Big News

Last updated on: March 2, 2011 at 6:45 pm by Fred Clark

Big News 2011-03-02T18:45:04-05:00 Fred Clark

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Really big news.

Very exciting news, I think, but also happily not-at-all-disruptive news if we do this right.

Slacktivist is moving, heading over to join the growing community at Patheos.com.

The new URL will be: www.patheos.com/community/slacktivist/.

Before discussing the really cool, new things this will mean, let me first address what the move won't mean.

The good news is it won't mean any changes in the substance, content or frequency of this blog.

And thus, of course, the bad news is it won't mean any changes in the substance, content or frequency of this blog.

This will remain the same blog that readers here are accustomed to visiting — the same reassuring John Donne quote there at the top, the same wide-ranging/unfocused subject matter, the same Left Behind Mondays(-ish), Flame War Thursdays and discussions of theology, politics, culture and semi-current events rife with strained Buffy analogies, Tony Campolo stories, chastened idealism, over-long tangents on subsidiarity, debates over exegesis, successful attempts at humor, unsuccessful attempts at humor, occasional dollops of gooey sentiment and unvarnished earnestness, and expressions of anger, sorrow, joy, hope, pessimism, disappointment, frustration, hope, bewilderment, amusement, irony, fear and hope, sometimes all at the same time.

And nothing should change with the discussions in the comment section.

That was the key thing for me in deciding on this migration, and the only issue over which the Slacktivixen threatened to exercise her spousal veto power with regard to the move. If hosting the blog at Patheos would have meant any interruption in her regular dose of the insightful, funny, sometimes rough-and-tumble but always boisterously kind conversation ongoing in comments here then she wouldn't have allowed this to happen. (I forget how she put it exactly, but it was something like, "Don't worry, honey, I always go back and read what you wrote too, eventually …")

The new site will have a WordPress platform, using Disqus for comments, and both of those seem a bit more user-friendly than the current/soon-to-be-former system here. Disqus has a painless one-time registration, or you can sign in through Facebook or the other usual suspects. But the Typepad quirks — pagination, runaway italics, etc. — should all be fixed. (I'm also hoping to get the Left Behind archives organized in a format that will make them easier to read from the beginning.)

If we set up the redirects and the exporting of the old archives properly the transition to the new URL — www.patheos.com/community/slacktivist/ — should be just about seamless.

So anyway, enough reassurances about the non-disruptive part of this news, let's get to the fun part.

Patheos is a religion portal site. The tag line there is "Balanced Views of Religion and Spirituality with Faith." It's a broadly inclusive site, hosting sections for Buddhists, Catholics, Evangelicals, Hindus, Jews, Mainline Protestants, Mormons, Muslims and Pagans. So far. A Humanist section is in the works. Each of those sections contains and welcomes an expanding diversity of perspectives based on a hospitable sense of mutual respect.

This isn't a lowest-common-denominator big tent where people from different perspectives come together under the pretense that they don't have different perspectives or that those differences aren't real and important and vital.

It is, rather, an expression of the kind of robust pluralism I've often spoken of and advocated for here. Joining the larger framework of Patheos helps support my efforts to live out that kind respectful living together. It seemed like a more tangible step than just getting one of those cool "Coexist" bumper stickers for the Yaris. (And it's a helpful, structural guardrail against the danger of epistemic closure — an ailment that's far easier to diagnose in others than in oneself.)

The spirit of the site reminds me of one of my favorite books, How To Be A Perfect Stranger. Technically I suppose that's an etiquette book, teaching about customs and conventions and norms in different religious traditions, so that if you're ever called upon to attend a Hindu wedding, or a Presbyterian funeral, or a Church of God in Christ picnic, you'll know what to expect and how to behave. But in a larger sense, Perfect Stranger discusses matters of etiquette only because it sees them as an expression of the Golden Rule — of treating others with the same respect, kindness and love we want to be treated with ourselves.

You'll find that same commitment to the Golden Rule in evidence if you take some time to surf around at Patheos.com. That's the main reason why I'm excited and very pleased to be making this move.

My hope is that you'll be very pleased by this, too, and I think you will. But if you encounter any reasons not to be, please be sure to let me know about any glitches, bugs, bumps, set-backs or annoyances as we start rolling things over to the new site as smoothly as we can.

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