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After reading all the comments that came in since yesterday it appears that the two of you are the most exercised about the "new rules". Allow me to remind you precisely what they are:

"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)]

"If you love me, you will keep my commandments." [John 14:15 (RSV)]

If these rules give you as much heartburn as it appears they do, I suggest you take it up with the Author.

And by the way, the rule against personal attacks has been in effect since the inception of Free Republic.

Spirited debate and contention between posters has always been - and still is - welcome, provided all are treated with the respect due another creature made in the image of God.

If these rules give you as much heartburn as it appears they do, I suggest you take it up with the Author.

Actually, this was the largest posting I'd made on a religious thread in quite some time. As far as I'm concerned, FR's religous threads were gutted quite a while back. And not merely by management. I mean that it was already getting too watered down and chatty all by itself.

Spirited debate and contention between posters has always been - and still is - welcome, provided all are treated with the respect due another creature made in the image of God.

I suspect the more political correctness is enforced at FR, the more you will have a readership incapable of any major effort at activism.

Polite conversation is fine. But if you want to win, you need tough-minded people who just don't give a fig whether some liberal is offended, people who can take it and dish it out, people who get mad and go for broke, people who can stand up to a large number of liberals who hate ever single word they have to say. And that is who FR was in its greatest moments of activism. That's how FR made its mark during the impeachment/Floriduh incidents.

Maybe with the GOP holding power and the lack of threat to gun rights, we don't expect such a fight in the forseeable future. Maybe activism in either party declines inevitably when their party is in power or holds strong position. Or maybe FR wants to go more mainstream. Whatever. But I think we're leaving the hardcore activism behind. Still, that may not be something FR management can do anything about no matter what.

Some people would say that you should just get rid of the religious forum if you're going to water it down. Force the focus back onto the political side. Unless the religious forum reinforces the political side by helping to attract and retain tough-minded activists, I can't see its purpose. But then, I don't have a donor list so the picture might look different from the standpoint of management.

At any rate, I'm pretty much an ex-poster on the religious threads. So don't worry about what I think. I try to stay on the political threads entirely now, learn something about issues and candidates, read articles to help me remember all the fronts on our battle against the Left in both parties.

If the intent is to get rid of the religious forums by strangling them into inanity, that's probably as good a way to marginalize them as just pulling all religious threads outright.

I'll close by observing that effective fighters must fight. Shooters must practice, soldiers must train, cops must target-shoot and practice, boxers must box. These things must be a mental habit because we forget all too soon. For instance, any soldier who leaves the service suffers a substantial decline in combat readiness in only a year or so. It's not about their physical skills nearly as much as it is the ingrained habit of readiness and taking a confident and aggressive stance. FR used to be filled to the brim with combative conservatives, though they might not have been too dainty in polite company. Maybe our biggest problem was our past successes. As much as anything, FR reminds me of a peacetime military, not the elite fighting force we were. But maybe we'll see a revival if Hillary jumps into the race.