The blogs are going out

Phil reflects that the old Christian mega-blogs of old are no more, and resolves to join them for a while. Tell it not in Yeovil, nor down a mousehole. And even Dave Walker is thinking of doing something other than cartooning. Although his Dullest Blog is as frantic as ever. And Doug is taking it easy as well, although currently still with us.

We Beaker Folk of Husborne Crawley have been here, with a brief interlude after that incident with the Porsche Cayenne and the Black Hole, since 2006. Although sadly the first year or so was lost in the Time Wars. Much water has been poured over the ground, and many tea lights lit, since that time. Many a young blog has emerged blinking into the light, and eventually been ground down by the demands of publishing public thoughts.

Back in 2006, the blogs all seemed to be a lot more personal - they were web-logs in the old sense. Maybe they were the 1G blogs. But about that time, the tendency started to go toward commenting on stuff - women priests, Anglican covenants, British National Party - all that kind of stuff. The trouble is - writing a personal blog is relatively easy, provided you don't mind telling people about your thoughts, or if your day is exciting enough that people would be interested. Writing one of the 2G blogs is much harder. It takes research - you have to cite your sources and engage in intelligent discussion. It takes real time - time you may not have.

The Third Generation of British Christian blogging might go in two directions - the "professional" blogs, such as Andrew Brown or His Grace, and the more personal ones with a certain amount of theological reflection - such as Sally's (which has been around a long, long time) or Catriona's (likewise) or Anita's. I realise I've just listed three women and maybe that makes them less aggressive, less determined to blog relentlessly, and therefore less likely to tire of it. And Lay Anglicana is a good read of the 2G, more issue-driven variety. Meanwhile Sam's survived a long time - perhaps because he's scaled down the output since a few years ago, Simon Robinson blogs something thoughtful once a month. Will Cookson's interesting as well. In fact there's thousands of them out there. Go and take the chance and read something new!

As for us, well - gibberish about tea lights is much easier to write than well-reasoned argument. We're going nowhere.

If anyone has any more new blogs worth reading, please feel free to post them in the comments.