Fraters Libertas

A Hallelujah In Need Of A Chorus

Yesterday, the Star Tribune had an article about Christian bloggers, which opened thusly:

Those shepherds would have a much easier time nowadays telling folks about their visit with the newborn Christ child. They'd just prop their staffs in the corner, fire up the Internet and do their glorifying and praising in a blog.

Web logs are no longer the exclusive domain of geeks, cranks and the self-absorbed.

It appears that Atomizer, JB Doubtless, and Saint Paul now have company.

The piece went on to talk about a couple of Catholic bloggers that I have never heard of, Joe Convert and Musings of a Catholic Convert. Here's how Joe Convert is described:

One of the better-known local Christian bloggers is Sean Herriott, host of a morning drive-time radio show on Relevant Radio, heard in the Twin Cities on WLOL, AM 1330. His blog, joeconvert.squarespace.com, generates more than 1,000 hits a week from around the world and chronicles his experiences as a convert to Catholicism.

A thousand hits a week? Either the reporter who penned this article, Susan M. Barbieri, got her facts wrong or local religious blogs still have a ways to go as far as developing audiences. One thousands hits (not visits mind you) a week is nuthin'. Heck, I bet even our friends over at the New Patriot can pull in that kind of traffic.

It appears that the focus of the piece was intended to be on local Christian bloggers, but the only one mentioned is Herriott. Musings of a Catholic Convert is written by Andy McNutt, who is a Catholic lay minister in Memphis who met Herriott through blogging.

If you're going to set out to write a piece about Christian blogging, you might want to expand your horizons just a bit. I imagine that there are probably several quality local Christian bloggers that Barbieri could have interviewed, to say nothing of those on the national scene such as Joe Carter at the evangelical outpost, Mark D. Roberts, and letters from babylon among a host of others.

Next time around Barbieri should try a little Googlin' or just follow a few links. There's a big ol' blogosphere out there with much in store if you're just willing to roll up your sleeves and explore a bit.