A Brief History of the Christian Blogosphere

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Christianity Today

Religion, Christianity, Religion & Spirituality

4.3 • 622 Ratings

🗓️ 4 May 2017

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Last week, CT Women asked “Who’s In Charge of the Christian Blogosphere?” Author Tish Harrison Warren writes: "The rise of the blogosphere in the early 2000s yielded the genre of the 'spiritual blogger.' From the comfort of their living rooms, lay people suddenly became household names, wielding influence over tens of thousands of followers. A new kind of Christian celebrity—and authority—was born: the speaker and author who comes to us (often virtually) as a seemingly autonomous voice, disembedded from any larger institution or ecclesial structure." One daughter of this phenomena was Her.meneutics, a Christianity Today blog specifically centering the voices of women writers, which ran until last year. Washington Post religion reporter and Acts of Faith editor Sarah Pulliam Bailey was a co-founder. Around the time she joined CT, she read a profile about a Mormon “mommy blogger,” which presented this new group of female writers as a phenomenon. “There are these religious bloggers, and they’re … writing about depression and motherhood and really serious issues connected to motherhood,” Pulliam Bailey said. She realized how much this content resonated with readers and how beneficial creating a similar space for evangelical women could be for this under-targeted group. Out of that came Her.meneutics. So how did Her.meneuetics legitimize its writers? Pulliam Bailey joined assistant editor Morgan Lee and guest host and editorial director Ted Olsen to discuss this challenge, the days when you could read the entire Christian blogosphere, and what local church oversight over spiritual teachers can practically look like. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	This episode is brought to you in part by The Apologetics Guy Show, the podcast that helps you find clear answers to tough questions about Christianity.
0:11.0	Learn to explain your faith with courage and compassion.
0:14.5	Join Moody Bible Institute professor Dr. Mikhail del Rosario at apologeticsky.com.
0:29.1	Music Michael Del Rosario at Apologeticsguy.com. You're listening to Quick to Listen.
0:31.1	Each week we go beyond hashtags and hot takes and set aside time to explore the reality behind a major cultural event.
0:37.6	Today we are talking about Amplify Women, which is a new series that is up at CT Women,
0:45.3	about women and the blogosphere and platform, and has also generated a lot of conversation on social media.
0:51.9	I'm Morgan Lee, and I'm an assistant editor at Christianity
0:54.2	today and I'm joined by Ted Olson. Hi, Ted. Hi, Morgan. I am glad to be back. Back from where,
1:01.8	Ted? I've been overseas for four months in Nairobi, Kenya. So while I've still been working for
1:07.0	a CT, it's, you know, it's a nine hour,-hour time difference and happy to see every one back in the office.
1:14.4	It's awesome to have you here. So Mark is out of town this week. And so Ted is an awesome person to come join us, especially since Mark says every week that he doesn't like social media.
1:23.4	So I think that makes Ted a superstar to be here. All right, Ted, who is our guest today?
1:29.1	Our guest is Sarah Pulliam Bailey, a long-time friend of CT, a longtime colleague, currently
1:35.4	religion reporter of The Washington Post, an editor of Acts of Faith, which, Sarah, what do you
1:40.8	call Acts of Faith? Is it a blog, a vertical? What is... I knew this would come up. I knew this would come up. So we internally, we do call it a blog, but I hate the word blog. Like, I feel like the word blog has kind of gone out of fashion. It's associated with, you know, these kids in their parents' basements. There's no editing. There's no authority. There's no structure.
2:02.9	You know, so I think it has bad connotations. And it does have editing. It goes through several
2:07.1	rounds of editing. It is, it is not just a willy-nilly. Here's how I feel. Not that all blogs have
2:12.4	been that way, obviously, and we can talk more about that. But So I like to call it a vertical, but people don't know what verticals are.
2:18.4	You know, it's just, it's basically our religion kind of section online that has a mix
2:23.0	of news, commentary analysis.
2:25.0	Some of it has reporting.
	...

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