I have been wrestling with this issue for quite a while. As many of my readers know, I’m no friend of the watchblogs. And I have read multiple posts by other people asking “Who watches the watchers?”, i.e. who’s checking to be sure that the heretic hunters don’t become heretical themselves?

I used to have quite a long commute every day, and I listened to a lot of talk radio. At some point, though, I realized that the idiocy being exposed by the hosts (with whom I agreed most of the time) was so rampant, that it was making me angry. Which, in Atlanta rush hour, is not a good thing. So, for the sake of my own blood pressure, I scaled way back on the amount of talk radio that I listened to, and there are some hosts that I don’t listen to at all anymore.

While I generally don’t read the watchblogs that much, I have been exposed to them (through the links of others whom I read) enough to start wondering if I needed to cut down on the exposure, because the unChristlike nature absolute lunacy that gets passed off as spiritual discernment often makes me angry. So, for the sake of my own blood pressure, I was giving serious consideration to removing exposure, even if that meant no longer reading some blogs that I really like or maybe even dropping out of the blogosphere altogether. In short, I was wondering if my right eye was offending me.

Then I read about how watchblog A had attacked Christian B, and a heavily-read secular news-gathering site had caught wind of the whole thing. They (and most of the 83 people who commented on the link) thought the whole thing was ridiculous. Sadly, most of them also attributed this attack as representative of Christianity, and who would want to be involved in something like that? So here we have unbelievers merrily sliding off to hell, and people who claim the name of Christ are greasing the skids. This made me angrier, and I started wondering if I needed to be a voice countering this.

Add to that the fact that this particular watchblog does not allow many dissenting comments (unless they can easily be discredited or mocked), but lets everything from the “amen corner” through. Add to that the fact that some dissenters have been banned altogether so that the watchblog managers don’t have to even stick their fingers in their ears and go “la-la-la-la-la-la-i-can’t-hear-you”. And finally, that watchblog ended comments altogether recently — one would have to assume that the dissenters had gotten louder than the “amen corner”. In the announcement of the termination of comments, the watchblog even suggested that those with opposing views start their own blog. While I ordinarily don’t take advice from the watchblogs, this was enough to get me to look to see if ibegtodiffer.com was available (sadly, it’s not).

I was even considering making this a team effort, if there were others interested. I started compiling a list of folks who had commented on the watchblog, only to see their comments deleted or — worse yet — they were banned altogether.

The ideas were all coming together pretty nicely, but I still was a bit unsure about the whole thing. So I was composing a post in which I would describe this situation and solicit advice from anyone who wanted to comment. I was even willing to hear comments from the watchbloggers and their supporters, although there would have been a grain of salt involved.

Then I ran across something tonight. Two parties — both of whom I admire, and both of whom I agree with in some aspects and disagree with in others — had decried the other.* I didn’t find it on a watchblog, but I’d bet the farm that one side of the issue has been covered on the watchblog, particularly because one of the two parties is one of their favorite whipping boys. But as I read both parties’ statements, I was thinking about how counter-productive the whole thing was. Then I was reminded of a movie scene.

In the movie City Hall, Al Pacino plays the mayor of New York with John Cusack as his deputy mayor. In one scene, Pacino sends Cusack to a meeting with Frank Anselmo (played by Danny Aiello). Cusack’s character is to tell Frank Anselmo, the Brooklyn borough political boss, that the city is not going to finance the projects that Anselmo has been pushing for. “But,” warns Pacino, “don’t [urinate] up his leg.” That, however, is exactly what Cusack winds up doing, and Anselmo walks out of the meeting. When Pacino later asks Cusack how it went, he replies, “I think I just [urinated] up Frank Anselmo’s leg . . . and it felt good.” Cusack had exerted his political power (as granted him by Pacino) and he liked it.

There’s an old adage in Christendom — “The army of God is the only army that shoots its wounded.” In other words (totally forgetting about Galatians 6:1), when another Christian is sinning, rather than “restor[ing] such a one”, we take Don Henley’s advice and “kick ‘em while they’re down”. I don’t know that that’s the case so much anymore. Sadly, it’s not that Christians are now obeying Scripture. It’s just that we’re not shooting each other anymore — we’re urinating up each other’s legs, instead. But, there’s one distinct difference between the Christian and Cusack — God never granted us the power (like Pacino did for Cusack) to urinate up other people’s legs.

I have come to the conclusion that watchblogging is simply urinating up someone else’s leg. The contention that anyone genuinely benefits from it is ludicrous. The dissenters are angered, the “amen corner” simply has its suspicions confirmed, and the writers get to pat themselves on the back that they’re being agreed with and that they’re not like those that they criticize.

Unfortunately, I have to admit that I am judged by what judgment I judge with. More often than not (even when one is trying to be very careful), responding to the watchblogs’ stupidity quickly descends into fighting fire with fire — or to follow the metaphor more accurately — fighting urine with urine.

And so the watchbloggers will be happy to know that one of their critics is going away. My right eye isn’t offending me, but I am in serious need of some Visine. I’m not dropping out of the blogosphere altogether, but I will be eliminating some of the blogs that I read and avoiding reading the comments on others. This is not so much for my blood pressure’s sake as it is because it’s the right thing to do.

There is a well-known illustration that those who attempt to prevent the counterfeiting of money study the real thing intently, so that they can recognize the counterfeit easily. They do not spend all (or even much) of their time examining the counterfeit. Ironically, while watchbloggers applaud this illustration, sometimes claim it as their own and even see it as validation of their “discernment”, incessantly studying the counterfeit is what watchblogging is all about. This illustration doesn’t validate them — it condemns them.

So, I am also going to be making a concerted effort to study and share the “real stuff” so that my readers know the counterfeit when they see it. I have done this in the past, but it’s time to ramp up. I think my first foray will be to start with the “Study Mercy” series that I commited to a long time ago, and then quickly did nothing about.

I do not condemn those who decry the watchbloggers’ trips into misinformation, misrepresentation, and outright heresy. I would, however, caution them to be careful. Don’t spend too much time on them or you become a watchblogger yourself.

Then, all you have on your hands is a “urination match”.

* Please don’t ask me what the situation was or who the parties were. And if you’re guessing, no, it wasn’t the Caner/White cage fight.