The Perils of Christian Blogging

I thought this was a Christian website - so why is he running that ad?

The problem

I have no philosophical or ethical problem with Christians allowing advertisements or selling products via their vast, far-flung internet empires - after all, the bills must be paid. However, I do believe that Christians must be vigilant and follow the Scriptural admonition to know the state of your flock - in other words, keep tabs on what is happening in your business. (Prov. 27:23)

It's important for me to know what ads are running on my blogs or websites. I don't want to be cheesy or, worse, display ads which my readership will view as morally inappropriate. Nor do I think it's sufficient to run a disclaimer (as I've seen at least one website do) saying they don't endorse the websites in their adspace. The result? I've seen apologetics websites running ads for all kinds of things and organizations which they are probably writing and preaching against!

Being vigilant...

Advertisements do appear on this blog from time to time which I find offensive and which my readers probably will, too. So, I deal with them as soon as possible. I never knew until today that there was such a thing as selling "gay cars," but when I saw the big ad promoting it, I immediately logged into my ad account and blocked that URL from running any more ads on my blog. Are there people who deliberately target Christian blogs for this sort of thing? Can't say... but Christians who blog about certain social issues (rather unavoidable in my home state) need to be vigilant and know what's running on their site. I don't think that's asking for too much, and it will avoid misunderstanding on the part of your readers who may not know why you are "running" such an ad or may conclude that you are a lazy blogger.

And if anybody's eyeballs popped out by seeing the car ad, sorry...

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