The writers' strike is nothing.  Just think about how things used to be for Jack Bauer.

Seriously, how did we live like this? 

The scary part is that the actual 24 started only seven years after 1994.  That's almost the same amount of time between now and the first episode of the series in 2001.  Where on earth will we be seven years from now?

(HT:  Derek White)

I gave this very brief answer recently when asked, "Why does the argument for a first cause of the universe conveniently stop with God?  Where did God come from?"

An infinite regress of causes is logically impossible. That is, there could not have been an infinite number of successive events in the past because we never would have reached the events happening now.

This means, by necessity, if the world came into existence, there was a first cause beginning the world. Since nothing caused that first cause (by definition), the first cause 1) had to have begun this world by a decision of will (because the first event was not a natural result of an earlier event, and only a personal being can initiate something that's not an automatic result of a natural cause), and 2) had to be, as the first cause, a self-existent being that did not come into existence. That being is God. By definition, He does not have a cause.

If you ask, "Who created God?" you're really just asking, "Who is the real God--the true first, self-existent, personal cause?" because the one true God--the initiator of everything--does not have a cause. 

Paul Spears compared this masterpiece by Rubens to a portrait of an 18th century man.  Both were technically excellent, but the first had substance that the second lacked--passion, a story, something deeper than a semi-narcissistic commissioned portrait.

In the same way, we should not only have the same kind of technical craftsmanship that the great artists had when creating their paintings (in our case, correct grammar, spelling, and language), but if we want to have significant blogs, we also need the kind of substance demonstrated in the Rubens painting.  The story and ideas of Christ and our Christian worldview need to support and surround everything that we write.  Our posts ought to point our readers to bigger, more important things and increase their understanding of the truth about the world.

This will be much easier to do if we keep our focus on God rather than our own importance and self-centered ambition.  The motivation for our blogging had better be a transcendent cause--our calling to serve Christ--rather than a desire to build our own little blogging kingdom where we get a certain number of hits and readers.  Though the human temptation is to move in the second direction, attracting us to the trendy (not to mention boring) rather than the deep, we have to fight its pull; it's the easiest way to kill the long-term value and significance of our work.

John Mark Reynolds had some good advice about how to not burn out as a blogger.  He particularly emphasized the need for us to write less about ourselves and more about external ideas.  Begin with an outer focus and then reflect on the inner implications.  If we do the opposite, the likely result will be that we'll become boring as we end up saying nearly the same thing every day (whatever our pet ideas happen to be), twisting every topic into a way to get our own agenda across.

Secondly, we ought to blog for the permanent side of the blogosphere rather than for our immediate readers.  In other words, even as we're commenting on timely topics, there ought to be a certain timelessness to our commentary so our work will continue to be of value.  Posts that offer this will be stumbled upon and accessed by people for years to come, and in this way our impact will possibly be greater in the long term than we would expect from our number of usual readers. 

As an aid to both of the above goals, Dr. Reynolds reminded us that the best new media relies on old media (books, film, etc.) and not on other new media.  If we're taking in great ideas and reflecting on them and their goodness, beauty, and truth, and if we make our goal to see the face of God rather than to exalt ourselves, we'll persevere in creating valuable, lasting work.

The comments from Al Mohler remind me of a big concern I have about Emergent Christians.  Because language is so central to being a Christian, we need to take special care to use words as precisely and meaningfully as possible.  Emergents recognize the key role of language, but many of them mistakenly believe that it's language itself that creates truth (rather than reflects it) for our community.  Their focus on using language to create a better world or influence theology rather than on striving to accurately represent truth through the proper use of language inevitably leads to two things.  First, it leads to a misuse of language as a means to manipulate the perspectives of the readers or listeners.  Second, not rooting your language in a reality that exists outside of yourself means your language will drift, and as it drifts, you will ultimately create barriers between yourself and other people (Christians and non-Christians) who use language differently, as you can hear in this interview.

As Christians for whom communication is absolutely central, we cannot afford to let either of these consequences come about.

After noting that it's an anomaly to find a Southern Baptist in Las Vegas, Al Mohler talked more of the irony of the idea that "we came to a place of deception in order to talk about the truth."

He said that, as Christians, we should be known as people who have something to say.  Communication is central to what we do.  It's a special gift from God, and we have a mandate to spread the good news.  The gift of communication is a special trust that was twisted in the Fall, leading to slander, propaganda, etc.; we should not misuse it.

There is communication from God to us--the revelation God gave of Himself came to us through words.  Words are central in our communication with each other within the body of Christ as we instruct and exhort.  Evangelism also requires words; we can only make the nations glad if we use words.  We can use more than words, but never less.

Movable type enabled Christians to print pamphlets, books, and newspapers.  Radio made things even more simple; anyone can listen to a radio broadcast.  Cassette distribution expanded our ability to influence even further.  Unfortunately, the technology that increased our ability to communicate also increased the opportunity for Christians to embarrass themselves, and the quality of what we do has not always kept pace with the availability.  Since new media is so immediately accessible and publishable, we increase exponentially our ability to make huge mistakes, not to mention our tendency to be sloppy.  There's very little editing, and even less proper self-censorship.

I'm now in Las Vegas at the GodBlogCon.  If any of you are here, as well, be sure to find me and say hello!

I'm not particularly fond of Vegas...or rather, not at all fond.  This place is like a Disneyland without a soul.  And seriously, what is that smell of sulfur out there?  I'm not kidding about this.  It really does smell like sulfur.  But despite all this, I'm looking forward to seeing everybody here, and hopefully I'll have some interesting tidbits to pass on to you in the next few days.