This is a version 2 for CMRC 2010 in Toronto.

1. Practising what we preachAuthority, Technorati and religious bloggers Paul Emerson Teusner :: RMIT University :: CMRC 2010

2. The study Part of wider study into online religious identities Sample of 30 Australian blogs that fall within the “emerging church” conversation Technorati & Google searches As identified by bloggers themselves As identified by other bloggers Paul Emerson Teusner - AoIR 9.0 2

3. The study Posts, comments and links made between 1 July and 31 October 2006 Rhetoric around authority and how authority is negotiated among themselves Paul Emerson Teusner - AoIR 9.0 3

4. Web 2.0 rhetoric Democratisation of production and distribution Merging of public and private spheres Death of author and rise of user Paul Emerson Teusner - AoIR 9.0 4

5. Emerging church rhetoric Inter-denominational Christians have lost the culture war Conversation more than movement Social change rather than church growth Lay leadership, disaffection with current church structures, including academic theological method Paul Emerson Teusner - AoIR 9.0 5

6. Sample Mostly Australian 3 in the top ten Technorati list 10 in the top 50 1 is written by female 1 is written by male & female couple All over 35 All religious workers 1 is #2 Paul Emerson Teusner - AoIR 9.0 6

7. Attitude to Technorati See it as unfair and flawed Those with high rankings recognise the rankings of others Try to devalue the position of themselves Paul Emerson Teusner - AoIR 9.0 7

8. Paul Emerson Teusner - AoIR 9.0 8 Andrew Jones was the equivalent of the Pope in the international Emerging Church conversation. Surely!? The nature of ‘emerging’ is that most people involved in the grassroots could not care less about who is blogging, publishing, speaking, or leading excellent worship experiences in high profile events. Duncan - Pacific highlander9 August 2006

9. Paul Emerson Teusner - AoIR 9.0 9 Hefty praise from Mr No.1 on Technorati! :) Hamo - backyard missionary 30 July 2006 According to this list of the Top 50 emerging church blogs, this blog is just not influential. Based on their method, this page should have been clinging to the bottom of the list. [...] So why point it out? Well it isn’t to complain about not making the list, I’m not much into lists and infact think it is a little worrying when church bloggers obsess about them. The thing a number of A-Listers won’t admit is that a bit of their linkeage comes from people desperate to generate traffic for their own blogs. Fernando - Fernando's desk 19 July 2006

10. Paul Emerson Teusner - AoIR 9.0 10 I love a lot of things about the "emerging church" movement. I've written various things on this here site that could be construed as a bit EC. I'm even #133 on the technorati emerging church blog listing. But... Dave - Aropax nation 4 August 2006 ahem . . . testing one, two, three does anyone know anything about this blogshares thing? while checking out where readers were coming from, I discovered this site that lists the X facta as being in the top 100 blogs in Melbourne my share price is a little sad :( but hey, it's not every day you get to say you're on a top 100 blog list :) Kel - X facta 13 September 2006

11. Attitude to church authority Paul Emerson Teusner - AoIR 9.0 11 The Uniting Church understands leadership very differently to this. Our prevailing model of leadership formation is for a ‘modern’, linear form of leadership. [...] Part of that conversation needs to involve a reinterpretation of the role of ministers as leaders… and an ‘imagining’ of how leaders - who aren’t the minister - can emerge within a congregation. Cheryl - [hold :: this space] 29 September 2006

12. Paul Emerson Teusner - AoIR 9.0 12 Mary Hess (Tensegrities) made a very interesting comment here recently, “…historical theology has far too narrowly conceived what we mean by theology, and in doing so cut huge numbers of people out of the conversation.” I think Mary is right. Fernando - Fernando's desk 22 August 2006 we had the video and music and compared quotes of Kurt Cobain & Marilyn Manson favourably with Jesus and quotes by Fred Nile favourably with the Pharisees. So kind of different but kind of similar. Chris - A churchless faith 2 September 2006

13. Own authority Paul Emerson Teusner - AoIR 9.0 13 Thanks for the link Hamo! I’ve never really considered myself a blogger of much importance (especially compared to many on your list) and I wasn’t really pushing to get my site linked (honestly!), it’s just when you had the “blogs I admit to reading” list I liked the idea of being in the “blogs I don’t admit to reading” list. Anyway, thanks for including me - appreciate it. :) Chris - backyard missionary 31 August 2006 But don't just take my word for it. Read some other voices. Here's just one: http://hannahim.com/blog/category/emerging/ Matt Stone - eclectic itchings 23 July 2006

14. Paul Emerson Teusner - AoIR 9.0 14 I’m not really part of the official emerging church networks and definately not being invited into the talking-shops either. However, I have been thinking about the missional, flat eccllesiological thing for over a decade now. More importantly, I’ve been doing it, trying it and playing with it for as long. I’ve run an academic reading group discussing Zizek, Baudrillard and al the usual suspects, given academic papers on theology and film, run a campus faith and film group, and so on. Fernando - Fernando's desk 6 August 2006

15. How bloggers give authority Intellectual authority Indexical authority Personal authority Paul Emerson Teusner - AoIR 9.0 15

16. Paul Emerson Teusner - AoIR 9.0 16 “We don’t really have popular culture anymore, so much as a fragmented market crowded with expertly segmented, mutually hostile opposing camps of various forms of unpopular culture.” Mark Steyn Fernando - Fernando's desk 18 August 2006 I guess I'm on of the postmodern Xns that Tom Lyberg speaks about when he says... "Slowly some postmodern Xns are rediscovering the Jesus who yelled at God for abandoning him on the cross. [...]“ Chris - A churchless faith 5 July 2006

17. Where bloggers give authority 390 hyperlinked references to the work or opinion of someone else 70% to an author of a published work, or the work itself 26% to a blogger or online work Some bloggers would make it daily practice 103 hyperlinked references to one another 62 links shared by 6 recipients Links show closer ties to three denominational groups Paul Emerson Teusner - AoIR 9.0 17

18. Considerations Links show that authority favours intellectual conversation Author still valued over user Links between blogs online determined in part by connections made offline Public discourse favoured over private discourse Religious authority in the blogosphere still... Male Educated & literate Professional Paul Emerson Teusner - AoIR 9.0 18