GOOD NEWS - BAD NEWS (Don't Say You Weren't Warned)

The bad news is that I am the newly designated moderator of Free Republic's Religion Forum. The good news is that I am the newly designated moderator of Free Republic's Religion Forum.

I have no doubt that everyone who participates in this forum is aware of the general posting guidelines of Free Republic; they've been in effect as long as Free Republic has been in existence. Just for clarity, here they are again: "NO profanity, NO personal attacks, NO racism or violence in posts."

Having spent the better part of a week reading as much as I was able to get to on the Religion Forum, which includes virtually every currently posted thread, I can say that I've seen no profanity (should be a given on a forum devoted to religion), and only one or two posts which could be construed to contain violence. On that score I commend you all.

Unfortunately, however, personal attacks are rampant. Protestants attack Catholics, and vice versa. Within these two major Christian families, Calvinists attack Arminians, and tit-for-tat. Traditional Catholics attack New Age Catholics, and back it comes. Self-professed Christians of all flavors post gratuitous insults and jibes directed toward Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses frequently. Threads are posted for the obvious and sole purpose of flaming "the opposition", whoever that might be in any particular instance. I could go on and on with further examples, but from many of your posted comments it is clear that all of you are aware of these facts, and seemingly, accept them as the order of things.

Sadly, a forum devoted to perhaps the highest endeavor of the human mind and soul, that of the religious expression of faith, has become an embarrassment to Free Republic. All too often the discourse appearing in the Religion Forum resembles that found in those threads devoted to the War on Drugs, less the profanity, of course. Consequently, the question whether the Religion Forum will remain much longer as a feature of Free Republic, at least in its present format, is very much up in the air. How that question is answered depends entirely on the response each and every one of you make to this announcement in the next few weeks.

Therefore, from this time forward, the Free Republic rule of " NO profanity, NO personal attacks, NO racism or violence in posts.", will be more strictly enforced. Furthermore, you are all reminded that this is a religion forum; that is, all practitioners of any recognized religion, provided they also follow the rules, are welcome. However, since a large majority of posters to this forum are self-professing Christians, of one flavor or another, some additional rules will be imposed. You should all be quite familiar with them, even though some of you seem to pay them no heed at present.

"The second is this, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself'." [Mark 12:31 (RSV)]

"But I say to you that hear, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you." [Luke 6:27 (RSV)]

"A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; even as I have loved you, that you also love one another." [John 13:34 (RSV)]

Or, if the commandments of our Lord Jesus are insufficient (paraphrasing Paul) speak the truth in love.

First and foremost, all that has passed prior to today is forgiven. However, my forgiveness, unlike that of God, is continuing but not unlimited. After all, I'm a sinner, too. Transgressions of the rules will be met with three warnings, followed by three progressively lengthy suspensions, after which unrepentant posters will be, shall we say, cast into the outer darkness. Totally outrageous violations, of course, remain subject to the ultimate penalty immediately, as always.

However, I am also aware that love, in the Biblical sense, is not the Hollywood kind of love we hear about all around us these days. Spirited debate is a hallmark of Free Republic, and is welcome. Sometimes the truth (at least as we understand it, through a glass darkly) sounds rather harsh, but even harsh truth can be couched in terms that allow the Christian love of the speaker to come through.

Further, no matter how you read the tenor of this announcement, I am not a martinet. I can be persuaded to change my mind by reasoned discourse. On the other hand, sinful nature that I have, I do not suffer fools gladly. Directing complaints to me over some action I have taken is fine; doing so with insulting language will not achieve the results you desire, and in fact, will probably result in something far worse. And, as always, I am not the ultimate authority regarding any decision I make; anything I do can be appealed to one higher court - Jim Robinson, by whose direction I am here as moderator.

There are some things I will not do. I will not arbitrate theological disputes. I will not resolve questions of church polity. Nor will I render judgment on interpretations of Scripture. Those are all issues for legitimate debate, and I do not propose to take part as just another poster on this forum. Naturally, I have my own opinions on all these issues, but my opinions are my own and I will keep them to myself.

You should also know, I suppose, that I was selected as the moderator of the Religion Forum because no one else wanted to wade into the mess that this forum has become. All too often when abuse reports come into the moderators from the Religion Forum it is discovered that there are no clean hands in the dispute under complaint. More often than not removing the post complained about generates another abuse report asking "why was I punished when he said thus-and-so first". In many cases, removing all of the offending posts makes the thread unreadable. So, whatever you think of me now, or come to think of me in the next few weeks, I'm your last chance. After me comes the abyss.

