Here’s my list of most read posts in 2011. Although I guess it’s not quite the same when you basically had two brief periods of regular blogging, interspersed with long stretches of silence.
In the wake of the Love Wins flap, this was my attempt to summarize the many nuanced views of hell and judgment that claim a spot among historic, orthodox Christian faith. Just to say, you know, it’s complicated.
9. Grumpy Jesus and a pagan swimming pool
Apparently I underestimated how many people were interested in the pagan origins of the pool of Bethesda in John 5.
8. Mark Driscoll and the Reformed-Emergent smackdown, part 5
The last installment of a series from 2007, critiquing Seattle pastor Mark Driscoll’s assessment of the emerging church and, well, basically anything not Reformed. Guess people like skipping to the end; this post had double the number of hits of any other in the series.
7. Revisiting the Great Divorce
Tip #1 for generating blog traffic: mention C.S. Lewis. Apparently he’s all the rage on the interwebs.
6. C.S. Lewis and predestination
Tip #2 for generating blog traffic: mention C.S. Lewis AND a hot-button issue like predestination.
5. Genesis 1 (a.k.a. T.S. Eliot, ecology, and free-range chickens)
Tip #3 for generating blog traffic: throw in a picture of battery-farmed chickens. Because apparently lots of people are googling that nowadays. Oh, and for fun, attempt to tie said picture to a post about theology.
Comparing/contrasting the views of N.T. Wright and Rob Bell on hell. All of which eventually leads to the following question: How many times did the apostles use the threat of judgment in their gospel proclamation? (Hint: the answer is slightly less than once.)
3. Geneva
Spend an afternoon in the famous Swiss city, snap a few pictures, post ‘em to your blog. Done.
My token political post for the year, apparently written just as lots of people were wondering the same thing.
I wrote this post more than four years ago about an ad by the Acton Institute suggesting the fast food industry is good for the world’s poor because it creates jobs. In response, I wrote about one of the unintended consequences of our fast food binge — namely, the massive environmental degradation it causes. Growing demand for meat (Americans alone consume more than 200 pounds every year) is one of the leading causes of deforestation and carbon emissions. And as just about anyone who’s worked on behalf of the world’s poor will tell you, environmental degradation is one of the biggest threats they face.
So how did this end up as my #1 post? Because of my incisive comments about the relationship between the environment and poverty? Um, no. It’s because it turns out a lot of people are interested in googling pictures of fast food ads. Oh well.
