Anyone who reads both my blog and Aaron at two or three . net will know that we’re pretty much at opposite ends of the political spectrum. I’m very much a liberal, and he’s a self-described conservative. But his post today entitled “What is compassion?” echos a lot of what I’ve been saying and thinking. Now, I’m not calling Aaron a liberal. I’m sure we disagree on a great many things.

Rather, his post asks that those who hold views different than his respect the fact that his positions are the result of an honest sense of compassion.

Many (most?) sites that I read with a political slant take a very adversarial stance when it comes to political opponents. But I think it’s important to realize that, regardless of political affiliation, the vast majority of people hold their positions because they truly believe in them, or, at worst, that they haven’t thought them through. Attacks against such people only result in digging in their heels, not “conversion.” I happen to think that many conservative priorities are misguided, and I’m sure most conservatives would return the favor. In all probability, we’re both right. It’s in dialog, not in fighting, that we’ll solve problems.

I’ve come up with some more possible domain names for BlogWatcher. Your comments are welcome:

• MyBlogWatcher.com – close to the “original” name, but a bit long for my taste
• MyBlogKey.com – a distinct possibility
• MyBlogodex.com – Wendy really liked “Blogodex.com” but it wasn’t available. I don’t think this one has quite the same “punch” but it’s till a possibility
• MyBlogSpy.com – I kind of like this one as well

I’d like the name to somehow give the “feel” for what the tool does. Some aspects that I consider important: (and, yes, I know no name can reflect all of this)

• Groups all your blogs into one unifed list, sorted by posting date, or by blog
• Reads mor than just blogs – also does info from newspapers, magazines, search engines, etc (any site that publishes an RSS or ATOM feed)
• Able to “rate” posts and see what others have rated posts
• Web based (nothing to install on your computer if you don’t want)

Shae has offered to work on a new design for it. (Yes, I know you’ll all rejoice that the horrid beast I put together will soon die.) I’d like to be able to launch the new “look” under a new name.

Brandon at a badchristian blog has written an interesting post on identities. He writes about boxes and labels being used as a shortcut for thinking. It’s a common enough thought, but he has what I found to be an intersesting twist on it. It’s not so much the boxes and labels we put on others that concerns him, but the boxes and labels we put on ourselves.

You may say, “what’s the big deal? Who cares if you’re in a box as long as you know what you believe? What’s the harm of being in a box of your own placing?”

I’ll tell you. The harm is that you begin to associate more with the box you’ve placed yourself into than you ought. You let your self attributed categories do your thinking for you. By labelling yourself, it’s quite simple to let those labels define you. If you’re not careful, you really cease to be yourself.

He goes on to criticize people who are both “left” (Jim Wallis, Barak Obama) and “right” (Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson).

I’m feeling a lot of resonance with what he writes. I’ve been reading Jim Wallis’ God’s Politics : Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get It. I want to like this book. I think Wallis has a lot of good things to say in it. But, inplications of the subtitle aside, it’s really more about showing why the “right” is wrong, more than anything else. Those who know me will know that my theology and politics are about as far “left” as you’re likely to see. But I’m tired of defining everything by what’s bad about “the other guys.” And I think that’s at least partially what Brandon’s post is about.

I do think he takes it a bit too far, though:

Sure, that leaves the blowhards on the religious right without an answer about their contention that there’s no such thing as a progressive Christian. But, let’s be honest, who cares? Who cares if no one’s there to respond to the Brannon Howses of the world? Frankly, our response of, “Yes, there is such a thing as the religious left!!! Look we’re supposed to love the poor!!!! Jesus was a liberal!!!” is a tad sophomoric. It launches us into a bitter rhetorical battle in which the only certainty is that the Kingdom of God loses.

“Who cares?” I do. I think that it is not only appropriate, but required, to respond when we see distortions of Jesus message. I just think we need to find a better way to respond. Even if I don’t place myself in that “liberal” box, I still need to remain faithful to the things I believe are right. I just need to be careful that I don’t take as a given that others who are in that same “box” must automatically be more right than those who aren’t. By the same token, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with keepinng up with the thoughts of those who tend to have a similar worldview, provided you don’t, as Brandon warns, allow those other to define you. (I personally find the folks at CrossLeft a good resource, though, of course, I don’t agree with all that I find there.)

Zeus has wriiten an excellent, well thought out post on homosexuality, Christianity, and the Bible. It’s not anything in particular that I haven’t seen before, but it’s so well written that I had to give it a bump.

I especially liked the comment:

I must claim right out that I am a Christian, a believer and follower in the message, example, and teachings of Jesus as a divine being. I am not a Biblicist; that is I don’t believe every single word of the Old and New Testament is somehow the Word of God. In fact as a follower of Christ, I believe we are evoked by Jesus to challenge the old laws that have reduced compassion and openness to spiritual inspiration to mere obedience to old laws. The evidence of example is there: Jesus came to challenge and change the old Law, and he did, (as when he challenged and “eye for an eye” and replaced it with “loving your enemy”, as one of many examples). [As an aside: Nor do I believe that people should be stoned to death for wearing cotton/poly blend t-shirts (two types of thread), and other obscure restrictions put forth by the Pharisees.] When contradictions arise in the Bible, I follow the consistent example of radical compassion and inclusion provided by Christ.

It’s a long article, but one I highly recommend.

OK. I think I’ve gotten the last of the Internet Explorer related bugs taken care of in BlogWatcher, my Ajax-based rss/news reader. I’ve got a lot of work to do to optimize it so that it runs faster, but I’m not planning on more features at this point, and I don’t know of any pending bugs. Please let me know if you encounter any.

The other purpose of this post is that I’m looking for a more permanent name for it. BlogWatcher.com is taken, so I’ve got to find something else. Some ideas I’ve been kicking around that are available:

• BlogTamer.com – could go with a lion tamer type theme
• BlogStacker.com – not quite sure what to do with this one
• BlogSkip.com or BlogSkipper.com – skipping stones comes to mind

Most of my other ideas (BlogMon.com, BlogoDex.com, BlogKeeper.com) have been taken. I’d appreciate any thoughts you might have on these ideas, or on  things I may not have thought about.

Kety at CrossLeft.org has written about a dinner recently between a group of people which was, apparently, specifically set up to encourage a dialog between people of faith and those with a secular point of view. While that may be unusual enough in itself, the thing that really struck me was the obvious tone of respect for everyone there, and his or her perspective.

Our common commmitment-
To social justice, love, responsibility, opportunity, freedom, hope, equality, inclusiveness and sustainability.

However we got there, whatsoever the path, what’s key for me is that we share those values and on them we can create a vision of the future that we jointly commit to build. As for our differences, I see difference not as a divider but as something that can strengthen the effort. In the end what’s most important is that, as Ghandi said, we share the same values and we are committed to being the change that we want to see in the world.

I’m sure that those who are critical of the “emerging/emergent church” movement would have just as many problems with this, because Kety actually dares to imply that people from other traditions might actually have something of value to say, that Christians need to hear. But I found it very refreshing, and I’m looking forward to the promised posts on some of the actual topics discussed.