And do yourself a favor; before you respond to this announcement remember the immortal advice of Jim Croce:

One final word. I am not here 24/7. I actually have a life away from Free Republic; consequently your questions/complaints/comments may not be answered immediately. Be patient, they will be answered eventually. In the end, my goal is (our goal should be) that there will come the day when my presence here is unnoticed. That should be attainable if we all act like the Christian brothers and sisters we claim to be.

There are some things I will not do. I will not arbitrate theological disputes. I will not resolve questions of church polity. Nor will I render judgment on interpretations of Scripture. Those are all issues for legitimate debate, and I do not propose to take part as just another poster on this forum. Naturally, I have my own opinions on all these issues, but my opinions are my own and I will keep them to myself.

Are Christians still allowed to 'contend for the faith'?

NIV Philippians 1:27-28
27. Whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ. Then, whether I come and see you or only hear about you in my absence, I will know that you stand firm in one spirit, contending as one man for the faith of the gospel
28. without being frightened in any way by those who oppose you. This is a sign to them that they will be destroyed, but that you will be saved--and that by God.

NIV Jude 1:3-4
3. Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt I had to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints.
4. For certain men whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are godless men, who change the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord.

KJV 2 Timothy 2:15
15. Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

Can Christians claim that this --> that was once for all entrusted to the saints. <-- means that nothing else is needed, and that any other group who says they've FOUND some MORE things that we NEED to be 'saved', we can challenge to 'make their point' as it were?

KJV 2 Timothy 1:7
7. For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.

I can live within the guidelines proposed, as long as I am permitted to do so.

IMHO, too many posters lose sight of the fact that there is a real human being - a brother or sister in many common causes - on the other end of the Freeper handle

Thank you, AG. The reason I always argued against what seemed to be the inevitable "holy war" which has now been going on for several years here is that FR is primarily a political forum, and we could be more useful in effecting political change (e.g., fighting the "culture war") if we concentrated on our commonalities, joined forces, and took advantage of the strenghth there is in numbers. Our political opponents do not have to play "divide and conquer" with us, if we're already doing it to ourselves.

Naturally, in discussing political philosophy, it is inevitable that we would want to point to the religious sources of our concept of the meaning of law, and its relationship to ethics and morality. So religion necessarily will enter into it. But, if I were to present elements of the Scholastic philosophia perennis in support of my ideas, I would find it disruptive to have to deal with accusations that the Pope is the Anti-Christ, and the Catholic Church the Whore of Babylon. As a matter of principle, I refused to participate in that level of religious discussion in the forum. (The was only a single, unified forum, as I recall, in the early days of FR, and it was unmoderated.)

For that reason, I favored the creation of a separate Religion forum, where those who wished to discuss the intricacies of their faiths could do so. Apologetics, Scripture studies, and the like would be appropriate there, but not, except perhaps peripherally, in the political forum. Still, I had hoped that the discussion in the Religion forum would be guided by 1 Peter 2:15-16:

Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and reverence.

The "gentleness and reverence" has been conspicious mostly for its absence in the Religion forum, and I do not exclude myself from that accusation. That's why it has become an embarrassment at FR, when it could have been quite the opposite. Had we exercised more charity in all our postings, even in the political forum, perhaps we could still count Matt Drudge and Lucianne Goldberg among our number. Now-a-days, few people in positions of influence want to have much to do with FR, and our effectiveness is mostly nil.

I don't usually have time to read whole threads, especially one as long as this, so my apologies if I'm repeating things which have been said above, or already settled. But, for the record, I think it would be a good idea to have group-specific threads, where more-or-less like-minded people may discuss a particular aspect of their faith. For example, I disagree strongly with the Calvinist doctrine of Limited Atonement, but it would be unseemly and disruptive of me to start putting my case against it on a thread where people want to work out some of the details of the idea among themselves. If such a thread were marked "Calvinists only please" or such-like, I would know my input would not be welcome, and would, in a spirit of civility, simply stay away. I probably wouldn't even read it.

To ease the burden on the moderators, I'd like to suggest a software feature which has been a feature of news readers for some time, viz., the "plonk" file, affectionately known as the "bozo bin". As we can already see from some of the responses to this thread, some people are here primarly because they like to fight. Several haven't been able to contain that urge even on this thread, and have attempted to bait others into "discussing" specific topics of religious contention. Such people, in my opinion, tend to dramatically decrease the signal-to-noise ratio of the forum. Rather than having them reprimanded or banned, I'd like to have the ability to simply ignore them. That way, if they direct incendiary comments my way, I will remain blissfully ignorant of them, and not be tempted to respond in kind. It becomes a kind of self-censorship, an aid to resist the temptation, in the terminology of the old Usenet maxim, to "feed the trolls".

A full implementation of this feature would require major changes to the server software, since it would require that custom pages for every thread be generated for each user. But a partial implementation might be easier and reasonably effective: namely, the ability to filter what turns up on one's "My Comments" page, which is already custom-generated as the result of a database search. The search engine would simply not deliver to that page any posts from someone on one's ignore list.

That's my two cents, for what it's worth. Good luck to our new SM!

Sounds pretty clear to me.

It doesn't to me........

Is Peter the 'rock'?

NIV Matthew 4:18-19
18. As Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew. They were casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen.
19. "Come, follow me," Jesus said, "and I will make you fishers of men."

NIV Matthew 8:14
14. When Jesus came into Peter's house, he saw Peter's mother-in-law lying in bed with a fever.

NIV Matthew 10:1-2
1. He called his twelve disciples to him and gave them authority to drive out evil spirits and to heal every disease and sickness.
2. These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon (who is called Peter) and his brother Andrew; James son of Zebedee, and his brother John;

NIV Matthew 14:28-31
28. "Lord, if it's you," Peter replied, "tell me to come to you on the water."
29. "Come," he said. Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus.
30. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, "Lord, save me!"
31. Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. "You of little faith," he said, "why did you doubt?"

NIV Matthew 15:13-16
13. He replied, "Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be pulled up by the roots.
14. Leave them; they are blind guides. If a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit."
15. Peter said, "Explain the parable to us."
16. "Are you still so dull?" Jesus asked them.

As you can see, Simon was already known as 'Peter'

BEFORE the following verses came along.....

NIV Matthew 16:13-18
13. When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, "Who do people say the Son of Man is?"
14. They replied, "Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets."
15. "But what about you?" he asked. "Who do you say I am?"
16. Simon Peter answered, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."
17. Jesus replied, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven.
18. And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.

19. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven."

NIV 1 Corinthians 10:4
4. and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ.

NIV Luke 6:48
48. He is like a man building a house, who dug down deep and laid the foundation on rock. When a flood came, the torrent struck that house but could not shake it, because it was well built.

NIV Romans 9:33
33. As it is written: "See, I lay in Zion a stone that causes men to stumble and a rock that makes them fall, and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame."

NIV 1 Peter 2:4-8
4. As you come to him, the living Stone--rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him--
5. you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
6. For in Scripture it says: "See, I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and precious cornerstone, and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame."
7. Now to you who believe, this stone is precious. But to those who do not believe, "The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone, "
8. and, "A stone that causes men to stumble and a rock that makes them fall." They stumble because they disobey the message--which is also what they were destined for.

But, since there WAS no NT at the time Christ spoke to Peter, just what DID Peter and the rest of the Disciples know about ROCKS???

NIV Genesis 49:24-25
24. But his bow remained steady, his strong arms stayed limber, because of the hand of the Mighty One of Jacob, because of the Shepherd, the Rock of Israel,
25. because of your father's God, who helps you, because of the Almighty, who blesses you with blessings of the heavens above, blessings of the deep that lies below, blessings of the breast and womb.

NIV Numbers 20:8
8. "Take the staff, and you and your brother Aaron gather the assembly together. Speak to that rock before their eyes and it will pour out its water. You will bring water out of the rock for the community so they and their livestock can drink."

NIV Deuteronomy 32:4
4. He is the Rock, his works are perfect, and all his ways are just. A faithful God who does no wrong, upright and just is he.

NIV Deuteronomy 32:15
15. Jeshurun grew fat and kicked; filled with food, he became heavy and sleek. He abandoned the God who made him and rejected the Rock his Savior.

NIV Deuteronomy 32:18
18. You deserted the Rock, who fathered you; you forgot the God who gave you birth.

NIV Deuteronomy 32:30-31
30. How could one man chase a thousand, or two put ten thousand to flight, unless their Rock had sold them, unless the LORD had given them up?
31. For their rock is not like our Rock, as even our enemies concede.

NIV 1 Samuel 2:2
2. "There is no one holy like the LORD; there is no one besides you; there is no Rock like our God.

