Write On!

Why would anyone doubt the biblical doctrine of the Fall? I mean, isn't it something we all assume all the time?

Listen to talk radio. Pick up a self-help book. Go to church. Read blogs, including the comments. Here's what you'll hear: "The world is a messed-up place, and I can explain what's wrong and what we should do about it. "

We typically differ about the answers. But that there is an implicit and pressing question is something every responsible person seems to know, even if they've never been told.

Of course, I'm one of those billions of people who thinks he knows what's wrong and what to do about it. So I write.

- - - - - -

One of the reasons I blog is because it keeps me writing. Writing something. Anything.

I don't write every day. But I sometimes think I'm supposed to. That's because, years ago, when I first started really trying to write, I came across something the great Flannery O'Conner once said. Sometime after she'd become famous, Flannery told an interviewer that she wrote every single day. It wasn't that her writing was good every day. But she knew that if she didn't write every day, then on the days when it would be really good, she might not be writing.

I'm glad Flannery wrote every day. And I think she was onto something there.

Not all media were created equal. Now that I've learned a few things about what email can and cannot do, I'm still trying to figure out what a blog is and is not good for. But for now, I keep the blog because it's like having a friend who constantly says to me, "Come on, man. Write something."

- - - - - -

Years ago I read something about the number of "pages" that a preacher preaches. The writer (probably a preacher) was trying to quantify the output of a preacher's wordsmithing work. The figure came to something like six or seven novels worth every year.

I remember wondering at the time, Should someone quoting the Bible get credit for creativity? And that pre-sermon banter used by preachers to welcome visitors and promote important stuff? That counts as fiction writing?

But I digress. (Probably an effect of the Fall). For the sake of the point, let's say that the preacher doesn't "write" six or seven good novels every year. Let's say it's just one.

My question is, Why isn't the preacher publishing that? Would you crank out a novel a year and never send anything to a publisher?

"The pen is mightier than the sword." What would that guy have said about keyboards and the Internet? Have things like the Bible, the Nicene Creed, Augustine's Confessions, those ninety-five theses, the "Declaration and Address," and Karl Barth's Commentary on Romans taught us nothing?

If you haven't guessed already, I wish more preachers would put at least something in print every once in a while. Not that many are ever going to match the truly great stuff. But over the course of a year's worth of teaching, is there nothing of which the preacher can say, "But this one thing I'll polish and publish"? Preachers, maximize your ministry of the Word! Write for the Lord's sake, and ours.

Inspiration: Up to this point, everything I've ever submitted for publication in a Christian magazine or journal has seen the light of printed day. (Actually, that should be qualified by "almost." The only thing that's been turned down so far is some stuff I wrote on church-state questions; I think I'm not "right" enough about that stuff. Ooh, maybe I'll publish it here). Of course, serials among the Churches of Christ pay from nothing all the way to next-to-nothing. So the competition for space isn't exactly stiff.