On Survival blogs

[Note: This is a random thought and the closest link to anything is here]

"Survival blogs" is the informal name given to blogs (or whatever other more contemporary social media platform) in which someone who has suffered some measure of abuse or neglect, spiritually, emotionally or otherwise, within the context of any particular movement or institution (e.g. church), decided to vent out the hurt and frustration he or she has suffered on that media platform. The whole idea of "survival blog" is to air one's grievances and hopefully able to form an online community of fellow sufferers, such that there will be catharsis in the sharing of one's grievances and a feeling of community and solidarity with "fellow sufferers." Such communities by their very nature exists around their common grievance, to the extent that such is their raison d'etre. Remove the grievance, and the community as such ceases to exist.

As we can see in the description, "survival blogs" exists for nurturing grievances against those who are perceived, rightly or wrongly, to wrong them. Emotions tend to run high since the abuse (if there is) is taken very personally. Objectivity tend to fly out of the window in "survival blogs," regardless of how objective the participants attempt to be. For how can anything positive be said about the object of such anger? With the removal of objectivity comes the demonization of anything related to the object of contempt. If the abuser defends X, X must therefore be wrong. If the abuser attacks Y, Y is probably correct. If the abuser promotes a speaker Z, Z must be evil in like manner as the abuser, and so on and so forth.

Now, "survival" communities might claim that they are examining the errors of those that critiqued. And certainly we cannot commit the genetic fallacy and claim that their critiques are always wrong. Even more than that, we cannot claim that criticism itself is wrong, for polemics (rightly done) is merely contending for the faith once for all delivered to the saints (Jude 3). To make the situation even more complicated, just because someone has been abused and wronged does not imply that the person function as part of the "survival" community, for not everyone who is hurt is out to focus on one's grievance leading to bitterness. How then does one discern who is a "survivalist" as opposed to someone just engaging in biblical apologetics and discernment, since none of us are privy to the hearts of Man?

One way of discerning between the two lies in the focus of their respective writings. A "survivalist" focuses on airing one's grievances. Thus, a central preoccupation lies in their personal grievances and against those who are seen to have abused them. In solidarity with other "survival blogs," they might pick up the grievances of others and vicariously take offence against these other abusers. The tone of their writings is overwhelmingly negative and bitter. Those which stoop to ad-hominem arguments immediately manifest themselves as "survival blogs," but even those that do not stoop to that level are not any better. Christian "survival blogs" are not truly interested in wrestling with the theological issues involved in theological topics (e.g. ESS, Gender issues), but rather in a classic tale of the tail wagging the dog, the theology of those who practice what they deem to be abusive behavior (real or imagined) is definitely wrong, and whoever puts forward as much as a semi-coherent critique gets their immediate support. Plus points for accusations of heresy against the "bad guys."

Therefore, if a blog is (1) overwhelmingly negative in tone, (2) focused on only a few issues which correlates to the issue held by the main persons the participants have negative feelings towards, (3) possibly manifested in ad-homenem arguments, or (4) putting forward shallow argumentations, coupled with (5) a refusal to wrestle with the actual theological topics, then one has just found a "survival blog." Of course, one should not fall into the genetic fallacy and discount them outright, yet knowing that such blogs and persons are of the "survival" type, one should be extremely cautious of anything they say, as there is a very high chance they are wrong in whatever they are writing about. This is of course not to mention that these people are sinning in their actions. Even if their grievances are legitimate, they are supposed to deal with it biblically, and not give in to anger and bitterness, much less trashing around and wounding other sheep in the process.