I almost died in October.
I didn’t realize exactly how bad it was, but that’s what my cardiologist told me about 10 days later. I returned from Africa on October 17 and thought I’d come down with the pneumonia that my grandkids and several others had. I woke up in the night with a terrible cough and tightness in my chest. Jenni was on her way home from a visit to our daughter in Cincinnati, so I was on my own. I thought about driving to the ER about 20 minutes away, but I waited. I got an appointment at the local clinic in the afternoon.
I went in and confidently told the nice lady I’d come down with pneumonia. She didn’t trust “Dr. Dave’s” diagnosis and hooked me up to an EKG. About 5 seconds later her eyes grew wide. “You are either having a heart attack or you have PE.” (Pulmonary Embolism) A good friend had died from the embolism thing so I was kinda hoping it would turn out to be a heart attack. A few minutes later I was in an ambulance to the hospital in Blair I had not gone to the night before. A couple of hours later, I was on my way to a major hospital in Omaha. It was embolisms (emboli?).
I never lost consciousness, stopped breathing, or anything, but ten days later, on my follow-up visit, my cardiologist looked at me and told me how close a call it was. As I understand it, my lungs were pretty full of these things and if they had formed higher up, instead of causing a cough, they’d have stopped me from breathing.
During November and much of December, I preached on Sunday and did a pretty good imitation of a potato on a couch. Nothing ever hit me like this. The cough went away and my heart went back into sinus rhythm. The clots are dissolving.
Why do I tell you this sob story?
Two reasons. First, I’ve had a couple of people ask me if I’ve given up on SBC Voices. All evidence would say that I have. Even before this experience, I was not writing much and the site was pretty inactive.
Second, during my period of inactivity, I’ve had time to think about what I wanted to do with SBC Voices.
Here’s the thing: I don’t want to shut it down or give it up, but I have no desire to restore it to what it became.
When I first took over SBC Voices (15 years ago), my vision was to have a place where Baptists could meet and discuss issues. I started here as a writer, then the editor left the convention and they put me in charge. Eventually, I became the owner of the site.
We became an active, vibrant site, where Baptists of all stripes came to discuss their views on issues of concern. Things morphed over time. I have some thoughts on why that happened.
1. The SBC grew increasingly toxic. Sides became more pronounced and just as it is in the secular world, it became hard to have friendly debates. It was the norm, in the years prior to 2016, for me to hang out at conventions and have meals with people I did battle with on the blogs. We’d argue on blogs then fellowship in person. Somewhere along the line, it became a blood-sport. I have my ideas as to how this happened, but it involves pointing a finger at people who likely want to point the finger at me!
2. As the toxicity grew, so did tribalism, which I had tried so hard to avoid and resist. The SBC became more and more splintered and divided into camps.
3. Issues arose which were impossible to ignore and which increased our antagonism. Some of these issues made middle ground difficult. Again, while I always hated this, I do not doubt that I fed the flames at times with my attitudes and words.
The simple fact is that blogging, which was something I loved and enjoyed, became a war. Some of my best friends are people I started out arguing with on blogs. I’m not sure Bart Barber and I ever agreed about any issue until we started going to Africa together. He’s still wrong about almost everything (ice cream, sports, choice of hats) but we realized that our faith in Christ united us far more than our disagreements over blogging issues divided us. Many of my friends today were once blogging opponents. There’s a new brand of bloggers who have a more aggressive attitude, who see friendship with those with whom you disagree as a weakness. It isn’t a discussion among brethren but nuclear war.
I lost the joy of blogging!
What about the Future?
As I’ve laid here on my couch, I have realized I’d like to do it again, but differently. I’d like to blog like the old days, if that is possible. I’d like to try.
For a few years, “SBC Voices” became a real player in SBC politics. Our writers started winning offices in the SBC and our opinions were making a difference. We moved the needle and had some real influence on this convention. I have absolutely NO desire to try to rekindle that. It was a burden, almost a full-time job. It was heady, but…no thanks. Someone else can try to climb the SBC power tree.
What I’d like to do is write and provide a forum for others to write.
- I’d like to write about theological issues and biblical truths.
- I’d like to opine on issues in the SBC.
- I’d like to opine on social and moral issues. Maybe even sports, just to annoy folks.
- I’d like to talk about missions and Great Commission.
- I’d like to discuss SBC issues with reasonable people with similar and different opinions.
- I’d like to find writers who have interesting and insightful things to say. To be honest, most of the guys who wrote here are burned out on writing at Voices. They are always welcome to dig in again if they get the desire, but we are going to need to find new guys who want to write if we are gonna resurrect the site. Of course, we all hope Mark Terry will keep on blessing us!
Our stats won’t be nearly as good this way. I used to track stats. Wow, people really liked a good, juicy controversy, according to our hits! I don’t care anymore. I just want to write and talk about stuff that matters, not every little petty SBC controversy.
People say blogging is dead. Maybe it is. Let’s see.
Looks like I may have a few more years in me after all.
