Here’s a recap of the top three posts from BeDeviant.com this past week. This week is “Ellen-centric” for a reason. We generated a ton of discussion, dialogue, disagreements and definitions. If you’ve not read the posts, check them out and add your opinion …. If you dare.
So there they are, your top 3 posts of the week! Recap, refresh, re-read, re-tweet!
In light of the recent “controversy” here on BeDeviant, I’ve been re-evaluating the purpose behind this site. If the “Ellen situation” has taught me anything, it’s that there’s a profound need to ask the theological questions that no one else is asking. I’ll take my lumps from time-to-time (case-in-point: Ellen Pt. 1 & Ellen Pt. 2), but I feel BeDeviant’s God-given purpose is to plunge headlong into the taboo issues in the Church today.
For as long as I can remember, I have been drawn to the most difficult, confusing and troublesome passages of Scripture that exist. I can’t explain it, I just know the desire to dig beneath the surface is there. I like the tension of “both/and” because God is so rarely “either/or.” So that’s what I write about. That’s the purpose behind this site.
Clarifying a purpose means that you’ll have to let some things go. So that’s what we’re going to do. In order to go higher you need to get lighter.
Awhile back we conducted a blog sponsor experiment. The experiment was to give away free ad spots on BeDeviant.com for the month of March, giving exposure to different business, individuals and organizations here on the blog.
Suffice to say, it worked.
We had a great response. Unfortunately we couldn’t take everyone, but there wasn’t a bad one in the bunch! Thanks again to all who took part in our experiment.
Without further ado, here are your winners!
It would give me great pleasure if you’d visit each one of these sites and take a look at what they’re up to. They’ve been hand-picked for a reason and I think you’ll really enjoy what they’re about.
Congrats!
Thanks again to The World’s Strongest Librarian for the idea!
I felt compelled to share the reason why BeDeviant.com exists.
Here’s the thing: Most of us have no idea what we believe. We think we do. We may even believe that we do. We will passionately defend what we believe we believe. Sometimes to the death. But truly, most of us do not have access to what we really believe.
Why? We believe what we’ve been conditioned to believe.
What we believe is so influenced by our families, our cultures, our race and ethnicity, our socioeconomic status, that we have no access to our actual beliefs and values. There are too many hurdles to jump, so the hard work of “jumping” never gets done. Staring down a long-held cherished belief and declaring, “False!” is too painful. We’d rather live in ignorance for, as they say, “ignorance is bliss.”
It is only after we learn how we have come to believe what we believe that the true work of forming an honest belief system can begin. Phew.
This is why I write. I write to challenge people to look at not just what they believe, but why they believe it. As Socrates famously stated, “An unexamined life is not worth living.” I write to challenge people to look at things differently.
However, this is much more the philosophic fodder. My ultimate model in “being deviant” is none other than Jesus. When we see Jesus, we see a man who challenged nearly every cultural and familial tradition of his day,
And those are just the ones we know about.
Jesus was a man who jarred the soul–violently at times–in order to free people from the bondage of mindless, man-made religious tradition. Jesus freed people to believe in the One True God, not just believe in their beliefs. Jesus gave people access to the Truth and, as he famously stated, “the truth shall set you free.”
As a Christian, we are “little Christs.” We do what we see Jesus doing, both in life and in death.
I see Jesus challenging the this-is-the-way-we’ve-always-done-it-status-quo, so that’s what I do.
I see Jesus challenging our notions of who God is, so that’s what I do.
I see Jesus challenging the religious arrogance of those who believe they have it all figured out, so that’s what I do.
I wouldn’t have necessarily chosen to be this expression of Christ’s Body, but providence is particular. I write because I feel it’s God-in-me, calling me to do so.
My mentor once told me that when you throw a rock into a pack of dogs, the one who gets hit is the one who yelps the loudest. Writing for BeDeviant.com is kind of like that. We need to be smacked in the head once in awhile to be jarred loose from the death-grip that the suffocating religious spirit has on our souls.
This–for better or worse–is why I write. Come what may.
I’ve closed the comments on this post because what I wrote is not up for debate. It’s my story of the Spirit of God intersecting a human life and the beauty and chaos that results.
