Petition for Christian Forum Staff Consideration

WesleyJohn said:

I was thinking something along those lines as I made my post above.

Certainly, if we could find some reasonably adequate and fair representation, I think that might work. Also, there is the question of the technology, but I bet Erwin could figure it out. As a pastor, I might be willing to do something like that, if asked.

Peace,

WJ

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Great!

Shelb5 said:

Maybe you are right but I can not help but think that IDD is being used to undermine the Catholic faith and GA to undermined God. This may not be the intent but as nyj pointed out, and I agree that this is what it has became and there may be some sheep who are too weak in their faith who will believe and fall away.

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And that, Dear Lady, sums up the frustration and powerlessness I felt as a moderator here at CF, and says quite eloquently why I left.

Unity? BAH, IDD fostered dripping abscesses of DIS-unity. It created an atmosphere, under the guise of "discussion" where Christian denominations could hack and spew at each other. And IMHO, that infection carried over to the other boards.

I honestly thought I could make a contribution here, and I enjoyed my time. But the idea of Christians working together as one became an illusion.

I hope Erwin is reading this thread.



Peace be unto us all.
~VOW

Chanter touches upon an interesting subject -- ministers, deacons, priests who can moderate and answer questions.

The Ask Father forum is just that...and it's something we could possible mimic here at CF.

Father Zuhlsdorf could surely help Erwin devise a plan of how this could be done -- in other words, how to ensure that say, Chanter was a priest, or Bob was a deacon, or Dan was a priest...you get the picture.

It would be very rewarding, both from a minister point of view, but also from the person receiving instruction.

This is an interesting topic that nyj has presented.

At this time (read: right now, this second), I don't have an official position regarding his post.

seebs said:

While I think the Sexuality forum has a great deal of awfulness to it, I cannot agree that it is pointless. I think it's fairly close, but on one or two occasions, teenagers have come to us in dire need, and been given advice.

On the other hand, the advice is almost uniformly awful, so there are problems worth dealing with.

Still... We need a place where people who need advice can get it. When people have been raised with strange beliefs about sexuality, they need a chance to see what healthy, mature, Christian beliefs on sexuality are like. Unfortunately, I can't imagine where we could find such a thing.

I think what we might want to do is try to find a few volunteers who are willing to take on such questions, and restrict the answering of questions a bit. One of the problems I see in S&C as it is now is that, whenever anyone asks a question on a contentious issue, they get a heated debate, rather than an answer. The level of sheer hatred I have seen displayed in that forum astounds me. We have a lot of members who, IMHO, are simply not qualified to be offering advice on these issues.

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Seebs, I can understand and appreciate your opinion and for the most part I agree with you but I am just very unsure of how to handle certain situations. I personally would feel very uncomfortable giving out advice to say, a wayward teen who has a skewed view of sexuality. For one thing, we have no way of knowing whether or not the person is genuine, and even if the person is genuine, I would fear giving him/her advice that could potentially screw them up even more. A qualified counsellor would be the only one who could field and answer such questions, and even then I would be hesitant to advocate such a thing. The most we can tell them would be to seek counsel on the matter AWAY from the internet, if we want to do them any good. IOW,
I am not sure that this is the appropriate media for giving counsel on sex issues.

I still say scrap the sexuality forum. It's doing way more harm than good.

Michelle

seebs said:

Internet Infidels has a forum in which only staff and the starter of a thread can post to a thread. A format like that might work better for questions of this nature.

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That's not a bad idea for a QA type forum, but it requires the staff to be able to give a fair and reasoned answer which on an hyper ecumenical board such as this, I am not sure would work. (Heck, Even the Nicene creed in the FAQ is modified and thats considered infallible in its origional form.)
For example, would the staff be Catholic or Protestant? or Atheist even? And how could you sort it out? for example, is there a section for each faith tradition? who gets to staff the inevitable "general QA" section?

Miss Shelby said:

I still say scrap the sexuality forum. It's doing way more harm than good.

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agreed!

And, of course, what happens if I want to be able to offer advice? I can't become a "minister" - my branch of Christianity doesn't do that.

Miss Shelby said:

Seebs, I can understand and appreciate your opinion and for the most part I agree with you but I am just very unsure of how to handle certain situations. I personally would feel very uncomfortable giving out advice to say, a wayward teen who has a skewed view of sexuality. For one thing, we have no way of knowing whether or not the person is genuine, and even if the person is genuine, I would fear giving him/her advice that could potentially screw them up even more. A qualified counsellor would be the only one who could field and answer such questions, and even then I would be hesitant to advocate such a thing. The most we can tell them would be to seek counsel on the matter AWAY from the internet, if we want to do them any good. IOW,
I am not sure that this is the appropriate media for giving counsel on sex issues.

