A Blogswarm

In celebration of Consider Christianity Week, Energion Publications will sponsor a special form of blogswarm (invited, not spontaneous!) and a blogging/essay contest.

For the week of March 21-27, the Energion Publications Announcements Blog and Energion.net will link to any posts related to Consider Christianity Week topics, both pro and anti Christianity. Post your essay or your blog entry, include a link to this post, and notify us either through a comment here or by e-mailing ccweek@energion.com. Posting on a blog or an online forum is acceptable. If you need a place to post your essay, consider creating a blog on our Energion.com blogs site (eneblogs.com) or simply post in the forum at Energion.net.

Contest!

Simultaneously with this blogging event, we will conduct a contest for the best blog posts in answer to the question:

Was Jesus of Nazareth the Christ (Messiah/anointed one) as claimed in orthodox Christianity?

Entries may take either view. To protect against bias there will be two equal prizes, a $50 gift card from Barnes & Noble, one for the winning affirmative and one for the winning negative entry. The winner will be determined by popular vote.

Winning entries must be posted between March 21 and 27 (inclusive) and the post must indicate that it is a contest entry. A poll will be posted at Energion.net from April 1-15 for users to review and vote, and the contest prizes will be paid by the end of April.

The poll will list all entries (up to 40), and will list both affirmative and negative entries in the same poll.  Each person will be allowed one vote.

Because this is a blogging contest, the rules are not restrictive, but if we receive more than 40 total entries, they may be pre-screened on the following basis:

1. Posts should be between 500 and 2000 words
2. Posts should address some aspect of the person, life, death, or resurrection of Jesus. For example, a post taking the negative and simply asserting that there is no God, thus Jesus cannot be the Christ, or a post taking the affirmative, and asserting that Christians believe it so it must be so, would not meet minimum criteria.
3. Book reviews and/or notes are only acceptable if the author responds to the evidence and arguments of the book.
4. Narrowing the focus of the question is acceptable.

Irrespective of any of these criteria, any post that cannot be included on a family rated blog may be excluded.

All decisions on the contest, including entry eligibility, will be made by the Energion Publications editorial staff and such decisions will be final.

Let’s look at the question from three angles:

1)  Should the gospel commission be supreme?

2)  Is it supreme in your church and mine?

3)  How could it be made supreme and what would that look like in practice?

You can link your Twitter updates to Energion.net and vice-versa.  We’ll post more on this topic here soon.

Overall, Megabelt has some good qualities. However, it is my opinion that the author missed his chance at writing a book that would have great impact on the church. I wish this book could be re-written with more grace, less sarcasm, and no crudity. If a revision was done well, then I think churched people of the South might be willing to read it and think about the important issues it raises.

If you have read Megabelt, what do you think?

Would you use a work of fiction in a Sunday School class?  Would you require that such a work be explicitly Christian?  What ideas might you have for effectively using such literature in Sunday School?