Remonstrans is the best blog in all the world. Nowadays it is not what it was in the days when posts came more thick and fast and the threads lit up thanks to the ample supply of froward persons willing to vent their diabolical outrage in the name of the Lord. But blogging is a lot more serene nowadays, compared to 2005 and the hothouse days of blogging. The froward still try to chip away at dissidens every once in a while, but he is more reluctant to revisit the old battles having gone through them pretty thoroughly time and again. If you have been following carefully since the beginning, and aren’t froward (deliberately obtuse or too invested in corruption to open your eyes), then you can’t still be the same.

And if you publicly agree with him you have felt the strength of the rather unintelligent animosity of those who for various reasons are stung by what is posted on that blog. It is like being jeered at by the inhabitants of Gath: a badge of honor.

I’m not sure why so many people feel the impulse to set him straight (I suppose it is what the natural man does when he ought to be repenting instead), but I’m very glad they do and learned very early to do nothing in my comments but to goad them along—not sure I always succeeded but it was always fun. Some of the most persuasive things that happened on Remonstrans were the kinds of responses people made to what dissidens said, inadvertently confirming the truth of what he said—I’ve done it too, and it was enlightening. Dissidens responds to the audience, and takes on honest—and sometimes dishonest, but he’s pretty canny about it, which really frustrates the froward—questions and even accepts suggestions. I know because I had a hand in a few of the posts (and so have others) by sending him a link or by posing a question.

(We are still waiting for more installments on Café Perplexa, especially Nat’s meeting with a fundamentalist. It reminds me that we are still waiting on me to finish the Chronicles of Fundamentarlia, on which I intend to work.)

I’m glad he’s right and I’m glad he’s around, and as long as there are posts on Remonstrans (not to mention a nice altercation with enormities in the threads), I’m glued.