New York, USA - "For Christ's sake, stop!" declared the president of the Southern Baptist Convention, the Rev. Frank Page, pleading for civility in the Baptist blogosphere.
Episcopalians and Anglicans duel incessantly over their faith and future in the Anglican Communion.
Catholics focus on every topic from liturgy to law to spirituality.
These are faith bloggers — uncountable voices who contest, confess and consider religious beliefs, doctrines and denominational politics in their posts.
Although every faith has its bloggers, U.S. Christians may be among the most vociferous of the watchdogs, philosophers and ecclesiastical groupies.
"You can change minds and form hearts. You can bring to light the best humanity of the Church, which rarely gets covered — the people who get up every morning and give the best of themselves because they believe," says Rocco Palmo, 24, of Philadelphia. His blog, Whispers in the Loggia, covers the U.S. Catholic church and Vatican minutiae, down to the lace on the pope's vestments.
"Everything, even the lace on top, has a meaning. Everything is a signal on where things are going." says Palmo, whose posts are hot with Vatican-istas from California to Rome.
Other sites are more inclined to give their opponents hell.
Southern Baptist leader Frank Page discovered this when bloggers, notably at SBCOutpost.com, boosted his campaign for presidency of the nation's largest Protestant denomination in 2006.
Within a year, Page soured on the blogs' incendiary approach to issues of church governance and religious expressions.
Page fretted in a Baptist Press column that battling bloggers frighten off "lost souls and new believers." He wrote, "Lost people are seeing the deep division and sometimes hatred that is flowing forth among churches and among those who are involved in convention discussions. For Christ's sake, stop!"
But the Rev. Ben Cole of SBCOutpost is unrepentant. An assistant pastor at Emmanuel Baptist Church in Enid, Okla., he says SBCOutpost is a "dissident blog" that's "very intentionally harsh and provocative."
In August, a counter-blog called SBCToday, edited by four pastors including the Rev. Wes Kenney, 36, of Trinity Baptist Church in Valliant, Okla., sprang up. He describes it as "less bitter than Outpost," and more focused on how the distinct theology of Southern Baptists can be lived out in modern times.
Faith bloggers vault the traditional institutional gatekeepers and denominational meeting protocols.
The 2003 triennial General Convention of the Episcopal Church, the U.S. branch of the worldwide Anglican Communion, inspired scores of new blogs in full battle cry over the vote by bishops, clergy and lay leaders to accept the election of an openly homosexual bishop in New Hampshire.
David Virtue, 63, of West Chester, Pa., started blogging "when I saw all the levers of power were held by people who are not orthodox anymore."
Virtue concedes he's "strident," then adds, "Liberals will rip the snot out of someone if they think he's wavering on the gay issue."
Blogging your beliefs is a lonely venture. Virtue says, "Even my wife doesn't altogether agree with me."
"It's hard to keep your day job" given all the research and reading required, says conservative Anglican blogger the Rev. Kendall Harmon. Harmon is canon theologian for the diocese of South Carolina, along with blogging at TitusOneNine (standfirminfaith.com/harmon/t19).
"There is a truth and reliability quotient. I post stuff I virulently disagree with. The idea is to influence the discussion," Harmon says.
Canon Jim Naughton of the Diocese of Washington, D.C., creator of the Daily Episcopalian, a liberal blog, has seen it transformed into a multi-blogger site featuring art, essays, news and posts on faith "in the spirit of charity," the home page of Episcopalcafe.com says.
Among Catholics, the blogosphere is like looking at a big parish. Everything looms somewhere in the conversations," says Amy Welborn, 47, of Fort Wayne, Ind. Welborn, author of numerous books and a columnist for Catholic Newspapers, wrote one of the best-known Catholic blogs, Open Book. It explored the intersections of Catholic intellectual life and contemporary culture and politics.
Last summer, Welborn abruptly closed the Book to concentrate on writing fiction.
"I want to do good, and I want to do lasting good — the kind of good that people carry around, share, put on their bookshelves and reflect on — rather than the kind of good that sparks a momentary flash until we surf to the next website and the next and the next," she told blog readers.
Yet blogging proved too compelling to quit. She started a new blog (amywelborn.wordpress.com) engaging readers in Catholic ideas. She posts faithfully.