As promised, here are
my top ten blog posts of 2012. There are
a few interesting points that I will note along the way, but among these is
just the growth of this blog. While it
is still pitifully small compared to some of the mainstream “big name” bloggers
with tens of thousands of subscribers (I have five), there is a marked
difference between 2011 and 2012. In the
last year, the number of readers has grown enough that of all the posts
included in last year’s list, only the number one post from 2011 would have
made this list and even then at number eight. Hey, while you're here, why don't you click on the "Subscribe to Blog Updates" link in the right hand column?
In any case, the
readership of this blog, however small, has doubled in one year, and for that, I
am both humble and grateful. I hope that
my musings make you think, regardless of whether we agree or not. This year’s list is reversed, David Letterman
style, with number ten presented first, so that you have to scan the whole list
to see the most popular.
10) As was the case in other multi-part blogs I have written, “Part
2, Politicians, Rape and Bad Theology”, was less popular than Part 1 (which
comes in at number 7).
9) In, “Is
It Time to End Spousal Benefits?” I pondered the injustices of the way that
many employee benefits as well as Social Security and other Federal benefits
are calculated. Several comments showed
me that that my thinking was not as clear as I would have liked and made me
think that I may need to think this through a bit more and revisit the subject
sometime down the road.
8) “Why
I Stand With the Catholic Church” discusses why I agree that our federal government
is overreaching in its demand that church agencies be compelled to pay for
contraception and abortion inducing drugs despite in a clear violation of their
religious beliefs.
7) Politicians,
Rape and Bad Theology (Part 1) is the first, and most popular, of my
reaction to some seriously dumb things that were said by politicians. Honestly, I sometimes think that this happens
every day, but when these same politicians begin to justify their dumb stuff by
saying that it’s God’s fault, I have to say something.
6) In John
Wesley's Crazy Rules?, I list the rules that the early Methodists had
agreed to live by. Today, most all have
been abandoned and most church members would panic if we even suggested
bringing them back. On the other hand,
under these rules the church grew and under ours we’re shrinking. Perhaps something in this list we ought to
learn from?
5) Why
is Homosexuality an Argument Instead of a Discussion? Isn’t even my blog
post, but a link to a post by Dr. John Byron, one of my seminary professors. Here we wonder why everyone wants to
demonstrate and shout from their polarized positions, but not have an honest
discussion about the issues.
4) The blog entitled, “Just
How Many Homosexuals Are There?” was taken, by some, as a political post
even though I made some effort to deliberately distance myself from making any overt
political statements. The unfortunate
truth, as we’ve seen in other posts, is that anything regarding abortion,
homosexuality and a few other topics automatically become argumentative instead
of the opening of a discussion. Here, I
simply found statistics that indicated that nearly everyone has a dramatically
wrong idea of what we are talking about whenever we begin such an argument.
3) What’s
the Big Deal About Sex? was written after it was discovered that several
Secret Service agents and military personnel had been cavorting with
prostitutes during a trip in which they were to be guarding President Obama. While what they did was immoral, I wonder why
all the fuss? These folks aren’t
monks? Clearly there are national security
concerns, but otherwise, in a culture that values sex and money above all else,
what do you expect?
2) Censorship is never the answer. The beauty of our freedom of speech here in
the United States is that it allows atheists to blaspheme my religion and my
God, but it also allows me to spread the Good News of Jesus Christ. In Christians
are Wrong; Atheists are Right I argue that when Christians lobby for
censorship to protect them, they really undermine the most important protection
of all.
1) This is the one that makes me smile. I first wrote, Ahimaaz
- Patron Saint of Cross Country Running? , about a man known to King David who
loved to run. When it was written,
almost no one read it. For months
afterward… almost no one read it. And
then something interesting happened.
Because I suggested that Ahimaaz ought to be a patron saint of long
distance runners (clearly, being Methodist, I have no inside track on this),
this blog started to turn up in Internet searches for patron saint of cross
country and track. As track season came
closer it began to get a few, but regular, hits each week. By the end of the year, just like the story
of the tortoise and the hare, slowly but surely, this blog had become the most
popular of the year (and continues to grow).
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.