"Recent" Posts from my Blog Roll

Blog Insider: An unsolicited and superfluous look beyond the minutiae 

 Today's Episode: Recent Posts from My Blog Roll

What is a Blog Roll?

It is a list of other blogs that appears on a sidebar of blogs and websites.  Each blog listed contains a link to the blog and often contains a link to the most recent post.  Some will include a snippet of the most recent post, and the date last posted.

Are Blog Rolls still popular?

Blog Rolls used to be a very popular feature of blogs because they were an easy way to find other blogs to follow.  Just as blogs have lost popularity over the years blog rolls have as well.  One of these is due to technological advances.  At the height of blogging popularity computers were the main way blogs were accessed.  Now that cell phones are supreme, many people access blogs on those or on iPads.  When you access a blog on a phone, the blog looks different and a lot of the features like a blogroll can not be seen readily.  On my phone, I can switch to the regular computer view on the bottom of my screen but I assume very few people do that.  Also, many people just subscribe to blog content and don't access the entire blog that way.

Call me a Blogosaur.

I continue to use my blog and format ir like it was 2009.  I use my blogroll as a way of keeping up with my favorite blogs and even in my lean months (June through October) when I'm not posting as much, I am still on my blog using it to access the most recent posts from other blogs that I follow.  

I currently have 53 blogs listed on my main blogroll.  I have them listed by hy how recently they posted so the most current content keeps on coming to the top.  I do list on my blog roll how recent the posts are so I can tell you that as of 1:00 p.m. central time today (November 5th) I  follow fourteen blogs that have posted in the last 24 hours. Nineteen more blogs were posted at least once in the last week.  An additional eight more were posted between a week and a month ago. Seven more were posted between a month and 6 months ago, leaving five more posted in the last 12 months.  On another blog roll that I have titled" These blogs are so last year,"  there are 3 blogs that haven't been posted on for over 12 months. For the rest of this post, I will link 1 blog from each of these categories and state how I've come to follow it,

Posted in the last 24 hours

For the most part, the blogs that fit into this category are blogs that post very frequently often with multiple posts a day.  This isn't always the case, sometimes I might catch a blog that only posts every 5 or 6 weeks immediately after their recent post.  But as I said, for the most part, these are blogs that are constantly providing new content.

The Sound of One Hand Typing  is a blog I have discovered through my association with the A to Z blogging challenge that takes place every April.  The most recent post by John Holton is his prompts for the Weekly Writers Workshop that he holds on his blog.  I have participated in this the past few weeks and hope to join the fun again later this week.

Posted in the past week.  

The blogs here could be of the variety where they post on average once or more e  a week or they could be recent posts of blogs that blog a little more sporadically than that. Lindy Scott is someone I've mentioned on my blog multiple times.  Back in the mid 80's he was one of my first pastors, and has been both a mentor and hero of mine.  He has recently retired from a career in academia as a professor of Political Science.  His most recent post is called "Trump's Plan to Eliminate the Federal Income Tax: Why would any Sane Person Support it?" Its title indicates that it is an analysis and critique of Trump's most recent idea,  

Posted in the last month.  

\Some of these blogs are updated every 10 days or so and some of them are updated quarterly or more it just depends at what point you catch them.  Andy Unedited is one of my favorite blogs about literature, editing, publishing, and biblical living.  What else would you expect from a former editor at Inter-Varsity Press?  Andy Le Peau's most recent post, A True to Life Allegory, a review of a book that combines John Bunyan's A Pilgrim's Progress with Peter Kreeft's  Between Heaven and Hell.  It sounds intriguing as it intertwines two of my favorite books by two of my favorite authors,   The retired editor did spell Bunyan wrong, but, then again,  he once wrote a post called Confessions of a Bad Speller, so that's understandable.

Posted in the last 6 months

The 6 blogs listed here run the gamut from "where blogs go to die" (formerly prolific posters now on their last legs), semi-whenever posters, and some who are still on hiatus after finishing the April A to Z blog fest.  Another Fearless Year may look like it's on its way out.  After averaging over 80 posts per year between 2019 and 2021, it has only generated 18 posts since then.  I am hopeful, however as two of those posts were in September of this year.  The most recent of which, Grief, A Brief Description, is an excellent poem.

