Over the years, we at Stand to Reason have truly benefitted from the blog comments, and I hope you have, too. The comments have given us a chance to evaluate feedback on our arguments, anticipate future objections, and refine our thinking. They’ve given us an opportunity to interact with some of you and model interactions for others, which both makes us better mentors and provides a unique way for us to mentor you.
But the Internet has changed a lot since we started this blog back in February of 2005. The number of comments (and particularly, commenters) has dropped off as people have moved their conversations about our posts onto their own personal social media outlets. For them, this move has the added advantage of accountability and civility, as they’re engaging friends, family, and co-workers whom they know and interact with in person. This is something we want to encourage, as interacting with anonymous strangers online these days has the negative potential of training Christians to not only expect incivility from non-Christians (resulting in a constantly defensive posture on the part of Christians), but also to respond in kind.
As a result of this and other considerations about how we can best use our time and resources to help you become better ambassadors for Christ, STR has decided to close down the comments here on the blog. In the coming months, we’ll be considering new ways of mentoring you and encouraging your interaction with others, particularly on your own social media platforms.
Going forward, the comments on future posts will be closed, but we’ll allow the comments for past posts to close three weeks after publication, as usual, giving you a chance to finish up your current conversations.
I want to especially thank those tried-and-true commenters who have been with us for several years. Your challenges, your encouragement, and your responses to others have been invaluable to me. Thank you!