As I often do, I was reading Hamo’s blog today, and he has posted a lengthy and weighty quotation from one of Dallas Willard’s articles, which was originally posted by Darryl Dash, who found it at Allelon. It’s a great quote (about three paragraphs), and gives you plenty to think about.
I’m sure Willard’s articles frequently appear in print (the kind that uses actual ink and paper). But when his articles are published digitally, they have the potential to become memes. Hamo picked up the quote and commented. I saw it in Hamo’s RSS feed and linked to it here. I can quote it, format it as I like, pick out a quote I like, comment on it, and otherwise manipulate it easily now that it is in digital form. I just emailed it to my church. All of this is of course possible with texts published in hardcopy, but it’s not nearly as easy.
We now have every major translation of the Bible available online (as well as many obscure translations). We have the potential to shift scripture into meme form, where it can connect with and influence new audiences, and reconnect with old audiences in new ways.
The problem, of course, is that blogging about the bible isn’t really very cool. Peterson’s The Message bible gets quoted a lot, since its wording is often jarring and refreshing, but even in this remixed form, Scripture doesn’t get the blogtime it deserves. Email is probably the number one propagator of (often dubious) memes, but when was the last time someone sent you a chunk of scripture with the subject line “You have to read this!!”?
Scripture has many messages for us, which we need to hear and internalize. Sometimes we need to re-hear things we thought we knew, or hear them from someone else that we’ll actually listen to. Let’s use the medium we love so much, blogs and RSS feeds and aggregators and email forwards, to get the word out, to ourselves first and foremost. From this will emerge plenty that is worth sharing.
Sometimes I use scripture but don?t get much of a response back, or if I do, it?s not quite what I intended. Maybe that?s ok, but maybe I?m using it like a club, or with poor blog etiquette.
Honestly, there are times when other people use scripture quotes and I either skim over them too quickly or don?t really see how they relate. Perhaps there are some better ways to place scripture in context when using this medium.
I?d appreciate any comments, personal or general.
Ted-
Perhaps we still all have a bad taste in our mouths from the proof-texting of our modern forbears (and modern past selves). Let’s continue to use it, not as a club but as a guide and as source code for life under God.
I?m still a bit worried though, that however we use it, the meta-message(s) of scripture are in danger of being obscured, especially if we think of it as a group of memes. (The Wikipedia entry on memes under the heading ?Religion? is hilarious, by the way
Although perhaps more modern, a better analogy might be that of the holographic plate. If the plate is broken and a laser is directed at any one of the broken pieces, the original image remains identifiable. The bible is like this, in that all of its parts contain the meta-message(s), but perceiving it takes more than the average light on the part of the reader.
When viewed in this way, even some uses of the proof text are benign, as long as their context doesn?t contradict scriptural meta-message.
A timely reminder for me - I think you’ll see some quoting and reflections on Scripture on my blog over the coming weeks and months.