The Headbanger Theologian

Moving on up!

I have moved. Please update your bookmarks.

Best search term used to find my blog - Updated

Naked pictures.

I am assuming it has something to do with this post from earlier today.

Update: Several people have now used this term to find my blog. My apologies for disappointing you.

Egyptian blogger jailed for insults

An Alexandria court convicted an Egyptian blogger on Thursday for insulting both Islam and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and sentenced him to four years in jail over his writings on the Internet.

Abdel Karim Suleiman, a 22-year-old former law student who has been in custody since November, was the first blogger to stand trial in Egypt for his Internet writings. He was convicted in connection with eight articles he wrote since 2004.

Suleiman, a Muslim and a liberal, has not denied writing the articles but said they merely represented his own views. His lawyers said they planned to appeal the verdict, and one member of the defense team described the trial as unfair.

One of Suleiman's articles said that al-Azhar in Cairo, one of the most prominent seats of Sunni Muslim learning, was promoting extreme ideas. Another article, headlined "The Naked Truth of Islam as I Saw it", accused Muslims of savagery during clashes between Muslims and Christians in Alexandria in 2005.

He has also described some of the companions of the Muslim prophet Mohammad as "terrorists", and has likened Mubarak to dictatorial pharaohs who ruled ancient Egypt.

"I was hoping that he would get a harsher sentence because he presented to the world a bad image of Egypt. There are things that one should not talk about, like religion and politics. He should have got a 10-year sentence," said lawyer Nizar Habib, who attended the trial as a member of the public.

Via

The power of blogs

Two bloggers hired recently by Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards were criticized Tuesday by a Catholic group for posts they had written elsewhere on the Internet.

"John Edwards is a decent man who has had his campaign tarnished by two anti-Catholic, vulgar, trash-talking bigots," Donohue wrote in a statement. "He has no choice but to fire them immediately."

Donohue cited posts that the women made on blogs in the past several months in which they criticized the pope and the church for its opposition to homosexuality, abortion and contraception, sometimes using profanity.

"The Catholic church is not about to let something like compassion for girls get in the way of using the state as an instrument to force women to bear more tithing Catholics," Marcotte wrote on the blog Pandagon on December 26, in an excerpt cited by Donohue.

Among the McEwan posts that Donohue listed was one she posted on February 21, 2006, on her site, Shakespeare's Sister. She questioned what religious conservatives don't understand about "keeping your noses out of our britches, our beds and our families?"

Edwards put both bloggers on his payroll last week as part of his outreach to liberal voters and activists on the Internet. Their decision to work for Edwards is part of a broader move among prominent bloggers to jobs with political campaigns and progressive organizations.

Via

I'm not sure what is more amazing, the fact that John Edwards has hired bloggers to work for him or that the Catholic Church cares what those bloggers have said in the past. This situation is indicative of just how powerful a medium blogs have become.

The best part about this? The little guy (and gal) now have a voice. Where before we had to rely on mainstream media for news and commentary, now regular people can report and comment on anything that gets their attention. Theoretically, blogs could change the way news is reported (as they already seem to have changed the way political campaigns are run), and in a way I suppose they already have. Of course, the possibility exists that blogs could be to the new millennium what CB radios were to the 1970's, a fad that lost it's appeal over time.

On Hiatus

We must beware lest we violate the holy,
lest our dogmas over think the mystery,
lest our psalms sing it away.
The right of interpretation
is given only to one who covers his face,
"afraid to look at God,"
    Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel

Blogspiration

As you have probably noticed things have changed around here a bit. The changes aren't only cosmetic and technical, I feel like they go deeper than that.

Andrew Jones, blogger extraordinaire, has been on sabbatical for the month of September. His last blog post was August 31 in which he outlined why he was taking a break from blogging. Some of which I identified with.

- Because my blog is old and tired and not nearly as much fun as it used to be. I want to be re-inspired and invigorated.
- Because I have an idea of how blogging should be and I want my blog to catch up to my vision.
- Because I have been SELFISH in my blogging recently, concerned with building my own blog and tracking my own progress rather than being a resource on other people's blogs.
- Because the quality of my blog posts has decayed and I am posting fewer poetic posts [a sign of good spiritual health] and fewer thoughtful theological/missiological posts [a sign of rigorous thinking in my head] and I need to raise the bar.
- Because I have become infatuated [again] with my stats and my blog authority and google-ranking - a form of idolatry and narcissism that can only be harmful.

Don't get me wrong, I hardly put myself in the same class as Mr. Jones. He is a very influential person, not only in the blogosphere, but also in the emerging church. Some of the things he said though really resonated with me. I felt like the time had come for me to reexamine my own blogging and whether it was fulfilling a useful purpose or stroking my ego.

Writing my first book was a great experience for me, despite all it's warts and foibles. I want to write more and I want my blog to be part of that. I am going to explore and examine thoughts and ideas on here that I plan to later include in a book of some sort. By writing them here, it will help me figure out what is worth exploring more and what I have taken as far as it can go. Most of all, I want to get back to writing like I did when I first started blogging. I want to be as honest and transparent as possible without giving my stats or Technorati ranking a thought.

And we're back...

My apologies for the interruption. As you can see, theospeak.net is back on line.