The Tavernistas

I’ve been working on a few other projects over the course of the holiday and haven’t had the slightest desire to open up The Da Vinci Code and document more of Dan Brown’s errors. But it has been hard to avoid noting the explosion over the past week of a “blog war” as it is being called (a bit melodramatic for my tastes) once again focused upon he-who-starts-blog-wars, Michael Spencer, aka, “iMonk.”
   
This one got started because, as is his pattern, iMonk posted an article that was, well, quite self-revealing. In fact, if you ask me, it was not proper to post it in public. In fact, posting that kind of stuff in public is an open invitation for exactly what happened. If you are Dr. Introspective, then you might wish to write such things for a…limited audience? But when you have a long history of being hyper-sensitive to any and all comments by others (though you seem quite willing to dish it out yourself), you might consider the wisdom of such a course of action.
   
Well, ol’ centuri0n, who used to be a regular in my chat channel, but is too busy for us little people anymore (especially since Pyromaniac has eaten with him and put graphics of him on his blog, rocketing him into the very upper echelon of the blogosphere), commented on one of iMonk’s introspective (and provocative) posts, and KABOOM! went iMonk once again. But more than this, iMonk has followers, very properly identified by Steve Hays as the “Tavernistas.” They are a truly fascinating conglomeration of folks who take the “this is a tavern” mantra way, way too seriously. A few have a rather salty tongue too, if you know what I mean (taverns are not known for their concern to glorify God through control of the tongue). In any case, they came forth from their tavern, beer mugs in hand and pitchforks at the ready, in defense of their leader, and well, the rest is history.
   
Most of you know all of this anyway, so why comment on it? Well, today I see this “suggestion” that this blog ignore that blog, and this blog not allow comments mentioning that blog, and this person get to have editing rights on that blog, and so on and so forth, and I have to just roll my eyes and go, “What??” You’ve got to be kidding! Spencer has even pulled the original post, though he continues to dangle it out there by musing he might make it a password-protected file or something.
   
I blog mainly to provide apologetic information to folks that I hope will help them be more confident, proclaiming, grounded Christians in an ever more hostile world. Sometimes I blog out of personal enjoyment (the personal articles) and to demonstrate that you can be an apologist and plain ol’ human being, too. But I do not blog to play mind-games with folks or to get the adoration of others, and to be perfectly honest, I’m starting to wonder if the BHT (Boar’s Head Tavern) isn’t starting to take on the characteristics of a proto-personality-cult. Whatever it is, I sure don’t suggest wandering in there. It is clearly a place of great confusion, and not a little bit of anger. Pass by quietly, dear traveler.