{"id":22,"date":"2006-07-06T20:13:00","date_gmt":"2006-07-07T06:13:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.quilldancer.com\/meditations\/2006\/07\/06\/back-your-convictions\/"},"modified":"2006-07-06T20:13:00","modified_gmt":"2006-07-07T06:13:00","slug":"back-your-convictions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.quilldancer.com\/meditations\/2006\/07\/06\/back-your-convictions\/","title":{"rendered":"Back Your Convictions"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve been out blog surfing Christian blogs these last couple of days checking out what other folks are doing witness-wise and I have noticed something about &#8220;anonymous&#8221; posts &#8212; they generally say things nobody would want to tag with their own name. Another interesting thing I&#8217;ve noticed is that professed non-Christians and other dissenters &#8212; people expressing an honest opposing opinion &#8212; leave their blogger identities behind.  What then does this say about the faith and integrity of the anonymous Christian bloggers?<\/p>\n<p>The majority of the &#8220;anonymous&#8221; posts I&#8217;ve noticed in Christian blogs are generally, though not always, verbal assaults.  I experienced an anonymous post recently in my blog; somebody [respectfully] disagreed with my theology.  Okay, disagree.  My God is big enough to handle your skepticism &#8212; and with his help so am I.  But, if you are going to disagree and you want me to believe you value your opinion, you&#8217;d best leave your name. <\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:bold;\">If one is not willing to sign his name to his professed convictions then, truly, how convicted is he?<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"float:right;width:30%;padding:8px;border:1px solid black;font-size:.8em;margin:20px;background-color:whitesmoke;\"><strong>Matthew 7:22-23<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Many will say to me on that day, &#8220;Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?&#8217;  Then I will tell them plainly, &#8216;I never knew you.  Away from me you evil doers.'&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>If I have to sign into a blog anonymously because I am not a member of that blog&#8217;s register, I still leave my identity behind.  I do not want to hear the Lord say, &#8220;I never knew you.&#8221;  Mind you, I am not saying that every person who fails to leave her name behind is evil &#8212; but I do wonder about her intent.<\/p>\n<p>If you have something of value to say, say it and own up to it.  If you are not willing to own your words, <span style=\"font-weight:bold;\">do not say them<\/span>.  Jesus left us two commands: &#8220;&#8216;Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.&#8217;  This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it: &#8220;Love your neighbor as yourself.'&#8221;  Matthew 22:37-39.  <\/p>\n<p>Anonymous posting, even if the message you leave behind is scripturally sound, is not loving.  It is an act of cowardess.  <\/p>\n<p>Speak your mind, but back your convictions.  If you leave your name you&#8217;re less apt to say something you will regret, and even if you&#8217;re proven wrong, you will still have your honor and integrity.<\/p>\n<p>Charlene<\/p>\n<p>(scripture posted is from the NIV Bible)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve been out blog surfing Christian blogs these last couple of days checking out what other folks are doing witness-wise and I have noticed something about &#8220;anonymous&#8221; posts &#8212; they generally say things nobody would want to tag with their own name. Another interesting thing I&#8217;ve noticed is that professed non-Christians and other dissenters &#8212; [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.quilldancer.com\/meditations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.quilldancer.com\/meditations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.quilldancer.com\/meditations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.quilldancer.com\/meditations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.quilldancer.com\/meditations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.quilldancer.com\/meditations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.quilldancer.com\/meditations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.quilldancer.com\/meditations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.quilldancer.com\/meditations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}