Live.Awake

Armchair Quarterbacks Unite!

// October 22nd, 2007 // Church Life

Watching a football game with my brother is an experience. He’s a sports fanatic when it comes to football and basketball. I, on the other hand, have never really gotten into it. But occasionally I will sit through a game with my brother and other friends because that’s what everyone wants to do. I’d rather hang out with friends watching a game that I don’t care about, than sitting at home with nothing to do.

From my perspective, it appears that every sports fan believes that they could be a pro quarterback. They complain about the plays he calls, discuss the flaws in his quarterbacking philosophy, compliment him when he does things that they would have done “in his shoes”, and pretty much blame him for the team’s failures. When he makes a great play, he’s their hero. When he fumbles, they yell at the tv calling for him to tarred, feathered and crushed by a linebacker on he opposing team. Everyone has their favorite quarterback too. It may not be the quarterback on their favorite team, but they have one.

But, we all know that it’s easy to be the hypothetical quarterback sitting in an armchair nursing a beer belly. I’ve noticed the same thing about bloggers. The internet has done some great things and blogging is a big part of that. I personally love blogging and have found it to be not only personally rewarding but an excellent communication tool. The vast majority of my internet time is spent on my own blog or commenting on others’. But there is a dark side.

Any 30 year old World of Warcraft expert living in his Mom’s basement sporting a Star Wars bathrobe can fire up a blog and start firing off complaints about every pastor, church, minister, or otherwise. And he can do it with no accountability and complete anonymity. The blogging “revolution” has brought every church armchair quarterback out of hiding and into the forefront. The overwhelming tone of most blogs that mention the church are vitriolic and negative. Because we aren’t sitting face to face with the quarterback in the game, it becomes way too easy to accuse, mock and slander. I believe that there is occasion to deliberately and publicly rebuke heretics and false teachers. But it must be careful, calculated and done with sincere fear and trembling. I don’t see much of that happening in the blogosphere these days.

I know that there is a lot to complain about. And we all need to take a stand against heretical teaching and phariseeism as Jesus did. I do it here occasionally. But, there’s also a lot to rejoice over. I believe the Church is changing. Growing. Learning. We are beginning to understand that we have been living sequestered lives and have lost our influence in our culture. The Church is waking up.

But how often do we hear about that? How often do we bloggers talk about it?

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