Under and Over -- LaShawn Barber asks who are the five most overrated and underrated blogs. Her commenters includes the usual suspects among the list of overrated bloggers (Hugh Hewitt, Instapundit, Wonkette) and an even wider range in the underrated category (Shane Raynor says that EO is underrated. While I appreciate his vote, I can only partially agree since I think this blog is the most overrated of the underrated blogs.)

I think the cheap shots at the A-list bloggers is rather tiresome. Blogging is hard work and to consistently stay at the top requires considerable effort. Glenn Reynolds may not crank out a 1000-word essay every day but his is consistent at what he does (he is, after all, the Insta- pundit). Reynolds is the James Brown of the blogosphere.

So who are the most overrated and underrated bloggers? Cast your vote in the comments section.

On Evangelical Blogging -- Martin LaBar has an excellent reminder of our purpose as evangelical bloggers:

A couple of blogs I have read have a post on somehow increasing the presence of evangelical blogs. As an evangelical, on the face of it, that sounds like a good idea to me. However, on further thought, I'm not so sure. First question is, "why?"

If the why is to magnify Christ, and it works, then it's a good idea. No, a great idea. However, I'm not sure that some evangelical blogging really is about magnifying Christ. I have looked, a little, at what are claimed to be the most widely read evangelical blogs. Some of them read more like Republican blogs. Don't we have enough Red/Blue division already? I'm not sure that blogs like that magnify Christ.

Ouch. Prior to the past election I think that would have been a fair description of EO. I believe – and hope its true – that my focus has changed. While I still have an interest in political matters I think evangelicalism has become to associated with Republicanism. Much of that is due to the fact that evangelicals are beginning to shape the Republican Party. But I’m concerned that the GOP is beginning to shape us more than it should. We should remember that the GOP does not stand for “God’s Own Politics.”

LaBar has a suberb suggestion for what evangelical bloggers should be doing:

To paraphrase [C.S. Lewis] for the 21st century, the best way to influence the world through blogging is to create great blogs on baseball, physics, photography, housewifery, travel, and many other subjects, posted by bloggers with a Christian world view.

Blog Patronage: A Token of Affection -- Michael Bowen correctly identifies the key to gaining notice in the blogosphere:

In the blogosphere there is a real contingency of patronage. I'm not sure that everyone is so eager to say so, but it's real. As real as is the term 'blogosphere' is the term 'blogfather'. Ask any blogger of substance, and if they're honest (and are abetted by a technical clue or two) they'll know which other blogs send them the most traffic. They will also almost surely know who gave them their big break and under which circumstances that occured. There is not a conspiracy of white male bloggers, and I'd guess all of them would be loathe to admit any such clubbiness, but all popular bloggers belong to a club and none of them are about to delink anytime soon.

I’m not exactly a “blogger of substance” but I can certainly point out who helped me gain a readership: Hugh Hewitt. If it had not been for his generous linkage I would be even more obscure than I am now. I can’t think of a single blogger who rose from complete obscurity that has not had some sort of patronage.

Bowen also says that there is a “state of disgrace” when it comes to the national recognition of black bloggers and submits his name for “the consideration of all A-List Bloggers as the Head Negro in Blog”s:

Send me your poor, huddled vanillified readers yearning to breathe diversity. I lift my banner beside the olive greed sidebar! But since I also link to more black blogs than the average bear, I know the trickle down will continue.

I predict that when a black blogger finally does break into the A-list he (and it will be a he) will look a lot like his white peers: an Ivy-league educated American journalist or law professor who has previously written an article for The New York Times.

Ghettoes and gatekeepers -- The discussion about the Evangelical Ghetto has died down but Kevin Hedges fans the flames some more. He points out that A-list blogs rarely link to overtly religious bloggers:

On the other hand, we shouldn't expect those who don't claim to be Christians to carry our water for us. But their gatekeeper role makes it harder for Christians to be seen and heard outside our own community. To paraphrase the famous philosophical dilemma, if a Christian blogs and nobody hears it, does he or she make a sound? We are called to reach out to the people around us, the culture around us. However, in print media, broadcasting, music, movies etc. Christians have been essentially frozen out of the mainstream markets and have been shunted into the Christian cultural ghetto: Christian radio, TV (ostensibly anyway), publishing houses, book stores, and now even to a large extent in this new, empowering medium, the blogosphere.

In response, Jeremy Pierce asks whether we should really care about our lack of popularity among the A-listers:

I wonder if Kevin is working from some premises that I just don't agree with. When Joe and La Shawn talk about the A-list, they mean simply the truly big names. He seems to be assuming that someone hasn't broken into the sphere of well-known bloggers unless those bloggers mention you regularly the way they do with La Shawn. That's certainly something great, but the blogosphere is much, much more than Instapundit, Power Line, Little Green Footbals, Atrios, Kos, and the rotating line of top bloggers that moves in and out of the top ten with them. For instance, my blog is linked to from most of the top philosophy blogs. Hardly any of these people are Christians. Most of them disagree with some of my most deeply held convictions. Yet a number of them read my blog faithfully, interact with me in detail, and link to me from their own blogs. This is with no mass blogroll for philosophers as we have with lots of other subjects in the blogosphere.

Jeremey has a point. As the historian Daniel Boorstin once said, a celebrity is a person who is known for his well-knownness. I suspect that is the case with many blog “celebrities” – they are well-known for no other reason than that they are well-known.

I used to think that there was a direct correlation between a blogger's popularity and their influence. Now I’m not so sure. Many of the bloggers who have the biggest influence on my thought (such as Macht from Prosthesis) are relatively unknown outside of their small circle of readers. A large readership may increase the chances that a blogger can have an impact on people’s lives but it may just mean that they are able to gain attention for less savory reasons.

Also, I’m beginning to wonder if we evangelical bloggers shouldn’t start casting our nets a bit closer to home. We are so busy trying to impact the culture at large that we often overlook the culture at home. How many of our fellow evangelicals even understand what blogs are much less read them on a regular basis? Imagine what we might be able to accomplish if we were able to use our network and influence to shape the church as well as the world. That doesn’t mean we should form cyber-monasteries and holy huddles in which we do nothing more than debate differences in eschatology. But we might want to remember that the culture doesn’t just include the “lost” but those who have been “found” and are still in need of guidance.