Philippine Theo Law Gee

In my previous post I mentioned Carl Trueman’s observation that the Internet is problematic in that it feeds narcissism, especially on the part of bloggers who post their thoughts on cyberspace without a shred of inhibition. Al Mohler points to another problem: it produces a shorter attention span than that produced by TV. Read his article here. Here’s a quote:

Several factors have been blamed for the shortened attention spans. Many blame television for the problem, noting that the pace of television programming and the structure of eight-minute segments between commercials trains the mind to expect shorter attention demands.

But, if television shortened the national attention span starting decades ago, the Internet and its massive media expansion seems to be producing an even shorter attention span.

All this may be great for the marketers, but it spells further challenge for educators, parents, and preachers. How will people be able to listen to a serious biblical sermon if their minds are set to pay attention only for a few minutes — or even less?

I think I’m beginning to feel the truth of this observation. Maybe it’s time to engage in an Internet-fast.

I felt convicted by what Carl Trueman said in an interview here. He distinguishes between the desire to teach and the desire to be a teacher. What is wrong with the latter is that it may be motivated by pride, i.e., the desire to be somebody. And, in relation to this, he talks about the internet as problematic since “The internet has few quality controls and feeds narcissism.” Trueman speaks truly, and that means whether I teach or I blog I should check my motives. Frankly, I blog because it’s fun and at the same time I think some people might in one way or another be helped or benefited by some of the things I blog about. But I think Trueman’s right: blogging can be a venue for showing off, as well as a regular exercise in narcissism. The remedy for that is not to stop blogging, but to make certain one’s motives are right. Here are some quotes from that interview:

Thus, what concerns me most is that students may simply desire to be teachers. If that is their motivation, then they have already abandoned a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith, and their theology, no matter how orthodox, is just a means to an end and no sound thing…

If a prideful desire to be a teacher, to be a somebody, is the fundamental problem, then one other aspect which is increasingly problematic is the whole phenomenon of the internet. Now anyone can put their views out for public consumption, without the usual processes of accountability, peer review, careful editing timely reflection etc. which is the norm in the scholarly world and has also been the tradition in the more theologically responsible parts of the Christian publishing industry. The internet has few quality controls and feeds narcissism

Now that the elections are over so are my election duties. That means it’s back to blogging! So many things have happened in the world of theology: Beckwith’s return to Rome, Falwell’s death (many years ago I had a chance to study at Liberty College but my parents decided against it), etc.  I can’t blog so much on these things at this time, except to say I bought 2 books by former evangelicals who converted to Rome: Rome Sweet Home and Crossing the Tiber. I want to make sure I truly understand such former evangelicals’ reasons for converting so that I can be fair in my assessment of them. Because the Philippines is a predominantly Roman Catholic country it’s a given that most of your friends, co-workers, relatives, teachers, classmates, etc. are Roman Catholics. For that reason, it’s usual here for an evangelical to graduate from a Catholic school, to attend the Catholic wedding of a sister or the Catholic baptism of a niece or to be life-long friends with a classmate who is now a priest. In fact, here you don’t have to be a Catholic in order to be a godfather or godmother of the bride and groom in a Catholic wedding or of a child in a Catholic baptism. In the same way, here you don’t have to be Protestant in order to a godfather or godmother of the bride and groom in a Protestant wedding. Moreover, mixed marriages between Catholics and Protestants in this country are not only not rare but may even be quite frequent. And, given our cultural situation, this is not at all surprising. Whatever the doctrinal implications of these things may be, the fact  remains that, more or less, this is the way things are in our culture.