I, like many of you, have been blogging consistently for many years (me since the Spring of 2005), and it has many benefits. But, as we all know, blogging also has some dangers associated with it. One of those dangers can become what I might call a virtual-glaze. I would define the disorder ‘virtual-glaze’ as the disposition that begins to occur as a sentient agent engages in massive amounts of exposure to the virtual on-line world; in particular, in the case I am sketching here, virtual-glaze happens to bloggers when said bloggers engage with various theological and biblical topics over sustained periods of time, via corresponding, arguing, and debating with others relative to fine points of theological nuance and biblical exegesis. The net result, of being deluged by large amounts of theological encounters, can be a glazed and thus desensitized feeling towards the reality of the very positions a blogger might be continuously arguing for. So this kind of virtual-glazing can begin to put a person into a dispassionate (which I think is a terrible thing!), pandering kind of posture wherein the reality of their theological and biblical position no longer has contact with real life. In short, virtual-glazing places the blogger into an absolute kind of suspension to all things (even if they can argue their position with air-tight ease and sophistication), such that the vigor, the zeal that initially propelled them to argue for their position in the first place loses its edge, and more importantly loses its real life impact in their personal life and daily Christian spirituality.

Let me try and make what I am getting at more concrete. I can remember when the LORD radically grabbed my life in profound ways while in Las Vegas, Nevada in and around 1995 (what happened in Vegas, fortunately, did not stay in Vegas for me!); I was a very luke-warm to nominal Christian at that point (and had been in that state at that point for a few years or so). Through various experiences (which I have talked about before), the LORD just showed me how real he was, and how unreal the world was. My life hung on every page of Scripture from that day forward. What I believed had such an acute implication for me, one way or the other, that my sanity, it seemed hung in the balances. Whether or not God was Triune or not, massive import for me. Whether Jesus was the God-man or just a man had palpable feeling for me; and I knew that if God was not Triune, if he had not revealed Himself that way in His dearly beloved Son, thus as the God-Man in Christ, my life would effectively be over—these things mattered to me! And because I didn’t have the depth or sophistication at that point, because I didn’t have the exposure I now have (through formal training, blogging, and personal fellowship with other Christians), if there was even a twinge of uncertainty as to who God is, or who he had/has revealed Himself to be in Christ, my life, my sanity seemed to be over (which I will have to elaborate on further some at some other time).

Obviously, what I am describing above reflects the deep and painful growing pains of an inchoate depth growing in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ; and so there is some immaturity involved with the above description, that some maturation (relatively speaking) can go along ways in curing (at least the existential angst I was experiencing for that long season of life). But I highlight the above to underscore my description of what I have called virtual-glaze. Yes, by way of degree, there should be at least some semblance of security in regard to the reality of who God is, and who God is for me (for us). But what I think can get easily lost by way of large amounts of virtual theological exposure is the sense of urgency that was attendant to my early growing pain days that started back in 1995; the sense of need, and reality that if God is not who he has claimed himself to be in Christ, that our sanity, and capacity to know God and subsequently minister to others could all be lost. I think blogging has the capacity of making this reality, who God is, into a kind of game. It has the capacity to remove everything we are discussing over and over again into an abstract legoland hodgepodge of our own making, and always keeping what we are talking about at least an arms-length distance from our real life selves in this real life world with real life relationships in tact.

I think if our sanity, our being is not always hanging in the balances (in regard to this kind of sense of urgency) in regard to knowing and loving God, and others, then we may well have succumbed to the disorder known as virtual-glaze.