A Lack of Theology

I was doing my normal morning peel through my RSS feeds (thanks Feedly), and I realized my own personal blogosphere has changed significantly from what it was many years ago. A decade ago, or perhaps more, was somewhat of a golden age of the wider blogosphere in general and the Christian / theological blogosphere in particular.

It felt like important conversations were happening. Facebook and Twitter loomed large but those places were built to funnel you to the blogs that people operated on their own or as part of larger networks of blogs like Patheos (which from what I can tell is just a shitty website now, but I digress).

Anyway, to my point. I realized this morning that nearly my entire feed now is taken up by non-theological posts. Probably the most prominent ones I follow are culture and tech related -- e.g., Marginal Revolution, Manuel Morreale, Austin Kleon, Maggie Appleton, David Perrell, Alan Jacobs (though his can be somewhat theological at times).

In fact, the only explicitly theological blog that I can think of that I receive posts from regularly is Richard Beck's Experimental Theology blog. And the truth is I mostly skim his posts now. (Though I should note that he is the most consistent blogger in my feed aside from Tyler Cowen. Richard Beck has a daily post on weekdays and hasn't missed, I think, ever since I started following him probably a decade ago.)

I wonder, does that say something about me? About the state of theological blogs in 2024? Maybe both. Even before I backed away from the faith trajectory I was on for several years though, I remember seeing the Christian blog scene fade away almost completely. Everything went to big walled gardens that were only accessible with a login somewhere.

But, enough about the tech side. I feel I have said my piece on this many times before and I don't need to always make the same point again and again.

The interesting thing that I think is happening to me is I'm feeling some renewed interest in exploring faith again. I know that it will not feel this way always. This feeling has ebbed and flowed in me just like this many times before. But, with the family Bible study we're doing weekly, listening to some Bible Project podcasts, and a little more open discussion with family about faith in general, I think my attention is turning yet again towards faith, theology, and philosophy. The "big questions" are still not only important to me but also still worth thinking about and wrestling with.

I don't want to make 2024 some big year where I'm trying to become another version of who I was before, or make some outlandish goals that are impractical. But maybe 2024 can be somewhat of a comeback year for my own orientation/lens for how I perceive life.

Tagged: theology, religion, personal, technology, social media,