Jeremy Huggins, in the Blogging our Hearts Out article linked by Eric and Kaz (link below):
blogging is both encouraging and facilitating discussion that the traditional church needs to enter into.
This is much the same kind of message I have been blogging about as well, especially in that first year (June 2002 – June 2003) when I was writing stuff about Cluetraikn and Churches (reference to The Cluretrain Manifesto), which emphasizes how “markets are conversations”, and there’s a lot to be said about how this describes something important in gthe Church’s theology and its call: to be an enabler of conversation. This has led to mega-Church expereinces, and the smaller Churches trying to imitate that experience, and the relational emphasis becomes a “Me and Jesus” and out the exhaust goes the concept of The Body , except in some vague, “mass experience” kind of “connection”. The “deeps” are not connecting to “deeps”. We are not known, except as a body that helps fill the meeting place.
Now I will point out one place in Jeremy’s talk where I would emphasize something differently:
“To be is to be related, and to be related is to be plugged in,†say the authors of Imagologies. While one could argue that the blog is merely an extension of the body, like a second mouth or an external memory card for one’s life, the fact remains that my blog, which is contingent on my having a power source and an internet connection, is no more a part of my body than is my computer itself, at this stage in technological development. [3]
—Saarinen, Esa, and Mark C. Taylor. Imagologies: Media Philosophy. Routledge, 1994.
I’d say that there is a LOT of difference in the self vs diembodied/blog self and the self vs computer box. The blog is much more a part of our identity than the computer is (even though there are certainly technological medium/message implications and effects going on between us and our computer and communications software we use). Disembodied, yes, but that depends upon the writer as well. Many bloggers remain constantly aware of the WHOLE person, who is at once a body, a mind, a participant in many forms of community, and a part of a public dialogue.
But yes, the blog IS more a part of ME than my computer, and thus, if one holds to the self as body-mind-community-ego, etc. related to the body in that relationship , at a level closer to that of the computer. It is closer becuase it , however accurately, is an extension of the self (and even an inaccurate extension of the self is still somethign with which we identify. By virtue of our WANTING to project a particular image of ourself, we have made it a part of ourself — even given it is but a hope. But hopes are what I would identify as an important part of who we are, even though we often fail to live up to that.