Should've Known Better

Someone posted a link on the ELCA Clergy Facebook page earlier this week.  I followed the link.  Read the article.  Read the comments.  Then I posted a comment of my own.  Then this happened:

I'm the one covered in...tar.

You would have thought I'd learned my lesson years ago.  Here's the thing about the Internet:  it's a wonderful place to get connected to all sorts of different people.  It's also a medium where everyone can have their own soapbox, even if that soapbox is a tiny little box in the corner of someone else's soapbox.  And if you think you're gonna knock that asshole off his soapbox with your witty arguments and condescending repartee, friend, you've got another think coming.  

There's a saying many of you who grew up in the country know:  "Never wrestle a pig.  The pig likes it, and you just end up covered in shit."  I should've known this.  I should've known that a website far more concerned with telling people what's wrong with somebody else's church than telling you what's right with their own wasn't going to have any sort of reasoned or balanced conversation available.  I should've known people would make assumptions about me and what I believe.  I should've known I wasn't going to change anyone's mind.  Shoot - if I ever have someone come up to me and say, "Your argument with me in the comments section of xyzchurch.com changed my mind, and I'm grateful," it'll be the first time.  Internet arguments don't change  minds.  Face-to-face conversations change minds.  Experiences change minds.  Revelations change minds.  The Holy Spirit changes minds.  

For one day, I thought I could change minds on the internet.  I'm a pretty smart guy, after all, right?  I should've known better.

ps:  no, the Richard Marx song has nothing to do with the website or even this post, except that the minute I started writing it became the earworm under which I wrote.  Now it's your earworm.  You're welcome.

pps:  of course I'm not going to link to the website that caused the original problem.  Why would I want you to go hang out with those jerks, or to see my pathetic and ultimately doomed attempt to engage with them?