On 6000

It is time to celebrate 6000:

Um, 6000 what? Books in my library? Nah, I have far more than that. 6000 hate mail comments that I have received? Well, that would be getting close. 6000 times walking the dogs? Perhaps. 6000 times enjoying a great Asian meal? Hey, you can never get enough of those!

No, this refers to the fact that yesterday I wrote and posted my 6000th article on my CultureWatch website. I started the ministry by posting my first piece on April 5, 2006. So some 16 years of this has resulted in 6000 articles put up (although a few hundred older ones were post-dated as well).

That is about one piece per day. And with the articles getting a bit longer in recent years, perhaps the average length of each is 1500 words. So if your math is the same as mine, that means all up there are 9 million words found there. And more words appear in the form of comments, of which nearly 86,000 have been approved and posted.

There are around 90 subject headings (main categories as well as sub-categories), covering a rather wide range of issues. A quick overview informs us that over half of the 6000 articles have something to do with Christianity (although all of the articles reflect my Christian worldview).

Around a thousand have to do with politics; another 1000 are on family issues; 1300 are theological in nature; 1350 are sermons and devotionals; some 2300 are on the culture wars; 2000 ethics pieces are there; 800 articles are on apologetics; nearly 700 on political correctness, etc.

Some newer categories have been added over recent years (sometimes due to new developments in the world), including:

-Covid – 248
-Resistance Theory – 89
-The Puritans – 21
-The Great Reset – 20
-Critical Race Theory – 12

So we find quite a diversity of issues being written about. But one problem with being a jack of all trades and master of none is, well, you end up being a jack of all trades and master of none! I am just far too interested in way too many things, so I will likely never be a real master. Sure, I wrote 2 ½ books and 1000 articles on homosexuality so I guess I am sort of up on that particular topic.

But I just keep running with all sorts of topics and interests, so it is likely that new categories will keep being added to the website. Often people will ask me if I have written on a certain topic. While I am happy to reply, I need to remind folks that on the top right of my website there is a search field that can be used.

For example if someone wants to know how many pieces I have penned that discuss Prince Charles (a rather topical issue at the moment – even though he is now King Charles), they will find via the search thingee that I so far have 11 pieces that discuss him in full or in part. So be aware of that if you are trying to make your way around my site.

As to visits and what articles people seem to have read the most, I do have a web tool that looks at my site traffic. I am not sure how fully accurate it is, since sometimes these various tools or plug-ins or widgets seem to stop working and have to be reinstalled or whatever. So the numbers may not be fully correct.

But if they are even more or less right, the following figures will tell you a bit about how it is progressing and who is looking on. It seems that there have been almost 12 million views so far. My best day ever had a total of nearly 42,000 views. As to my most viewed articles, here are the top five (a rather odd assortment):

On leaving church – almost a half million views – https://billmuehlenberg.com/2014/12/26/on-leaving-church/

The Christchurch massacre – over 100,000 – https://billmuehlenberg.com/2019/03/16/some-inconvenient-truths-about-the-christchurch-massacre/

Mark 16 – over 71,000 – https://billmuehlenberg.com/2012/06/02/difficult-bible-passages-mark-1617-18/

Halal certification – 45,000 – https://billmuehlenberg.com/2014/09/02/halal-certification-follow-the-money/

God’s immanence and transcendence – 41,000 – https://billmuehlenberg.com/2013/08/05/on-gods-immanence-and-transcendence/

As far as average daily views, the numbers stayed steady for many years, at perhaps close to 3000 a day. But for various reasons, over the past few years those numbers are down to a bit under 2000 a day. Why the drop? There would be various possible reasons. On the more pessimistic side of things, perhaps some folks are just getting tired of my stuff! That is always possible.

But on a more positive note, over the past decade or so there has been a real explosion of conservative, Christian, and conservative Christian websites, blogs, podcasts, video channels, writers, activists, commentators, and so on. It is hard to keep up with all of them, and many are very good indeed.

There are of course many excellent ones coming from overseas with big names such as Jordan Peterson, Ben Shapiro, Dennis Prager, Tucker Carlson, to name but a few. But even here in Australia so many new ones have appeared. And a number of these will regularly re-post my articles anyway. So all this healthy competition may explain in part why my views are less of late.

Why do it?

So why pen nine million words, even though relatively few people, all things considered, will ever see any of them? And especially why write so much when the hate mail regularly comes in, along with the occasional death threat? My rationale and purpose in all this has not really changed over the years, so what I wrote concerning my 3000th article milestone is worth repeating here:

The answer is simple really: this is the work I have been called to do, and I will perform this task to the best of my ability, and by the grace of God. In a world starved of truth and the Christian message, I will work at this until I am no longer able to. Sometimes people ask me if I will retire. But how can you retire from doing God’s work? How can we stop being salt and light? How can we just stop being a Christian witness to a needy world?

 

As long as I have strength and the ability to keep going, I will. And of course most important of all, as long as I know that I have prayer warriors who are praying for me, interceding for me, and standing with me in the heavenlies, I will keep plugging away. https://billmuehlenberg.com/2014/08/19/on-3000/

Of course I have made mistakes along the way and not always done things as best as I might have. I am just one very imperfect vessel seeking to do what I am meant to be doing. And as I said recently on the social media:

It is far too easy – at least for me – to let all the evil and darkness that is all around us cause us to lose hope and succumb to despair. “But God…” A prayer warrior champ from Canberra just called me, and as she always does, she gave some encouragement and a renewed perspective of the miracle-working God that we serve, and how he specialises in bringing good outcomes out of bad situations. She had just been in England praying over all the changes going on there. We have to believe that God is always on the throne, and he is accomplishing his purposes. Bless you Hilary. Please forgive me folks if I get too gloomy and bummed. I need to keep my eyes on the risen Saviour – and I need to pray more.

Obviously for most of us the past three years have been quite tough. Two years of Covid and the heavy-handed state responses, including draconian and damaging lockdowns (the longest and worst in the world here in Melbourne) have certainly been hard to endure.

And this year my wife came down with aggressive breast cancer. She is still being treated for that, and often it seems the treatments are just as bad as the cancer! So for some of us it has been three non-stop years of hardship and suffering. Hopefully things will be quite different when I pen a piece celebrating 7000 articles!

Let me finish by repeating what I said a decade ago when I discussed my 2000-article milestone:

To conclude, can I simply say a million thanks to all of you who have stood by me and this ministry over the years. Your assistance, encouragement, words of comfort and advice, financial support, and most especially your prayers, all make it possible for me to continue doing this work. Thank you all so very much. May God bless you heaps. https://billmuehlenberg.com/2012/03/16/celebrating-2000/

[1448 words]

14 Replies to “On 6000”

  1. What a milestone! A worthy cause for celebration. Your website is such a valuable resource. I use the search bar often and usually find what I’m looking for or get sidetracked onto other valuable subjects. Thank you, Bill, for your faithful service.

  2. Great effort Bill. A real blessing for believers. Shame l only discovered your blog a few years back.

  3. We owe you so much, Bill, for all your wonderful work over the years, always supported, I am sure, by your very fine wife. I know that she has been having a really rough time – which you have been sharing – how incredibly hard for you both…
    I hope that from now onwards things get better and better. I’m sure at least that God keeps you both in the hollow of his hand, and is not losing sight of you what you have been sacrificing to devote your life to turning people to him, and to supplying such wise commentary on the issues of the day. Bless you both, indeed. Thank you so much…

  4. Thanks Bill, that’s amazing, and every article I’ve read and shared has meant so much. God bless you and your family. Your in our prayers
    Margaret

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

%d bloggers like this: