While this blog has always been public, it has never been written for a general audience. It presupposes specific foundational beliefs. The foundation of most things said here is found in scripture, and the ideas are described in a way that appeals to it (see the banner of this blog: "Explaining the prophecies and the scriptures to all who desire to hear them.") It is odd to me that anyone who does not believe the scriptures would spend their time on this blog, let alone looking for things they don't agree with, of which there are surely many.
When I started this blog nearly ten years ago, I did so as a way of organizing my own thoughts--a public study journal of sorts. It has been cathartic to be able to think out loud, and beneficial to hear the feedback of others.. It's never been highly curated writing, and that hasn't been a problem before. I expected that there would be a time when this format would no longer be sufficient, and it seems that time has come.
We live in a world of increasingly uneven tolerance for ideas that differ from what we already believe.
We live in a world increasingly focused on conclusions, rather than the process and reasons that generated the conclusions.
We live in a world of increasing willingness to use reason only to rationalize what has already been decided, rather than to maintain an open mind to new perspectives.
We live in a world where ideas are increasingly required to be perfect in order to be good, and are valued by absence of any perceived weakness vs. net strength.
These shifts have been faster than I expected. We now live in a world where censorship of ideas leads to unprecedented homogeneity of thought. Diversity of ideas provides potential value when reality changes or turns out to be different than we thought. When we suppress ideas different than what we already believe, we not only limit what we can become to what we already are, we make ourselves unnecessarily vulnerable to unanticipated challenges.
It's important to me to spend the little discretionary time I have doing what my understanding suggests is the most significant good I can do. After spending most of the night analyzing the cost and benefit of maintaining this blog, I have decided that the costs outweigh the benefits. Those of you who have been paying attention will not be surprised.
There may be a time when I am able to go through some previous posts and make them more suitable for general audiences, but I doubt that will be any time soon due to the book projects absorbing my free time for the foreseeable future. There are probably quite a few posts that could be republished as is, but I think the time will quickly come where overtly religious ideas are as taboo as ones that are perceived as social issues are now. Of course, there will very likely be a time where you can't get your hands on books, either.
I appreciate the 300 or so readers who have taken the time to regularly read what I write here, and I hope it has helped you. For everyone who remains interested in doing so, I refer you to the already-published and to-be-published books I will continue to link here. Books are different format that blogs. They allow longer-form arguments and don't suppose so much of the foundation of common understanding I have assumed in the posts here. While this precludes writing short entries on specific ideas, hopefully the general principles laid out in the books provide at least as much value to you as you navigate your life.