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It's the worst we could imagine, except for all the others.

I would rather that someone trying to wrestle with questions of premarital sex, or sexual orientation, or S&M, come here than get advice in a locker room from other kids who don't know either.

Hmm.

Actually, I'm not sure of that; I think we drive off enough people who are considering Christianity that maybe you're right, and we should just abandon that effort.

seebs said:

And, of course, what happens if I want to be able to offer advice? I can't become a "minister" - my branch of Christianity doesn't do that.

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thats funny. I was going to point out that if one is a non-denominational Christian, can he not just apoint himself "Pastor or Deacon" and then have full forum rights to post answers to peoples questions as an authority?
How could this be regulated?

geocajun said:

thats funny. I was going to point out that if one is a non-denominational Christian, can he not just apoint himself "Pastor or Deacon" and then have full forum rights to post answers to peoples questions as an authority?
How could this be regulated?

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Good question. A mormon boy who is only 18 is also considered an "elder".

geocajun said:

thats funny. I was going to point out that if one is a non-denominational Christian, can he not just apoint himself "Pastor or Deacon" and then have full forum rights to post answers to peoples questions as an authority?
How could this be regulated?

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Well yeah, but that's why I posted about trying to work something out with Erwin that would prove your credentials.

If you're serious about giving people advice, then...don't you think you should take it seriously? In other words, provide documented proof that you're a priest, deacon, or Protestant ordained minister.

Let's remember something here -- it's not a, "who side are you on?" issue when dispensing advice -- it's an issue to ensure that those who are called by God to minister in the way that he has called them (Catholic, Baptist, Nazarene, Episcopilian, etc.) are allowed to do so.

But we must have proof, or anyone can call themselves a minister. Heck, there's a site online (the URL escapes me at the moment) where you can become an ordained minister online within seconds without any required former training, meditation, etc. ...and I think it's new age or something...I can't recall.

Of course, you can play devil's advocate here and say, "Well wait there BA...we're all called to priesthood."

But I would respond with, "Yeah, and look where it's gotten us here on CF. Obviously, some people need to work a little harder on their vocation..."

geocajun said:

thats funny. I was going to point out that if one is a non-denominational Christian, can he not just apoint himself "Pastor or Deacon" and then have full forum rights to post answers to peoples questions as an authority?
How could this be regulated?

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I have no idea. But there have been Quakers for three hundred and fifty years with only one authority among us, and He has not yet seen fit to register an account here. Which makes it a little hard to guess which of us are "qualified" to give good answers.

BAchristian said:

But we must have proof, or anyone can call themselves a minister. Heck, there's a site online (the URL escapes me at the moment) where you can become an ordained minister online within seconds without any required former training, meditation, etc. ...and I think it's new age or something...I can't recall.

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Three minutes to be exact. You can also become a monk, but that probably takes about ten minutes.

http://www.ulc.org/?destination=ordination&numina=1817642925

http://www.ulc.org/?destination=monkApply&numina=1047319301

Michelle

Miss Shelby said:

Three minutes to be exact. You can also become a monk, but that probably takes about ten minutes.

Michelle

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No wonder confusion reigns. There are even fake "Roman Catholic" popes, bishops and priests. We must be in the end times.

Miss Shelby said:

Three minutes to be exact. You can also become a monk, but that probably takes about ten minutes.

http://www.ulc.org/?destination=ordination&numina=1817642925

http://www.ulc.org/?destination=monkApply&numina=1047319301

Michelle

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LOL...the universal life church...gotta love it...

"No matter what religion you follow, it's all good!"

This is what the Universal Life Church teaches:

You will be better trained to understand the “roots” of all religions and their tactics – the names of the belief systems is of no importance since they all use the same techniques of repression, indoctrination, subjection, instilling of guilt and fear.

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What garbage! I would delete the reference to their websites just in case some juvenile gets interested.

I'm reading this thread.

CF is an online community. I am merely maintaining it and paying the bills. It's for all of you. Therefore, I am merely a servant - you tell me what you want, and I will prayerfully consider it, and if it is the right thing to do, I will do it.

This thread has so many issues, it is important to summarize them:

1) How to protect confused Christians from atheists.
We are all hurt by the deconversion of Lanakila. However, she is an adult woman, with free will. If it is her choice that she no longer wants to keep the faith, we all have to respect that. She has responsibility for her own eternity, as do we all. I had felt some guilt that CF contributed to it, but in the end, everyone is responsible for their own decisions.

