Thou shalt not upload: religious leaders draw up Ten Blogging Commandments
Moses never had to deal with IT consultants, of course
Ruth Gledhill's Articles of Faith (never knowingly updated on the Sabbath)
Mousetrap blog: suggest your own web commandments
Church leaders have drawn up a new set of the Ten Commandments aimed at delivering “God bloggers” from the temptations of the blogosphere.
Alarmed by the extent to which religious blogs can descend into vitriol, senior evangelical clergy are calling on bloggers to obey the new commandments or risk perdition.
The commandments, based on those delivered to Moses by God at the top of Mount Sinai, were drawn up at a “Godblogs” conference in Kennington, southeast London.
They have been engraved on cyberspace tablets by the Evangelical Alliance, the leading Christian umbrella group founded in 1846 that represents thousands of churches of most denominations nationwide.
The commandments order bloggers not to put your blog before your integrity; not to “make an idol” of the blog; not to misuse your screen name by using your anonymity to sin and to remember the Sabbath by taking one day off a week from blogging. They also order: “You shall not use the web to commit or permit adultery in your mind.”
Bloggers are commanded to honour their fellow bloggers and not to get too upset by their mistakes. They shall not murder the reputation of another blogger, shall not give false testimony against a fellow blogger and shall not steal the blog content of another.
Bloggers are also told to be content with their own creation and not to covet their neighbour’s blog ranking. Many thousands of blogs have sprung up in the past few years, offering easy access to online opinion forums to any user of the internet.
The “instant access” nature of most blogs means people posting comments often do so in the heat of passion and rarely stop to reflect, as they would if giving a lecture or writing a letter.
The result can be intemperate and sometimes foul language aimed at either the author of the blog or other commenters, or both. Blogs have also generated a new class of internet user, known as “trolls”, whose mission is to post as many defamatory and hostile comments as possible with the aim of driving away other users and destroying the blog, its owner or both.
Church leaders are growing increasingly concerned at the defamatory and inflammatory content of some blogs, which unlike newspapers and television are unregulated.
If unwisely moderated by their owners, blogs can generate virtual wars across cyberspace, with right-wing bloggers in America among the most extreme in their postings.
Christian blogs, for some reason, generate most hate-filled comments.
Krish Kandiah, executive director of Churches in Mission, said: “These commandments are virtual rather than set in stone, but are offered to the blogging community as a way to link the Ten Commandments with the art of blogging.
“In the ever-changing information age, what we need is wisdom for life, and God communicates wisdom to our culture through the Bible on every issue from social justice to social networking.”
Mark Meynell, senior associate minister for All Souls Church, Langham Place, said: “The internet is merely the latest step in the evolution of human communication — and so like any other new medium, it presents us with huge opportunities as well as challenges.
“It is essential that Christians make the most of it because we believe we have good news that is as relevant to those in cyberspace as it is for those in real space.”
Ten commandments for bloggers
1 You shall not put your blog before your integrity
2 You shall not make an idol of your blog
3 You shall not misuse your screen name by using your anonymity to sin
4 Remember the Sabbath day by taking one day off a week from your blog
5 Honour your fellow-bloggers above yourselves and do not give undue significance to their mistakes
6 You shall not murder someone else's honour, reputation or feelings
7 You shall not use the web to commit or permit adultery in your mind
8 You shall not steal another person's content
9 You shall not give false testimony against your fellow-blogger
10 You shall not covet your neighbour's blog ranking. Be content with your own content
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