NIV 2 Samuel 22:2-3
2. He said: "The LORD is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer;
3. my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield and the horn of my salvation. He is my stronghold, my refuge and my savior-- from violent men you save me.

NIV 2 Samuel 22:32
32. For who is God besides the LORD? And who is the Rock except our God?

NIV 2 Samuel 22:47
47. "The LORD lives! Praise be to my Rock! Exalted be God, the Rock, my Savior!

NIV 2 Samuel 23:3-4
3. The God of Israel spoke, the Rock of Israel said to me: `When one rules over men in righteousness, when he rules in the fear of God,
4. he is like the light of morning at sunrise on a cloudless morning, like the brightness after rain that brings the grass from the earth.'

NIV Psalms 18:2
2. The LORD is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge. He is my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.

NIV Psalms 18:31
31. For who is God besides the LORD? And who is the Rock except our God?

NIV Psalms 18:46
46. The LORD lives! Praise be to my Rock! Exalted be God my Savior!

NIV Psalms 19:14
14. May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer.

NIV Psalms 28:1

1. To you I call, O LORD my Rock; do not turn a deaf ear to me. For if you remain silent, I will be like those who have gone down to the pit.

NIV Psalms 31:2-3
2. Turn your ear to me, come quickly to my rescue; be my rock of refuge, a strong fortress to save me.
3. Since you are my rock and my fortress, for the sake of your name lead and guide me.

NIV Psalms 42:9
9. I say to God my Rock, "Why have you forgotten me? Why must I go about mourning, oppressed by the enemy?"

NIV Psalms 62:2
2. He alone is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will never be shaken.

NIV Psalms 62:6
6. He alone is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will not be shaken.

NIV Psalms 62:7
7. My salvation and my honor depend on God ; he is my mighty rock, my refuge.

NIV Psalms 71:3
3. Be my rock of refuge, to which I can always go; give the command to save me, for you are my rock and my fortress.

NIV Psalms 78:35
35. They remembered that God was their Rock, that God Most High was their Redeemer.

NIV Psalms 89:26
26. He will call out to me, `You are my Father, my God, the Rock my Savior.'

NIV Psalms 92:14-15
14. They will still bear fruit in old age, they will stay fresh and green,
15. proclaiming, "The LORD is upright; he is my Rock, and there is no wickedness in him."

NIV Psalms 95:1
1. Come, let us sing for joy to the LORD; let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation.

NIV Psalms 144:1
1. Praise be to the LORD my Rock, who trains my hands for war, my fingers for battle.

NIV Isaiah 17:10
10. You have forgotten God your Savior; you have not remembered the Rock, your fortress.

NIV Isaiah 26:4
4. Trust in the LORD forever, for the LORD, the LORD, is the Rock eternal.

NIV Isaiah 30:29
29. And you will sing as on the night you celebrate a holy festival; your hearts will rejoice as when people go up with flutes to the mountain of the LORD, to the Rock of Israel.

NIV Isaiah 44:8
8. Do not tremble, do not be afraid. Did I not proclaim this and foretell it long ago? You are my witnesses. Is there any God besides me? No, there is no other Rock; I know not one."

NIV Habakkuk 1:12
12. O LORD, are you not from everlasting? My God, my Holy One, we will not die. O LORD, you have appointed them to execute judgment; O Rock, you have ordained them to punish.

.....No other rock.............

And now you know the Biblical position!

Selective use of Scripture.

Good grief!... Oh, so mine is selective but yours is not.

Let's not confuse rebuke with condemnation. Peter was trying to save Jesus from a certain and terrible fate. This is the same anyone of us mere mortals would do if one we loved dearly chose to die a terrible death. Jesus was focused on his divine mission and regarded anything or any weakness that might deter Him from it to be a message from Satan. The following from NIV, courtesy of Bible Gateway.com

Matthew 16

18And I tell you that you are Peter,[3] and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades[4] will not overcome it.[5] 19I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be[6] bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be[7] loosed in heaven." 20Then he warned his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Christ.

21From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life. 22Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. "Never, Lord!" he said. "This shall never happen to you!" 23Jesus turned and said to Peter, "Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men." 24Then Jesus said to his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.

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Peter did just that. He worked miracles, converted Jews to Christianity, wrote two books of the Holy Bible and died as a martyr in Rome.

As to Jesus bequeathing Mary to the care of John as his Mother, Jesus was looking after Mary’s mortal well being. And you would yours if you were about to depart this world. John was young. Peter was older and already burdened with being head of the Apostles.

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