2) Closing GA and IDD
Closing GA will cause the atheists to overflow into the other forums. The purpose of GA is to keep heavy debates in the one place, so that people can avoid them if they want to, and mods can moderate them easily. Some sites avoid this issue by banning all atheists. We do not want to go down this route. As Christians, we should always have an answer to questions raised by the lost. What are we afraid of? Nothing.

If we can so easily lose our faith because of questions raised by non-believers, what foundation have we built our house on? Have we built on the Rock of our Salvation, or on sand, that can be washed with the lightest of rains?

The same may happen if we close IDD. The conflict between denominations cannot be solved by closing a forum, or making up new rules. Is there a solution? This is a millenia-old problem, and we will not solve it on a message board. However, we can work together to come up with an optimal option. There will be no perfect solution, as we are imperfect beings. It is only when Christ returns that we shall truly be united.

Does this issue grieve me? Yes. It weighs me down, and burdens me. But in the end, the burden is for Christ, for He bears my burdens.

I am open to solutions. We know the problems, and I think these problems will always be with us - it's a matter of finding the best way to deal with them.

Erwin said:

...but in the end, everyone is responsible for their own decisions.

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I agree. But since this is Christian forums, I think we want to encourage people to be Christian, not Atheist.

Sure, in the end it's their decision, but I can give a gun to a kid and say, "Don't pull the trigger!", but am I being a responsible teacher?

I fear, Erwin, that this place has gotten a little too big, and you're trying to keep your head above the water with what's going on. Maybe you recognize the problem, but can't find a good solution?

Trust me, I've ran forums before -- I've done the technical end and understand all of that -- so I know what you're going through buddy...but at the end of the day, we must vehemently fight for our belief.

Contributing to an Atheist belief should not be in our charter. And it is, indirectly, just by the way things are setup.

Is it your fault? No. Humans will bicker -- you could have setup IDD with good intentions, or GA with good intentions. But at some point you're just throwing your pearls to the swine.

At the end of the day, we are all called to the priesthood. We should defend our faith, when called upon.

Am I so arrogant to say what the best way is? Of course not. God works with each person in different ways.

But once again, we have to come up with a solution that will not detract of Christianity.

I don't have an overall solution -- and I don't think you can come up with a "be-all" solution.

But I do believe that the Ask a Minister section from ordained ministers from all faiths that would be in sub-forums within, say, Sexuality and Christianity, would be an option to better the forum.

You could then have a sub-forum in OBOB, for example, called Ask a Priest / Deacon. We would have an official priest or deacon that can prove, to you Erwin, that they are by sending you official documentation or something. They could then give spiritual advice...

You could do the same for P/R/E...

OR, you could do something more generalized...have a section for Protestant ordained ministers, priests, deacons to give advice...

I would love something like this...

Amen, BAchristian!

BAchristian said:

I agree. But since this is Christian forums, I think we want to encourage people to be Christian, not Atheist.

Sure, in the end it's their decision, but I can give a gun to a kid and say, "Don't pull the trigger!", but am I being a responsible teacher?

I fear, Erwin, that this place has gotten a little too big, and you're trying to keep your head above the water with what's going on. Maybe you recognize the problem, but can't find a good solution?

Trust me, I've ran forums before -- I've done the technical end and understand all of that -- so I know what you're going through buddy...but at the end of the day, we must vehemently fight for our belief.

Contributing to an Atheist belief should not be in our charter. And it is, indirectly, just by the way things are setup.

Is it your fault? No. Humans will bicker -- you could have setup IDD with good intentions, or GA with good intentions. But at some point you're just throwing your pearls to the swine.

At the end of the day, we are all called to the priesthood. We should defend our faith, when called upon.

Am I so arrogant to say what the best way is? Of course not. God works with each person in different ways.

But once again, we have to come up with a solution that will not detract of Christianity.

I don't have an overall solution -- and I don't think you can come up with a "be-all" solution.

But I do believe that the Ask a Minister section from ordained ministers from all faiths that would be in sub-forums within, say, Sexuality and Christianity, would be an option to better the forum.

You could then have a sub-forum in OBOB, for example, called Ask a Priest / Deacon. We would have an official priest or deacon that can prove, to you Erwin, that they are by sending you official documentation or something. They could then give spiritual advice...

You could do the same for P/R/E...

OR, you could do something more generalized...have a section for Protestant ordained ministers, priests, deacons to give advice...

I would love something like this...

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We would also have to find a way to protect our ministers/priests/deacons from criticism. Perhaps if someone disagrees with them, we could design a way for them to vent - but not publicly - perhaps through a mediator who could handle complaints privately. Sometimes people get offended and start ridiculing a minister unjustly. The worst thing to do would be to start a thread which ridicules someone. How would a minister stay with us without these safeguards? They get ridiculed enough in their parishes.