Greetings all,
It’s been two months since Evangelical Dark Web launched, and we owe it to our readers and supporters to let them know the progress we’ve made and the directions we are going in. In the spirit of transparency and accountability, let us disclose and evaluate the success or shortcomings of EDW.
Quick Stats
- Most viewed page: Beth Moore (homepage not included)
- Countries with the most views:
- USA – primary market
- Australia – articles on Hillsong
- Sweden – no explanation
- Most viewed post: Demise of Lifeway
We saw tremendous growth from September to October, and we want to continue this trend in November.
What’s working? What’s not?
The constant flow of posts, largely subsidized by DarkLinks allows us to have content nearly every day and keep our traffic numbers growing. DarkLinks has been an excellent way to touch up on big issues in the world of Evangelicalism giving time for original thought provoking content of our own. The Discernment page shows great promise with the successful launch on Beth Moore, that exceeded expectations. We will continue experimenting on DarkLinks to see whether a random assortment or more thematic assortment is better. But all of this is meaningless if our focus is not on God who has blessed this site beyond what I thought would happen.
What’s New?
Perhaps you have seen that we have added a Discernment page. We are entering the realm of being a discernment blog. However saturated this is, we are going to do things differently than others.
First we have developed a category system of false teachers. This ranges from people who have raised minor concerns to those who lead false congregations. Like destructive hurricanes, they are categorized on a scale of 1-5 with the parameters established for what constitutes a 4 vs a 5.
Secondly, we want to expand the scope of our coverage beyond what others do, because most others will call out Joel Osteen or Joyce Meyer but not many lesser names. There is a whole new generation of false teachers that many discernment sites do not place on their more specific lists, even if they do regularly call out these wolves. For instance, we recently published our assessment of Andy Savage, a lesser known figure, but one that we should be aware.
Thirdly, where possible, we want to aggregate the evidence others have used, in addition to providing our own. This led to the page on Beth Moore being thorough and more credible.
What’s coming up?
One thing we want to explain later this month are Christianity’s Proxy Issues. This will be an add on to our differentiation between Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary issues. If we are going to practice discernment, we need to be upfront about how we apply about how we are sniffing the wolves.
Thank you all for your support. Continue being faithful until the very end,
Ray
