’t occur to me, or if it had I would have thrown it out. But in the context of having doubt about all sorts of things, I took it seriously and it took up residence rather than being thrown out.

On a conversational note, the above statement (less the Bible contradiction part) is what Forest Gump says at the end of the film at Jenny’s graveside. He tells Jenny that perhaps Lt. Dan and Momma were both right. Perhaps, like Momma said, life is like a box of chocolates (full of choices) AND like Lt. Dan said, everyone has a destiny to fulfill, all somehow at the same time. Life is not just all random events floating like a feather in the air. Some choice. Some destiny.

I know what you mean, but Ronald, you believe in absolute truth, right? I think this is an absolute truth sort of issue, where two people can’t both be right. If God exists and heaven and hell are the two destinations of all humans, either he gives people the choice of heaven or he doesn’t. Both can’t be true. To me this isn’t like, two people who claim different weather can both be right, because they live in different places. It’s like, it can’t be 100 degrees outside my house and snowing real snow outside my house at the same time.

I have had dealings with Calvinists and it’s note a pretty picture. If you grew up seeing A’s and C’s fight and debate doctrine, it is no wonder anyone could survive with their faith intact after that.

I didn’t grow up seeing it – I stumbled across it online about 10 years ago. It didn’t break my faith by itself – it was just one more reason to have doubts when I had already started having them. Christian behavior in general – including my own, seeing what I had become – probably broke my faith, faciliated by intellectual doubt.

In this vain, may I recommend another book? “Calvinism in a Las Vegas Airport” (I’m not promoting Calvinism, but the book is an useful read starting with an excerpt from the film “Hardcore” where a Dutch Reformed Pastor, played by George C. Scott, has a conversation with a “thoroughly pagan young woman named Niki”. It’s a riot (the scene and the book). The book author is writing to try to right the wrongs of trying to share one’s faith by talking about TULIP and Calvinism. (arrgh!)

I’ll look it up online – I have a hard time reading Christian books at present but if they are clever/funny/eloquent enough, I can manage them and maybe even enjoy them.

Well, I have to go now Helen. But perhaps I’ll have time to return and write again.

You’re welcome to interact further if you have time. Who knows, maybe after some not-real conversation we may end up liking each other. I already like your persistence and that you came back. On Monday I had no idea if you’d ever come back – lots of people only post once. Since you came back I have taken more time today to respond to you in detail.

Please note: I have not made fun of you or asked my ‘groupies’ to do so.

Perhaps this is the wrong forum for a truth teller to be accepted in.

Funny – that was my conclusion about church and Bible study :-) (Sort of)

It’s the wrong forum for anyone who comes with all-knowledge as if he/she were God incarnate, wanting to bestow it on us and not interested in listening to what we have to say in turn. Yes, that is a caricature and not necessarily a particular person; however, we have seen elements of that in various people who have come by.

But, otherwise, hopefully you can be honest here. I like the ‘truth’ part – it’s the ‘teller’ part I have concerns about. If people haven’t asked, why tell? Doesn’t 1 Peter say be ready to give an answer – implying that people asked?

John Eldredge talks about the mystics and sages (The Way of the Wild Heart) who may be sitting at your table and never say a word. They aren’t always recognized and their counsel isn’t necessarily sought out, or even wanted.

Well, they certainly aren’t going to be recognized online if they don’t write anything :-)

The prophets of old would show up and the elders of the city would come out to greet them and ask them if they had come peaceably. They asked this because too often the prophets would come with Word from God that He wasn’t too pleased about something and was about to hand out some judgement.

Ok…well, I prefer it when people here act like normal people, not prophets sent by God.

To everyone, I may have not provided enough grace or salt seasoning in my writing tonight, or at least from you perspective. I suppose that will be cause for lambasting.

It might be. But I hope people will balance honesty with civility/respect, just as I am hoping you will make every effort to do.

Good night.

See you later…maybe…

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• Why “Conversation at the Edge“?
• Why do we see things differently?
• About
• Conversation or declaration?
• Folk Science vs. Real Science
• Our Goals

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