After spending a nice slow night at work, I come home to find all H-E-double-hockeysticks broken loose on the web. It would appear that some people are utterly incapable of not only having a civil discussion over a matter of disagreement and would rather make personal attacks against their opponents. Sure, one offered the caveat warning of of "earthy" language in his post, but the young man needs to learn the difference between earthy and gutter talk (the worst of which has been edited, thankfully). Ron, in the words of one of my favorite TV characters ever, "Kiss my grits." In the future, if you have a problem with me, bring it up with me directly and try to keep the sexist comments to a minimum, mmkay big boy?
Others just completely miss the original issue that initiated this disagreement. Let me clear a few things up.
When the call first went out for the Lutheran Carnival, we, at HT were excited about the prospect of participating in it. I say WE, not because I am presuming to speak for others inappropriately nor because I am fond of using the Pluralis Majestatis, but because at the time, I was the Chair of Web Committee for Higher Things. That means that it was my job to speak for all leadership involved in Higher Things web services. Stan Lemon, the webmaster of the Higher Things website who took his orders regarding its management from me, was instructed to look into submitting posts from HT Blogs to the Carnival. So when Stan contacted the Carnival about submitting posts from HT blogs to it and found out that it wasn't permitted, learning that authors would have to not only submit their own articles but also write the little ditty summarizing why their submission was so spiffy, we were disappointed and a few red flags went up for a number of us. Bloghardt posted about it first.
(Incidentally, I was tempted to sing Borghardt's praises and defend my friend from all the ad hominems flung his way, but remembered that anyone who knows Borghardt knows just how untrue they are, so who cares what people without such knowledge fabricate.)
I can hear the shouts of, "HYPOCRITE!" already. Look at how proud Madre is of her little friend, Bloghardt. How is this any different from the sanctified pride of submitting posts to the Lutheran Carnival? How is this different than the mom telling her daughter who just won a spelling be how proud Mommy is of her little girl?
Is the blindness really this myopic?? What's the difference? One is promoting and being proud of another and what they've done, or rather what the Spirit has done through (and often in spite of) their hard work. The other is promoting and being proud of yourSELF. Duh.
I don't have any intention of submitting posts to the Lutheran Carnival and think it plays to my selfish seeking of others' approval and accolades. If people happen upon my blog and like what they read, awesome. Now that I've said as much on my blog (which is all that Bloghardt did too, if you go back and read the original post), can I expect similar outcry?
It has been asserted that Bloghardt believes that anyone and everyone who submits posts to the Lutheran Carnival sins by doing so. Go back to the original post or even its follow-up and find where he says that.
What he says is that there is a danger of submitting our own posts for sinful reasons. I think he's right. That's why I posted about concupiscence and taught it to my child. I haven't really seen anyone disagree on that issue.
But instead of acknowledging our concupiscence and thoughtfully reflecting on one's own motivations for submitting a post as potentially sinful, and REPENTING of that sinful tendency, the reaction strangely went in the other direction. We learned a couple of new terms, "sanctified pride", and "pride boldly". To be honest, I'm really unclear as to where the sanctification of our pride comes from in this -- is it in our submitting of our blog post, or our own further promotion of said submitted post? Or are they sanctified by all the Gospel-proclaiming that they do? Oh wait, no one is actually screening the submissions. That would be too much work.
Which leads me to the next issue. I have never heard so much whining! (Is that sanctified too? Or is it just whining boldly?) What hard work goes into hosting a "Carnival"? Someone else picks the topical themes, people submit posts from their own blogs, people write their own summaries of their submissions, and everyone is on the honor system as to their confessional status. So where's all this hard work? Come on. From all I can see, it's a directory and the only hard work I can imagine is actually typing the submission links on the Carnival blog page. I hope someone informs me of just how complicated and time-consuming running a Carnival is.
...Or maybe I just missed the Lutheran Blogging Handbook directive that we don't criticize certain people's blogging efforts, and those who do will face the consequences (cue the menacing, "DUM DUM DUM" sound effect)