Confessing Evangelical

CS Lewis' "excuse" (to use his word) for writing Reflections on the Psalms despite having no theological qualifications, seems to hold equally well as a justification for "theo-blogging". Lewis writes in the introduction to his book:

It often happens that two schoolboys can solve difficulties in their work for one another better than the master can. When you took the problem to the master, as we all remember, he was very likely to explain what you understood already, to add a great deal of information which you didn't want, and say nothing at all about the thing that was puzzling you. ...

The fellow-pupil can help more than the master because he knows less. The difficulty we want him to explain is one he has recently met. The expert met it so long ago that he has forgotten. He sees the whole subject, by now, in such a different light that he cannot conceive what is really troubling the pupil; he sees a dozen other difficulties which ought to be troubling him but aren't.

And thus Lewis' basis for writing his book (and one suspects he also has all his other theological writings in mind here) forms a pretty good "mission statement" for us laypersons who presume (in flagrant disregard for Psalm 131:1 and James 3:1) to blog on theological issues:

In this book, then, I write as one amateur to another, talking about difficulties I have met, or lights I have gained ... with the hope that this might interest, and sometimes even help, other inexpert readers. I am "comparing notes", not presuming to instruct.

Certainly in my case, when I was exploring Lutheranism in the past 12-18 months, I probably gained the most help in dealing with my questions from (i) blogs (especially the Fearsome Pirate) (ii) Luther Quest and (iii) "The Spirituality of the Cross" by Gene Veith, who could justifiably be called "the CS Lewis of confessional Lutheranism", being an English professor who is also an accomplished lay theologian and apologist.