emerging blogs

Interesting article in the Seattle Catholic Paper, the Northwest Progress ...

The 2006 Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches has an essay on the growing phenomenon of what is being called the "emergent church" -- a decentralized movement or conversation among younger Christians in the United States and abroad who are committed to discipleship but resist traditional denominational ties, leadership structures and doctrinal formulations.

Not surprisingly, much of the conversation among participants is carried out on the Internet, with numerous Web sites and blogs, short for Web logs, where they share ideas and write journals of their own faith understandings and experiences. ...

"The emergent church has made particularly good use of a recently popular online phenomenon referred to as blogging" or the posting of one's own thoughts and news on a Web site, often updating it daily and inviting comments from readers.

Blogging replacing journaling
"Perhaps what has made blogging particularly interesting to religious people is that journaling is already a discipline that religious people maintain in significant numbers," she said. She said blogs can avoid the heated argumentation and invective often found on open Internet forums because the blogger has more control over the content, even if he or she allows readers to post their own comments.

"Given the low cost and the limitless ways religious experience can be articulated, we might expect blogging to remain a persistent feature of the religious landscape," she said.She urged religious researchers to study the emergent church phenomenon. It is too early to tell whether it is a transitory or will become an enduring feature of the American religious landscape, she said, and its resistance to authority and institutional forms makes it difficult to study.