The name and purpose of this blog

The internet and blogs are interesting places to learn and exchange ideas. I’m hardly new to this world, though I have been slow to create my own blog. I suppose I’ve been too busy or too lazy, or perhaps a bit of both. A friend originally suggested the name of this blog to me more than a year and a half ago. Yet it bears further explanation as it is a play on words in more than one way.

First, theologically I am a Lutheran, or an Evangelical (evangelisch) in the historical, Reformational sense of the word. For reasons that I will explain later, however, I am a member of a Baptist church, a church that one in America today might commonly associate with the term “Evangelical.” Second, although I went through a period in my life in which I seriously considered becoming either a Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox, this blog isn’t about swimming the Tiber, Catholic or Protestant apologetics, Protestant-Catholic relations and the like. Indeed, “Rome” for me is simply the city where I live, Rome, Georgia. And Rome, Georgia is an old Southern town. The people here are either nominally or in practice overwhelmingly associated with “Evangelical” churches in the common sense of the term, namely Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterian, Pentecostals, and non-denominational churches. You’re a lot more likely to find revivals, altar calls, and praise bands in the churches in my Rome than rosaries, masses, and so forth.

My intention is that this blog will give me a new forum for my ideas on theology, culture, politics, humor, and whatever else I find interesting. I promise not to blog about what I ate for breakfast and other trivial matters. And I will generally avoid issues related to my personal life. I hope the reader finds this blog informative and perhaps entertaining at times. I welcome comments and discussion on this blog. It is my house, however, and as such I reserve the right to remove any comments I consider inappropriate. Just follow the golden rule and you’ll be fine here. If the title and my eclectic links still have you confused, I should be able to clear things up in time on this blog. Or maybe not.