Regarding Theological Pit Bulls

I found an old post out in the blogosphere today called "Theological Pit Bulls" by Pastor Paul T. McCain on his blog Cyberbrethren: A Lutheran Blog. I am not familiar with Pastor McCain or his blog but I found this post of his when this picture came up in an image search:
CRMafia's mascot Grace looks very reserved compared to this crazy looking dog! I'm glad I found this post because the pastor fittingly expresses what has come to disgust many readers who are familiar with Calvinist/Reformed blogs:

"They have an odd way of talking theology. If you make a comment criticizing Calvinism, or Lutheranism, or anything that they hold dear, they will immediately pounce on you and attack you personally. You will be accused of being illogical, or illiterate, or incoherent, or obtuse, and so forth. If you do not meet their every post with an equal deluge of words, they seem to take it as a personal insult and then take great delight in tearing and devouring their adversaries, as they describe you. Such theological pit bulls are truly a blight on the Christian Internet experience. Perhaps their greatest danger is that they like nothing more than to drag you down to their own level of rude discourse..."

"They seem to have centered their faith around rude arguments and demeaning anyone who dares utter a word of criticism. They like to justify this behavior by appealing to 'apologetics.' But, in the end, they are really no more than pit bulls, mindlessly attacking."

I could not agree more. I once enjoyed these sort of blogs and tried to emulate them on another blog of mine at one time but I have come to see that they are indeed "a blight on the Christian Internet experience." I've been astonished at the ways that comments of mine and others have been twisted, misrepresented, and mocked at blogs like this. Some seem to operate under the assumption that there is no way that they could possibly be wrong about anything they've said. Don't like the mockery? Suck it up, whiner! Point out where they've crossed the line? Look at the pot calling the kettle black! I read one of these blogs recently where they were taunting a favorite punching bag of theirs (in the comments section of a post that just got done mocking them) over the fact that none of the them had come to their blog to meaningfully interact with their more "substantive" posts against them and their beliefs. Apparently they believe that the people they continually mock and misrepresent should actually continue to be regular readers of their blog!

So why do we have a pit bull as our mascot? The same reason we named her "Grace," I suppose: irony. CRMafia is conservative and Reformed (mostly) and we are committed to posting in a way that overcomes the stereotype portrayed in the quote above. There is no doubt that some of our comrades have interacted with others in such a way as to earn the reputation of "pit bulls" and "mafia." I have acted this way myself in the past.

Admittedly, stereotypes like these are used against conservatives unfairly at times. Our use of pitbulls, mafia, and the Tombstone posse motif is tongue-in-cheek. We want to overcome the "delight[ing] in tearing and devouring their adversaries" pitbull stereotype that our doctrinal brethren are sometimes known for but also have fun with it knowing that the stereotype will probably be applied to us regardless.

Not a particularly profound post, I admit, but I wanted to acknowledge Pastor McCain's post since it so accurately describes what this blog is intended to not be about despite some of the imagery we enjoy using.