Posted in the last year

This is a kind of an endangered blog list.  Some of these still publish but are now on yu tube or another type of platform.  Some only post during the A to Z challenge which now ended over 6 months ago.  The A to Z challenge blog is an excellent example of the latter.  Its most recent post is about the A to Z Road Trip.

Posted more than a year ago

At midnight on New Year's Day each year, I change the name of my blog roll to "These Blogs are so last year."   As the blogs post new content,  I remove them from that blogroll and then decide whether to put them on the new blogroll or part company with the blog. Generally, by the end of March, almost all these blogs have posted again.  There are always some stragglers.  The Star Trek Sci-Fi Blog  , for example, went 22 months between January of 2023 and October of 2024 in between content. I just changed blog rolls on it at the end of this month. 3 blogs have not added content since 2023 and I really don't expect any of them to do so before the end of the year.  One, near and dear to my heart, is a blog I encourage my oldest daughter to share her poetry. The last poem she shared on the blog was called Growing Up. Fortunately, she has other outlets for her poetry and continues to write just not on her blog.

The deep dive into the minutiae of this blog is over for now.  But when I think of more information less exciting than watching paint dry, Ill be certain to share it again.

The Protestants are here

The Protestants are here. 

 That's what my father-in-law would say when our family would come to visit. My father-in-law and my father, as I mentioned in my last post, were both the oldest of 7 children and were both raised Catholic. I was thinking of my F-I-L today . There is a student in my school with  his exact first and last name, and I was subbing in that student’s first period class today.  Their first name is Donnell so it's not exactly an every day name.

My wife's Dad was not only raised Catholic, but he also was a Benedictine Brother living in a monastery before he gave up his vows and married  my mother-in-law.   So when he called us Protestants,  this was a little more than the average layman's opinion. 

This opinion was true. We were in fact, Protestants.  We never referred to each other as such.  While it was true that both Amy and I had grown own of our Catholic beliefs and were attending a Bible church when we married, we simply referred to our selves as Christians. 

It was on this day in 1517 that a professor of moral theology at the University of Wittenberg by the name of Martin Luther is credited for changing the course of religious history and making a distinction between Protestants and Catholics.

What's A Catholic?

The first use of Catholic dates back to 110 A.D. It basically means universal.  Saying the Catholic Church in it's original meaning was talking about all Christians.  In AD. 380 Christianity became the state religion of the Roman empire.  In essence the Roman Catholic church just means the Christian church operating in Rome.  

What's a Protestant?

A Protestant is called this because historically  they protested against the teachings of the Catholic church.  These protests led to the Protestant reformation.  The reformation was meant to reform the Catholic church not to necessary split from it,

Martin Luther was one of the original reformers. He nailed 95 theses on the wall of the Wittenberg Door.  These theses were protesting Catholic practices like indulgences.

What's an indulgence?

In the medieval church, a system developed of how to earn your way out of purgatory into heaven.  It began as  a series of "good works" like fighting in the crusades and then devolved into a practice of purchasing indulgences from the church in order to get sins forgiven.  Lost in all these practices were the biblical teachings of Grace, Faith and Redemption.  One of the myriad reasons for this is that the truth of the Bible was not accessible at time to the masses.  The Protestant reformation  that followed changed 

Christianity back to its Biblical roots. 

What Separates Protestantism And Catholicism?

The Reformation highlighted 5 core beliefs that distinguished it from the Catholic church.  These are often referred to as the 5 Solas (Latin for Alone).

Sola Gratia  - Faith Alone 

Salvation is in no way deserved, cannot be earned and is entirely from God.

Sola Scriptura - Scripture Alone

The Bible is God's authority on how we are to live.

Sola Christus - Christ Alone

The Bible teaches that salvation  comes from Jesus Christ.

Sola Fide - Faith Alone

Faith (not works) in Jesus Christ is the only way to Salvation

Soli Deo Gloria - Only God receives the glory

There is nothing special in us that allows us to be saved.

My Father In Law would often use the phrase Sola Scriptura but not in a positive sense.  He disagreed that scripture in itself was enough.  This is not only a typically Catholic belief but it is also present in all of us.  It is in our nature  to think more of ourselves and our traditions than actually exist.  The truth is that we as individuals and institution are always in need of Bible based reformation.  I hope today on Reformation Day and every day you endeavor to let God reform you into his image. The image of God who created, lived for, died for , and redeemed you.  It sometimes may seem tricky but it really is a treat. 

  

95 Reasons by First Call