I love blogging. I love reading other blogs.

But there seems to be a strange movement for the past few years to prove one's opposition to a certain movement or theological stance. Writers take to the blogosphere and write articles against certain movements and title them, "Why I'm not a _____________."

Let me give an example that is not personal to me. For instance, let's say a blogger is a hardcore believer in the Dewey Decimal system. (You're going to have to trust me on this example.) They hate the Library of Congress cataloging system of filing books in the local library. This person has a blog and they want the world to know that they absolutely <strong><em>hate</em></strong> the Library of Congress system of cataloging books.

On their blog, they post the following entry: "Why I'm NOT a Library of Congress Cataloger: Point 1 - First of all - blah blah blah"

There's a dearth of it out there. It's a new polemic. People seem to want to argue why <em>they're not something</em>. Oh yeah. It makes for good material. People want to tell you all day why they're not "Calvinist, emergent, fundamentalist, Baptist, Methodist, denominationalist, Democrat, Republican, Armenian, post-modernist, public schooled, home schooled, federally funded, pro-life, pro-abortion, pro-gambling, anti-gambling, blah blah blah blah, whatever."

Every time I see a blog like that I'm reminded of Paul in 2 Corinthians 11:16-19:  <em>I repeat, let no one think me foolish. But even if you do, accept me as a fool, so that I too may boast a little. What I am saying with this boastful confidence, I say not as the Lord would but as a fool. Since many boast according to the flesh, I too will boast. For you gladly bear with fools, being wise yourselves!"</em>

Paul was defending his Apostleship. He wasn't telling them what he <em>wasn't</em>. He was telling them what he <em>was</em>.

For some reason, I believe it's a whole lot easier to tell people what you are that to tell people what you aren't. When we delve into the realm of what we aren't, it begins to smack of a bit of self-righteousness. If we have a problem with someone's beliefs, them we need to approach them directly. Masking our issues with someone else's beliefs with our own self-doubt is a problem.

Stand firm with your beliefs if that's where you are, but be open to listen to others. We're all on a journey and can at least have respect to listen to other people. A wonderful place to start is to engage others in conversation in commonality, compassion and working from there. .

Beginning with "I'm not a ________ because of the following 10 reasons" is not a great place to start a dialogue.

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