Here’s a recap of the top three posts from BeDeviant.com this past week. If you haven’t had a chance to stop by the site, check out these posts and get up-to-date. These got the most traffic on the site, were shared the most, and had the most comments.
So there they are, your top 5 posts of the week! Recap, refresh, re-read, re-tweet!
We’ve already been blessed with an amazing team of sponsors here at BeDeviant. (Check out our team on the right and make sure to visit our current sponsors!)
Here’s the thing: We’d love a few more.
That’s where you come in. Whether your business, organization, church or blog is big or small, we’d like to invite you to take part in the BeDeviant Blog Sponsor Experiment.
We’re giving away up to four 125×125 ad spots for the month of March. That’s right–giving them away. As in “free.” No strings attached. You’ll get great web exposure to a growing and passionate community–all for free.
We’ve had so much fun with our other sponsors, we want to add more to the BeDeviant Team. We have some more things to learn about sponsors and we want to experiment with how to better serve our current and future sponsors. Which is why we’re conducting this experiment!
If you’re interested, please email us with “sponsor experiment” in the subject. In addition, tell me the following:
By the end of February I will choose four sponsors who will receive an ad, free of charge, to run for the entire month of March. As a “thank you!” to our current sponsors (Rockbridge Seminary, Bethel Seminary, Clover and MemberHub), we will give you one entire month for free!
If you are chosen, you will also need to provide a 125×125 ad to be displayed. The only restriction we have is no animations.
You’ve got a great chance of winning this. Yes, you. Big or small, we’re going to be looking for people who match what BeDeviant is up to.
So with that, I charge you to get on it and join us in this great experiment! Huzzah!
HT: World’s Strongest Librarian for the idea!
Here’s a recap of the top three posts from BeDeviant.com this past week. If you haven’t had a chance to stop by the site, check out these posts and get up-to-date. These got the most traffic on the site, were shared the most, and had the most comments.
So there they are, your top 5 posts of the week! Recap, refresh, re-read, re-tweet!
Thanks to the first wave of you who filled out the Deviant Reader Survey. Why did we do this?
Here’s what we found:
You are male. Not surprising since the blogosphere tends to be dominated by men.
You are over 30. I was surprised by this. The average age of the typical reader on this site is 31.6 years old. The youngest reader was 16 and the oldest was 60. Not a bad range, but most of you are somewhere in the middle.
You live all over the place. Even the UK. The range of states was broad–there was no discernible trend to where in the US people are tuning in from. Somewhat surprising was the amount of UK readers we have.
You are Christian. Non-Christians, at least not the ones who would self-identify as one, do not read this blog. Almost all readers of Be Deviant are Christian.
You read the RSS feed. This wasn’t even close. Over half of the people who read this site do so through the RSS feed. The second largest avenue for content delivery was Twitter. No surprise there. Facebook tied for last, which caused me to yank the auto-post feature to my wall. No need for useless bloat!
You are non-demonational. This denomination weighed in as the favorite, Lutheran and Methodist being second and third. An interesting trend that reflects what seems to be happening in the North American church.
You do not work in ministry–at least not full time. These results surprised me the most. Most of the people who read this site do not work in a full-time ministry setting. I would have thought the opposite. (Although, to be fair, the line of distinction was fairly small.) This finding pleases me.
You also had some interesting things to say when asked the open-ended question, “What else do we need to know?”
”Obviously this isn’t indicative of all the types of people who read Be Deviant, but it’s a snapshot of your typical, everyday reader.
I want to thank you for being a part of this community–this community of people who think differently about the world around them. You are awesome–for real. In a lot of ways, you have helped me make some of my dreams for this place to come true. And here’s the thing: It’s only going to get better.
Want to tell us who you are? You can still take the survey here. And for Pete’s sake, if you’re reading this on RSS and haven’t looked at the site in awhile, click here and come see what there is to see!
Here’s a recap of the top three posts from BeDeviant.com this past week. If you haven’t had a chance to stop by the site, check out these posts and get up-to-date. These got the most traffic on the site, were shared the most, and had the most comments.
So there they are, your top 5 posts of the week! Recap, refresh, re-read, re-tweet!
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