Alise had a post recently, Seven Link Challenge, which I was thinking about this week. Here are my answers:
1. My first post: Hello! I Can Create a Blog!. Alise said that her first post was about relationships, showing that’s where her heart has been and continues to be. My first post was about my personal spiritual journey: my struggles with the Bible and my attempts to make Christianity workable for me, on an intellectual and a practical level. So I guess that’s where my heart has been and continues to be.
2. The post I enjoyed writing the most: More MacDonald on Witnessing. I got to lash out at evangelicalism and atheism. It was therapeutic! And fun!
3. A post that had a great discussion: Asperger’s and Religion. This post continues to get comments, and I’ve met several interesting people on account of it. It has also inspired me to write other posts, because people ask me for help or advice, and I express their dilemmas to my readers so they can get feedback. I have to admit, it kind of annoys me that there are some people who visit my blog only because of this particular post. I wish they’d read my other work as well! (It’s like Marc Hamill wanting to be known for more than Luke Skywalker!) But that just tells me that not much work has been done on the topic of Asperger’s and religion.
4. A post on somebody else’s blog I wish I’d written: Rachel Held Evans’ Let’s Talk about Abortion – With Gentleness and Civility. Rachel expresses why she as a pro-lifer is voting for Obama. I did not vote for Obama, but I’ve flirted with voting Democrat. Yet, I’ve been hesitant to embrace pro-choice candidates, which many Democratic politicians are.
5. My most helpful post: Me on Universalism: “Forever”. This was helpful to me, in that it gave me an accessible source of information about how eternal punishment in the Bible does not have to mean torment that lasts forever. And I got to share this link with others. It’s still there for me to share!
6. A post with a title I am proud of: I know I’ve come up with some witty titles, but they’re not coming to my mind. I kind of liked my title, Apuleius—Meet Melinda Gordon and Jonathan Smith, because I got to express my love for Highway to Heaven and Ghost Whisperer.
7. A post I wish more people had read: Alister McGrath on Religious Pluralism. This post had some good stuff! I talked about how I was reading Alister McGrath’s chapter critiquing the idea that “all religions are the same”, right as I watched Sam and David on 7th Heaven make the very point that McGrath was bashing. In my mind, I made good critiques of McGrath’s argument. He made fun of the Rastafarian notion that people of African descent will have white slaves, and I pointed out a passage in Isaiah that had a similar nationalistic idea: that God will restore Israel, which will then have Gentile slaves. Against McGrath’s argument that the different religions can’t all be true because they contradict one another, I mentioned the diversity of Scripture. I also talked about McGrath’s good points, and my personal problems with witnessing. It was a good post! And it got no comments!