CCBlogs thinking critically, living faithfully

First, a little news.

I've been working with the folks at Christian Century, trying to nail down the final format of our community blog. We're still working with how the feeds are presented. At present, everyone pops up equally on the right menu. The "member blogs" menu item lists all of our bloggers in the order of who posted last. We have a featured list as well.

Soon there will be an alphabetical list of blogs on the right menu bar.

We have a number of new blogs in our CCblogs community. I hope you'll stop by to visit their blogs and welcome them.

Cramer Comments

Ellen Haroutunian

Meaning and Authenticity

The Greening Blog

Unorthodoxology

Where the Wind

Will U Be a Disciple

I've found some interesting stuff in our blog network over the past few days. Check it out.

Scot McKnight at Jesus Creed notes that Codex Sinaiticus is now online. Greek geeks will be thrilled. It's got a nice interface too.

Allan Bevere, a new CCblogger, writes about blogging etiquette and anonymous comments.

Gen-X Rising has some interesting questions to ask about mission trips. Are they worth the trouble? Are they the best use of resources? It's the kind of question people wonder but don't want to ask.

Keith Herron's Birdie is back. This time she wonders if her pastor has ever heard the voice of God. (And haven't we all had parishioners like that?)

Christian Century editor David Heim has an interesting and inverted way of thinking about the problem of evil. He calls it "The problem of the nonproblem of suffering."

Jonathan Carroll asks a question that many ministers struggle with. Should we perform weddings for people who really just want to be married and don't care that much for the religious part of the ceremony?

RSS Feeds are a feature that blogs use heavily, but many people aren't sure what they are. The new CCblogs site makes extensive use of a feed aggregator. An aggregator is a program that constantly checks certain sources for new content and displays that content, updating itself every few minutes. Our aggregator makes CCblogs a great site to check regularly for new content on dozens of well-written, theological blogs.

If you use an aggregator of your own, you'll find our syndication icon at the top of the right menu. You'll find numerous subscription methods there. However, this site serves as an aggregator itself. On the right menu, at the top, we have the latest postings by a set of bloggers we feature. That doesn't mean we agree with everything written by them, but in general, we've found these writers to produce excellent content.

However, it should be noted that we are selective in choosing our bloggers, so all of them are good writers and careful theological thinkers. "Recent posts by ccbloggers" is an aggregated list of new content from our entire blogging community. You'll find that on the right menu as well.

Clicking "ccbloggers" in the top menu gives you a closer look at the community. You'll find the last three postings from our bloggers. These are arranged by blog, with the blogger who has posted most recently at the top. Finally, the feed aggregator link on the left menu gives you even more ways to read RSS feeds.

We hope our site provides a convenient way for you to find noteworthy theological blogs.

Coming Soon:

A quick run through our network of blogs today left me enjoying a number of gems.

Milton Brasher-Cunningham considers communion, cupcakes, and a phrase he heard on the news - "unintentional tradition."

Michael Ruffin had a piece published at Ethics Daily about his struggles with Religious Liberty Sunday.

Keith Herron writes about forwarded emails, a new form of terrorism.

Adam Copeland finishes a series on lessons learned in Scotland.

Peter McNmara provides an in-depth analysis of the ELCA's draft statement on human sexuality. Here is his first piece. And here is his latest.

rlp

We have completely redesigned the CCblogs site. The new site is powered by Drupal and was developed by www.jethroconsultants.com. The new site has many new features, including better RSS feeds and full postings by our bloggers, including short bios and photographs. We launched the new site in June of 2008.

It is good to have the new site up and running. I'm excited about all the new things we can do with this site to showcase bloggers. You can easily find the latest postings by our bloggers on the right menu or using the links at the top.

Some of the things you can expect from this site include:

• I will continue to write reviews of blogs.
• I will be posting some exclusive content here from time to time.
• We will be having guest writers dropping in from time to time.
• Comments will be enabled on all blog entries, allowing you to talk back to us right here.

Take a look around and see what you think. Let us know if you have ideas for the site.

thanks,

Real Live Preacher