Reading Comments from the Main Page
ne more quick blog format note, and then I promise I’ll get back to the substantial topics on the table. (No, I’m not avoiding the topics, I promise! I’m just sometimes very much a geek when it comes to stuff like this, and I’ve been having fun with WordPress plugins, etc. today when I should have been posting something more meaty!)
A new feature now on the blog is that from the main page (the one that you come to when you type in http://www.theologicalmusingsblog.com), you can read comments on any of the posts without actually visiting the post page. Here’s how it works:
At the bottom of any post that actually has comments, right next to the link that tells you how many comments are on that post, you’ll see a “Show Comments” link. When you click this, it will retrieve the comments for that post and expand the length of the page to show the comments right there inline. Once the comments are displayed, the “Show Comments” link will change to say “Hide Comments” which will then collapse the comments, hiding them again.
Depending on the number of comments, it may take a few seconds (you’ll see a little animated icon that shows that it’s working on pulling the comments in for you) to load them, so be patient. It’s probably no different, however, than the amount of time it takes to load the post page itself when you click over to read comments that way.
If you want to leave a comment, you’ll still have to visit the actual post page, but for just reading the comments (all of you readers out there who don’t actually leave comments! 
), this should be a lot nicer for you.
Oh, and one little thing of interest when you actually do leave comments: With the preview feature, it gives the appearance that you have to enter the anti-spam word both before previewing and before posting. However, I have tested, and the only time the anti-spam word is checked is when you actually post the comment. I don’t know yet how to hide the anti-spam word from the initial form, but I can tell you that you can actually just skip it when clicking “Preview” and wait until you’re ready to click “Post” to actually fill in the name of whatever composer you got in your anti-spam word box! (And yes, Gordon, I have added Pachelbel to the list. Just for you, my brother! Mozart was already on the list for whomever it was that requested that one.)
Until next time,
steve 
September 24th, 2006 22:07
Beautiful blog! Mine look so boringly beige (yawn)
September 25th, 2006 00:08
Hey Steve. It has been awhile. Nice reading while sitting in my hotel. I think that Tony Jones said something about creeds and statements of faith and all that. It was something along the lines of those doctrines being equal to drawing up borders and then having to defend said doctrines. It may have been someone else, I dunno.
In the end there are going to be casualties. A lot of what I see people claiming as statements of faith are man made; they are the words of man with an infusion of Scripture. I think at the root if it all is the simple fact that we want to adhere to some sort of doctrine so we can be set apart for others, so we can say there are those who are worse than us. It is simply salve for a guilty conscience.
Think about Jesus starting to write the sins of those about to stone the woman. We are guilty of the same thing. For example, look at homosexuality. The evangelical church loves to harp on this sin. Why? Becasue we fool ourselves into thinking that if we point out others faults, then everyone won’t see ours. Many of us don’t struggle with homosexuality, but with things much worse. I highly recommend reading Gregory Boyd’s ‘The Myth of a Chrsitian Nation’.
So if we come up with some sort of statement of faith, it is like we are telling those around us, “See? See? I believe this! I profess this! I am a good follower of Christ! Now, do you see those pesky ‘emergent’ churchers? They don’t have anything like this, they are bad, you don’t want to be bad do you? Profess this and all will be ok. And don’t worry, I can quote 15,000 scriptures to back this up.”
My point is this. We need to dispense with all this crap about what we do and don’t believe and realize that we are no better than anyone else. The fact is, if we were living out our Christianity the way we are supposed to be, we wouldn’t need to go on the defensive and retreat back to some words we came up with to prove we are who we say we are.
And why do we need to defend ourselves, Jesus never did. He allowed himself to be slandered and ultimately killed. We get our feathers ruffled whenever something comes along to upset our status quo. We are supposed to be the ones upsetting the status quo. We are supposed to be showing the world love like Jesus did instead of throwing up walls to protect our precious egos.
I mean seriously, Jesus ate with tax collectors. These were the traitors of the day. Who do we rub elbows with? Would the average Christian be seen inviting the local crack addict to lunch, in a public place. No, we create the statements of faith to show that crack addict how wrong they are and what they need to do to ‘get right with God’.
Actually, they might, so as to show how ‘loving’ they are. You can love with ulterior motives. Be how about befriending that crack addict and going to the movies with them? Or inviting them over to your house?
Yeah, I’m pretty much done with trying to ‘prove’ to others what is right and wrong with words. If our actions can’t speak for us, then no amount of words on paper are going to either.
But I could be wrong.
September 27th, 2006 00:11
I like the new look, Steve. Can’t wait to read your next thoughts on orthodoxy.