Martin Roth is blogging again.

This time - well, he can explain.

I launched Martin Roth Christian Commentary in April 2002 (it was at first called MartinRothOnline.com). I am a journalist, living in Australia, and I saw it as something of a ministry. I wrote that I intended the site as “a service to Christians trying to live under God in a post-Christian world.”

But I found that my articles on topics such as Christian living attracted relatively few readers. By contrast, my writings on three subjects in particular seemed to inspire a big response.

The first of these topics was Christian blogging. I wrote often on the subject and also started a list of Christian blogs, that later evolved into the blogs4God portal.

The second topic that clearly attracted visitors to my website was Christianity and war. I wrote a long series of articles, in part trying to work out my own attitudes as a Christian to the looming invasion of Iraq. I have been honored by a request from the Library of Congress for permission to include the articles in their planned MINERVA collection of online resources concerning the Iraq war.

And the third topic was Southern Gospel. I’m a big fan, despite living in Australia (I’ve never attended a Southern Gospel event in my life), and I wrote occasional pieces. It was these that attracted more response than just about anything else on my website. I stopped updating the site in January 2004, to try to write a novel, but continued to receive regular emails about my Southern Gospel postings.

I love listening to Southern Gospel, and I love writing about it. So I have started Southern Gospel Beat. I hope you will enjoy the site.

There must be something addictive about this blogging thing.
Rachel Cunliffe is also going to be back at ::journal posting regularly in a few weeks.
And Mark of Exclamation Mark! is running personal blog again with humble self-depreciation, and his wry way of telling every day stories.
Welcome back and blog on!