Is the Mormon Blog Party over?

A couple of years ago I remember hearing something about the explosion of Mormon Blogs however I was busy with other things and didn't take time to investigate the phenomenon. Also I had heard that it was mostly "Mormon Mommy" blogs and didn't feel like looking at pictures of other people's children which is what I had guessed would be the theme of most.

Not until a couple of weeks ago when I started getting interested in doing my own blog did I decide to check out all the others.

A couple of dizzying nights later I have a better understanding of the Bloggernacle. However it seems to me that the "Mormon Blog" craze might be coming to an end, or at least settling down quite a bit.

For the last two nights I've had a lot of fun going through the list of blogs on ldsblogs.org and mormonblogs.org. I also got quite the headache, mormonblogs.org has roughly 265 blogs linked and ldsblogs.org has roughly 80!

But I trudged through and made a few observations. About 25% of the blogs listed don't even exist any more meaning whomever is in charge of those two websites hasn't been keeping them current. Then probably about 50% still exist but haven't been updated for at least a year. (One blog hadn't been updated since 2004.)

So when all was said and done and once I had clicked on every link to every blog on those two websites I came up with 45 blogs that are current and up to date and not the "mommy" blog type. That boils down to 17%, which makes me wonder if the party is over. Actually, if you think about it, it might be a good thing that there aren't as many Mormon blogs out there. Some of them were questionable to say the least, and even a couple seemed actually anti-mormon. Maybe fewer is better, especially if the ones that are left are well done and relevant.

Which brings me to another point. Some of these "relevant" blogs seem somewhat confrontational with the Church. That was a little surprising to me, goes to show how much I know. And others seem like they are thesis papers for some college master's degree with post titles like "Cultivating Oppositional Critical Consciousness" and "Social Commentary on the Rise and Fall of Rational Theology".

Huh?

So I've got quite a job ahead of me. Finding some blogs that I enjoy following without feeling I am studying for a final exam in "Religious Theology and Critical Thinking", and also creating a blog that I think others would like to follow.

What have I gotten myself into?