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Watching the Herd

I started reading Rachel’s blog years ago. The comment section was more fun before it got so big. Bigness in comments sections tend to be their death. Increasingly I went from reading to skimming to scanning the RSS. After a while it seemed I could pretty much predict the post first from the title and then from the just from the news story.

When there is a dust-up, like the Wheaton one I often compile a link of responses. The responses are the interesting thing to watch in terms of getting a feel for communities. I thought “surely Rachel is blogging on this” so I cruised over there to see. No posting since Dec 5 and that obviously not on the subject. The December 5 posting, however, did not disappoint.

A Lightening Rod Chasing the Storm

Rachel is smart and a good writer and it was easy to see early that her sincere, earnest voice could attract a following. She became the voice for a cohort of Southern millennials whose experience in American evangelicalism was increasingly at odds with the prevailing culture.

I wrote a review of the book in 2010 and tweeted in June of 2010 “reading Monkey Town by @rachelheldevans , the story of a nice evangelical overachiever meeting the information age”

That’s 5 years ago now and it’s helpful to do some summing up. Her December 5 posting does that nicely. She’s no longer newly married but now has a child on the way. I would imagine her career dreams have come true in that she is now a recognized author and speaker. Her blog posting has diminished substantially and where a few years ago a posting like that of December 5 would have quickly gathered hundreds of comments I noticed there were about 65 as of today. I remember she herself in a past posting offering advice to bloggers noted that regular posting is essential to building traffic. The reverse I assume is also true.

She had posts in Time, Salon, CNN and other major websites. When there was a controversy she could be counted upon to chime in and zealously pursue a cause. She’s still pretty active on Twitter in this way but the blogging has slowed down.

She made a name for herself as a lightening rod chasing the storm, but this posting, which I think in some ways marks her as less wandering and more settling means she’s no longer making an effort to always chase those storms.

The Prophecy
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