Announcements

Reality, Part 2

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Yesterday, I asked why Christians are so loathe to deal with economic issues that extend beyond the merely personal. 

My post today deals with the personal.

Cerulean Sanctum has been around since September of 2003. I had a blog called The Boiled Frog Blog that ran for a few years before CS, so I'm ancient in the blogging realms. Yep, five years makes you a geezer.

This blog started as an outlet for ministry when none existed for me. I'm a stay-at-home dad who homeschools, tends our growing farm, and writes professionally as a freelance commercial writer. I aspire to be a published novelist, so I'm working toward that ends, too. But most of all, I'm a man with a deep desire to disciple others in Christ by asking tough questions that other Christians tend to avoid. The only way to grow deep disciples is to  challenge them to wrestle with difficult solutions to intractable problems. If you've read this blog long enough, you've witnessed this firsthand.

Jonathan V. Last, editor of The Daily Standard, encouraged me to begin blogging by writing what I'm passionate about. My passion is the American Church. For that reason, I've tackled many heavy church-related subjects here at Cerulean Sanctum. Dan EdelenEvery week I get private e-mails from folks saying that this blog has been a blessing just by being unafraid to confront the Gordian Knots that face the American Church. I thank every one of you who have written. Your notes mean the world to me.

Because of the nature of this blog, I long ago decided to reject any kind of advertising here. I don't believe it's possible to remain objective on a blog if you're accepting advertising money from outsiders. And what the American Church needs more than anything are Christians who are unafraid to tackle all aspects of the Faith in all aspects of life no matter who that puts out. For this reason, you'll never find outside advertisers on Cerulean Sanctum. It's too much of an incentive to start catering to whomever is sponsoring this blog. If Cerulean Sanctum ever lost its edge, there'd be no reason to come here.

There are no Amazon or PayPal donation buttons to press at Cerulean Sanctum, either. I have received freely, so I give freely.

I do, however, believe a workman should earn his own keep.

I've come close to shutting this blog down numerous times, usually because I feel I'm only adding more talk to an American Christianity already mired in hearing itself talk. Talk is cheap; action is what matters. And a Christianity ensconced in a crystal flask is as far from the vital reality of the Church Jesus Christ founded as the farthest galaxy is from the computer monitor you're reading this on right now.

I'm NOT shutting down Cerulean Sanctum. However, my reality is that my family is increasingly pressed by the economic issues we face in America, issues that are not good and are not getting better. This has forced me to be objective. I can't devote time to Cerulean Sanctum if I can't keep pace with skyrocketing costs in so many sectors of our economy. While God has blessed me with outstanding clients and blessed me further by their deep appreciation for my writing skills, unless I can devote more time to securing at least five more of them to make up the increasing differential we face, I won't be able to give Cerulean Sanctum the best of what I can offer. It would continue to exist, albeit in a drastically diminished form. I don't believe that must happen, though.

This is where you come in. If you're a long-time Cerulean Sanctum reader, you know that I firmly believe that we Christians must do a better job of working with each other to meet each others' needs. My need is to add more clients to my roster. If you would like to help me locate at least five new clients who need the skills I can provide as a freelance commercial writer, please e-mail me at the address at right. I don't wish to do any more plugging here, but through an e-mail I can let you know the types of writing I provide and the well-known companies and organizations I've written for.

Folks, we need each other. No one is an island. Tough times are on the way. Thanks for helping my family through them by assisting me with this request.

May the Lord bless you abundantly and beyond your fondest desire.

Dan

“Gut Check” Series

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Gut check...Announcing a new, limited series featuring questions Christians are loathe to confront.

This is not a series dealing with the standard milieu of "Did God create evil?" or "Well, what about the guy on the desert island who never got to hear the Gospel?" stumpers. No, these are more gut check questions.

Because the nature of these questions is deeply personal, feel free to respond anonymously. I will setup Cerulean Sanctum to allow for anonymous comments during the duration of the series. (After the series is over, you'll have to supply an e-mail address again.)

Stay tuned… 

Other posts in this series:

“Unshackling the American Church” Series Announcement

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Rarely do I read a book that leaves me saying “Amen” after every sentence. More amazing is the fact that this book, while it does deal with Christian thought and living, resides in the Politics section of your average secular bookstore. So dead-on accurate is the content, though, that I’m considering starting a new category of Essential Reading in my sidebar just to house it.

Long-time readers know that I take great care to avoid bringing politics into this blog. But this book is not so much a tome on politics as it is on living a sacramental lifestyle that goes beyond the glitz and gloss of modern-day Evangelicalism in America to a new vision of life that is truly ancient.Rod Dreher's Crunchy Cons

The book? Crunchy Cons by Rod Dreher.

Dreher’s released one for the ages. In fact, this book is so good that I’m hacked off at him for writing it because what he’s penned is the next book I had planned to write (although mine was aimed more squarely at the Church).

The gist of this book explores a little-known tribe living in the United States: Political conservatives, usually Evangelical Christians, who are dropping out of the rat race by going back to traditional ways of life that existed in pre-Industrial-Revolution America. Anyone who’s caught my epic The Christian & the Business World series is well-acquainted with my views on the dire need for Christians to rise up and question our lifestyles, the non-stop, community-destroying, materialistic live-for-today zeitgeist we’ve adopted indiscriminantly.

As the subtitle proclaims, the book gathers under its wings the disenfranchised out there who firmly believe that conserving the family unit, better stewarding creation, restoring genuine community, and overseeing local market economies by restoring America’s agrarian heritage, will recapture the essence of what it means to live a full life that honors God, family, neighbor, and country.

Weeping is not my normal reaction to reading anything, but this book has so far uncorked a torrent in me. And while too many Christians in America brush all this off as utopian nonsense—even as they adjust the volume on their latest in a string of iPods and munch on genetically-modified tasteless veggies—I’m imploring readers of this book to check it out, if only for the first few chapters.

Despite the finale of the subtitle, I’m personally not interested in saving the Republican Party, but I am for saving conservative values—even if truly conservative values look more like some of the elements of the Left than the Right. The kind of conservativism championed by Edmund Burke in no way bears any resemblance to the “free-markets-at-any-cost” stupidity we see enshrined by today’s GOP, but that’s okay. If enough of us drop out of the prevailing societal madness, someone will notice and want to court our vote.

Though Dreher’s beaten me to the punch, I know that you know I’ve been talking these points for a while, so in concert with my reading of Crunchy Cons, I’ll be starting a series called “Unshackling the American Church” that will further examine many of the issues I’ve touched on at Cerulean Sanctum, ideas that dovetail with Dreher’s book.

Stay tuned. I promise a mind—and possibly soul—altering ride.

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Other posts in the “Unshackling the American Church” series: