Dropping out

Oct 15, 2008
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Someone took a swipe at ole Gurney? I didn't even read it? LOL I appreciate the post, Pro, as always.

I guess you really can't help yourself can you? Rus is hurting, and you have to make a snide jab at Gurney? Take it to PM, it has no place in this thread.
 
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Oct 15, 2008
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Hey now! I'm always appropriate and a half! :sorry::sorry::sorry: I put the "pro" in appropriate!

Gurney's opinions are public knowledge in TAW. Whether you think them appropriate or not is immaterial and in no way justifies your "whatever you want your God to be" comment.
 
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Platina

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Rus, God bless you! As my spiritual father often said to me: "Do what works." Ultimately, your spiritual health is most important, so if bouncing out of this place helps you, then by all means! And if while you're away, you find that you're missing something you had gained from here, then come on back and try it again.

I know you said something about your priest and fellow parishioners, but try not to judge and keep your eyes on your own "plate." A priest is a vessel of God's grace even when he has wrong ideas. The Jewish High Priest was able to prophecy about Christ just because of his position. Go to Confession expecting a word from God, not a word from man, and it will be a word from God.
 
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Jesus4Madrid

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Rus,

I hope you’ll prayerfully withdraw this thread and rethink it. I’m not loved by everyone here. I know that. My sense of humor isn’t always well-received, I tell it like it is sometimes too bluntly, and I detest liberalism, evolution, LGBT nonsense, gun control, and a host of other things. I do agree that there ARE “Orthodox” in here at times who are doppelgänger sock puppets or posers. Agree 100%. A few regularly come. Thereve been moments where I’ve felt downright insulted by some.....but I move on. Occasionally I roll my eyes.

I hate to break this to you, Rus, but ALL of us here stand around folks at our parishes who don’t grasp Orthodoxy reciting the Creed. I’ve heard not only pro-socialism, Pro-gay, and pro-abortion folks, but I’ve talked to people in my parish who refuse to fast or take communion in other denominations!!!?! Fortunately most of my fellow parishioners are conservative, traditional, vote that way, live that way. Most at my parish see the European Union and secular humanists and modernists as dangerous loons. But a few are pot-smoking oddballs in my humble opinion. I just try to politely say hi to them and move on....

No need to leave TAW; just avoid the people you find unorthodox and heretical or eccentric. That’s the best answer.

It’s funny you’re on FB, but want to leave TAW! I’m the opposite. I got so sick of the politics (mostly anti-Trump rhetoric and bloviation) and minutiae (look at me! I’m eating a steak sandwich! WHO CARES!?!) stuff, and the risks of putting myself out there that I personally deactivated my account. I’d rather be here!

I personally find your posts more helpful than you can imagine! As we’ve reminisced before, you and I started out driving each other nuts, but came to really like and appreciate one another. Your thoughts on linguistics, men like CS Lewis and GKC, and your emphasis on examining ourselves theologically with tradition and not giving in to humanists through linguistic adoption of the enemy tongue really has changed my thinking.

Your stubbornness is one of your strengths. I find the thought of you leaving depressing, sad, and unfortunate for us all. You have so much to contribute, so much to say. We love you. If you really leave, it’ll make me sick.

God bless, old friend. Reconsider!!!
Completely agree. Rus, stick around. You are a pillar!


And you too Gurney. You are loved by me, humor and all. (We were young when we started exploring Orthodoxy...)
 
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Orthodoxjay1

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My opinion about the inappropriateness of such interjections - and that those are precisely the problem in TAW - is also well known.

Really this is about Rus, not your lame pathetic cheap chops at Gurney, who is a good Christian man. Rus is hurting, and somehow you derail the thread with your garbage.
 
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Orthodoxjay1

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Rus, Good luck, I have been posting less in internet forums, for whatever reason, it brings the worst out of people. I learned a lot from you you, and your knowledge of GKC is top notch, I know you gotten heat for actually pushing back against Modernism, and how it effects our faith, please consider sticking around, not everyone going to like your, me or anyone, even in Church, you will encounter these struggles.
 
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LizaMarie

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Rusmeister, I'm a guest here and don't post much but lurk a lot, but I hope you don't leave.
I have really enjoyed and appreciated your posts. I am interested in your perspective, and having read a couple of GKC books myself, you bring a unique perspective to this forum.
I agree with Gurney about FB and Twitter, I find TAW to be like a rose blooming in the desert and only go here, and look at Theo Crucis and OBOB. I always come here first. As I inquire about Orthodoxy, I have found so many posts here to be so informative, yours and so many others here.
If you left it would be a great loss.
Also, I will pray for you.


ETA: Even though I'm Lutheran(for now). I can relate to your standing next to people who don't share my views on moral issues. In my own church body I have been surprised when some of my co-parishioners share what I consider to be modernistic views. I'm not going to go into detail cuz I don't want to derail the thread but believe me I get it.
 
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rusmeister

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One thing I should make clear is that I think the very structure of our forum within CF works against us. One thing I know for sure is that, speaking about regular Orthodox members of TAW, if we have problems with each other, we should try to reach out to each other, in the spirit of the prescription in the New Testament, rather than appeal to a rules structure and to people outside of our Church. But sadly, that's not the case. I've even done that a couple of times; no more. Reporting fellow Orthodox to non-Orthodox, and rejecting private efforts at reconciliation, is wholly at odds with how we are supposed to be.
I could see staying if we could police ourselves, but it's pretty clear to me that we can't, and that some are perfectly happy with that. If the Church fathers were members, Arius would have had St Nicholas censured for "flaming". And if you've seen posts like this one just disappear, then you know what I mean. And there are some topics we can hardly say anything about without triggering such action. That has led me to this "existential" crisis. If we cannot freely discuss issues that are really controversial among us, even if only a few members are on "the other side", then this place could still be good for asking for prayers, but that's about it. The structural nature of this forum under CF is a big problem, as I see it. No structure would be perfect. If ours were an independent forum, we'd still have the problem of the biases of the moderators, and would have to hope that they would be largely Orthodox. Here we can't even hope that.

There's open enmity between members. As the Apostle James said, my brethren, these things ought not to be! As long as we are fine with this situation, I don't see the value of discussing anything. If we have members that WANT to be contrary and DON'T want any reconciliation, then we ought to be able to bring the issue to the table. The disruptive members will be the ones that don't want to convince the rest of us of anything, only to keep their views afloat via non-TAW intervention.

If I see hope of us being able to police ourselves, then I will stick around. I just don't see such hope.
 
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One thing I should make clear is that I think the very structure of our forum within CF works against us. One thing I know for sure is that, speaking about regular Orthodox members of TAW, if we have problems with each other, we should try to reach out to each other, in the spirit of the prescription in the New Testament, rather than appeal to a rules structure and to people outside of our Church. But sadly, that's not the case. I've even done that a couple of times; no more. Reporting fellow Orthodox to non-Orthodox, and rejecting private efforts at reconciliation, is wholly at odds with how we are supposed to be.
I could see staying if we could police ourselves, but it's pretty clear to me that we can't, and that some are perfectly happy with that. If the Church fathers were members, Arius would have had St Nicholas censured for "flaming". And if you've seen posts like this one just disappear, then you know what I mean. And there are some topics we can hardly say anything about without triggering such action. That has led me to this "existential" crisis. If we cannot freely discuss issues that are really controversial among us, even if only a few members are on "the other side", then this place could still be good for asking for prayers, but that's about it. The structural nature of this forum under CF is a big problem, as I see it. No structure would be perfect. If ours were an independent forum, we'd still have the problem of the biases of the moderators, and would have to hope that they would be largely Orthodox. Here we can't even hope that.

There's open enmity between members. As the Apostle James said, my brethren, these things ought not to be! As long as we are fine with this situation, I don't see the value of discussing anything. If we have members that WANT to be contrary and DON'T want any reconciliation, then we ought to be able to bring the issue to the table. The disruptive members will be the ones that don't want to convince the rest of us of anything, only to keep their views afloat via non-TAW intervention.

If I see hope of us being able to police ourselves, then I will stick around. I just don't see such hope.

I think we have a mod traineee who is a catechumen.

I have been asked to be a mod a number of times. However ... I am not terribly comfortable being in the position of policing.

Probably much more than this needs to go to pm (and I'm willing, and others might have input as well).

I'm not sure how CF would feel about having TAW modded in that way. Perhaps they would be in favor, since it IS against the rules to argue against Orthodoxy. But it's true that few non--Orthodox mods would have any real hope of understanding nuances, depending on the topic.
 
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All4Christ

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I think we have a mod traineee who is a catechumen.

I have been asked to be a mod a number of times. However ... I am not terribly comfortable being in the position of policing.

Probably much more than this needs to go to pm (and I'm willing, and others might have input as well).

I'm not sure how CF would feel about having TAW modded in that way. Perhaps they would be in favor, since it IS against the rules to argue against Orthodoxy. But it's true that few non--Orthodox mods would have any real hope of understanding nuances, depending on the topic.
This is the hard part. As someone who is an ambassador (and not even a mod), I like having a place - a home base so to speak - where I can fellowship without having to constantly monitor, like we do in some other forums. We still do monitor (probably more than many realize), but it’s kind of like a home that I don’t have to worry so much about Ambassador duties. It is difficult though with moderating on all sides with the unique aspects of Orthodoxy.

I would be willing to PM about this along with Anastasia as well.
 
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gzt

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I don't think Orthodox moderation is the answer as the root of the issue isn't a matter that requires any special knowledge the intervene on. It's a matter of basic Christian behavior.
 
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graphite412

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Well perhaps it would be better to create our own forum if we can't police ourselves? It is super easy, I have done it before with little computer knowledge, and it would be better than facebook and twitter, especially with them banning every form of conservative view. The reason I tend to stay here instead of other orthodox forums is because it is more sober in conduct.
 
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graphite412

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Perhaps such a new community could also try to pitch in and do multimedia work? There are not very many Youtube or other video platform channels out there that regularly put out good content. I would also like to see an Orthodox presence on places like Vimeo and [bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse]ute, as Youtube pushes a liberal, globalist agenda and has already banned Russian Faith, because of its Orthodox point of view. Also I like this idea about skype book studies for out community on Orthodox books. I live too far away from my parish to do a book study on a regular basis.
 
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All4Christ

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Honestly, I’m thankful TAW is here on Christian Forums as it is a huge help for inquirers and those curious about Orthodoxy. If I had to find it somewhere else unrelated, I may not have found it - and it may have taken longer for me to find Orthodoxy.
 
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Jesus4Madrid

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If the Church fathers were members, Arius would have had St Nicholas censured for "flaming".

I liked this. But Rus, don’t play the victim card or run away. Be like St. Nicholas and slap metaphorically the Ariuses here. Even me; sometimes I need it.
 
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gzt

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There should be no punching, especially when there are no Arians - and St Nicholas realized he was wrong to have done it. There should definitely be no punching when we're having civil discourse among Orthodox Christians.
 
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Jesus4Madrid

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There should be no punching, especially when there are no Arians - and St Nicholas realized he was wrong to have done it. There should definitely be no punching when we're having civil discourse among Orthodox Christians.
I said metaphorically. No one gets hospitalised for being told he is wrong. In love, of course.
 
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