Posted on 01/27/2007 6:12:35 AM PST by NYer
Have you ever heard "And Can It Be" sung loudly and with feeling?!
Amazing Love!
As long as the Caucus speaks to its own confession and does not speak of or for another confession - there is no question whether the thread can remain closed.
Well, NYer, I've now read 59 posts on this thread. The reaction of some of the Protestants to it is exactly why I have in the past remarked about the use of the term "Catholic" on these threads when the subject is the theology of The Church, especially if one is going to discuss the Fathers. It ALWAYS leads to some attack on the Roman Church when an otherwise interesting and potentially valuable discussion of patristics, from an era long before the Reformation and having little or nothing to do with the excesses of the Medieval Latin Church against which the Protestants revolted, could have occurred.
And no doubt a Protestant Caucus might present statements it considers as "thoughtful addressing of the [Catholic] POV." Nevertheless, if any Catholic were to find the statement to be false, incomplete, a strawman argument - the thread should be opened for his rebuttal.
The author's statement seems to imply that the only way Protestants can be correct is for Christ to be a liar, an assertion which is difficult to ignore.
I disagree. Most news articles concerning the Church, the Catechism, items in the Catholic Encyclopedia and Catholic web pages would be eligible for a Catholic Caucus designation.
I agree that a "caucus thread" is difficult. It is not impossible, however.
If the discussion involves another group, then it is not a caucus.
If it discusses doctrine that is peculiar to your group and disagreed with by another group, that is different, and it should be a legitimate caucus. If the caucus members start bashing the other groups, then they've violated the caucus. Their best bet is to request the poster to ask for his "bashing" posts to be deleted by the Mod.
You could, for example, have a caucus around the "Assumption of Mary." It would only be a problem if your people start bashing others who don't accept that doctrine.
That raises a question for the mod: What if a "devotional thread" starts in a polemical direction against another "confession?"
"Have you ever heard "And Can It Be" sung loudly and with feeling?!
Amazing Love!"
Indeed I have. I've sung it myself that way. When I was a teenager I went to Phillips Exeter. We had chapel everyday and sang almost all of C. Wesley's hymns, including "And Can It Be". That's where I developed a lifelong love of them. I actually have a multi cd set of his hymns which we listen to here at home and in the car. What strikes me most is the profund theological poetry and confidence of the hymns. Its almost as if he were a later, Western version of +Romanos the Melodist.
Right now, however, I am listening to some chanting from the Divine Liturgy in Old Slavonic. :)
Likewise I'm sure there are statements a Protestant Caucus might make about the Catholic Church that would sound like a recounting of history to me - but in the eyes of a member of the Catholic confession might be seen as false, incomplete, a strawman argument, etc. And in that case, I would open the Protestant Caucus for rebuttal also.
The "Assumption of Mary" thread is one I would have declared a Catholic Caucus had I posted it, to keep it reverent.
If it is not labeled as a closed thread, then it is open for rebuttal.
If it is labeled as a closed thread, and is unjustly disrupted, then my take is that the RM will delete the offensive posts and warn the disrupter.
I would say they are not iron cast fact facts, but opinions of the author regarding another confession. Since the post repeatedly mentions Proddies by name the thread should be open to Proddies.
It's the equivalent of the convention on FR that if you mention a poster, you ping the poster. I'm not saying they should ping us, but they shouldn't be able to talk about us without us being able to throw our 00.2 cents in....
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