Posted on 12/06/2009 3:24:44 PM PST by Jedediah
You are my children of light , you are my children of light , you are my children of light , and in this season of lights , let MY Light shine through you , for MY SEASON NEVER ENDS !
Truly this is a season of lights , but we are to be lights for Christ Jesus in an open season and heaven for him !
Isaiah 60 The Gentiles Bless Zion 1 Arise, shine; For your light has come! And the glory of the LORD is risen upon you. 2 For behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, And deep darkness the people; But the LORD will arise over you, And His glory will be seen upon you. 3 The Gentiles shall come to your light, And kings to the brightness of your rising.
“How is ‘charismatic’ defined?”
A discussion about this very question ensued on this thread, starting approximately at the highlighted post:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2398088/posts#10
I'm not sure that the thread eventually generated the most theologically-precise definition of “charismatic,” but in my view, it seems to have generated a pretty decent working definition.
sitetest
To recap, for the purpose of forming a "Charismatic Caucus" on the Religion Forum, the term Charismatic refers to Freepers who believe in personally manifest gifts of the Holy Spirit including but not limited to present day prophecies spoken in first person. Other gifts would include speaking in tongues, faith healing, etc.
The belief may be held by Pentecostals, Baptists, Catholics, Mormons, and so on.
I don’t think that, just on principle, there ought to be changes from open to caucus five hours after a thread is started:
1) Thread is posted
2) Discussion ensues
3) Five hours later the thread is converted to “caucus”
4) Discussion is purged
That’s no way to run a railroad.
Ordinarily I would agree with you. But in this case, the poster made a good faith effort to post it as a caucus but didn’t know how and sent me a Freepmail which I did not see until the damage was already done. It was my fault, not his. So I cleaned up my mess, not yours.
Among my non-virtual friends, in my non-virtual life, I'm often criticized for extending too much benefit of the doubt to folks. I was probably the last person in the United States to come to the conclusion that perhaps Michael Jackson might have had some,... ah,... inappropriate contact with some children. I still don't think that the prosecution proved OJ’s guilt in court.
But I gotta tell ya, this one pegs my benefit-o’-doubtometer:
“But in this case, the poster made a good faith effort to post it as a caucus but didn’t know how...”
Didn't know how? Really? Didn't know how to type the letters c-h-a-r-i-s-m-a-t-i-c c-a-u-c-u-s into the title of the thread? Wow.
Or maybe rather, he forgot? And remembered after the fact? Perhaps, not having posted many threads, he forgot the requirement necessary to make it a caucus thread? And only remembered after the first initial critical remarks appeared from non-caucus members?
Maybe I'm quibbling, but I think it makes a difference.
The thread really was up for five hours as a non-caucus thread. If someone truly and really was actually incapable of making the thread a caucus thread, I could understand the bowdlerization necessary to turn it into one five hours after the fact. But if they merely forgot because they're a little inexperienced at it, I think that perhaps it might have been preferable to recommed posting a new thread with the caucus label, and permitting this one to remain an open thread.
The slight, the harm done to others is minor. But it isn't unreal.
sitetest
Concerning knowing the ropes, whereas you have been a Freeper for nearly twelve years, he has only been on the forum for about nine months. We mods expect to spend more time with newbies.
And as you say the better solution may have been to let this one ride as "open" and have him post a new one, caucused. Neverthless, what is done is done. It is my mess.
Thanks for your tireless and thankless labors to bring and maintain sanity and some effective degree of civility to this forum for Charismatics and Pentecostals as well as the rest of the herd of cats.
I remain unimpressed by . . . some folks’ . . . shrill efforts to sabotage the efforts of those who disagree with their constructions on reality. Throwing dust, noise, the kitchen sink, absurdities to the max into such threads is a stinking pile of cheap shots, to me.
Your criteria for caucuses are clear enough. True, “Charismatic” is somewhat of a tricky bird of rare plumage to apply the caucus structure to because of the nature of Charismania crossing all remotely Christian denominations. However, it’s not THAT difficult.
imho:
Folks trying to rabidly find loop-holes in your criteria that will allow them to disrupt and soil the nest of a Charismatic caucus seem to have a foolishly low estimate of your alertness and comprehensive understanding. They seem to fail to realize that they’ll never get up early enough to out-fox you on such scores. LOL.
Keeping stinking piles of cheap shots out of such threads, imho—as far as I can tell, is far from easy.
It is such a comfort and blessing that God has placed you in such a position on such an important forum. PRAISE GOD.
May He continue to strengthen your Holy Spirit wisdom for all the baby splitting tasks dumped in your lap.
Thank you for your support, however I must hasten to point out that you might have just pinged a lot of non-Charismatics to this caucus.
I guess I would have interpreted the e-mail more along the lines of, “oops, I forgot to do this, how do I fix it.”
But I'm belaboring the point, and for that, I apologize.
It is better to treat newer posters with more benefit of the doubt, although my own view is that nine days or nine weeks might be a period that would engender significantly more leeway, but nine months is almost a veteran.
“Neverthless, what is done is done.”
That's true.
I guess as someone who has been posting here for a little while, I've become attached to the idea of “thread integrity.” I have no problem with moderators excising clearly offensive or inappropriate posts, and in fact, advocated this for a long time before Jim Robinson finally concluded that it was a good idea after all.
But the level of snips in this thread really hurts its thread integrity.
Oh well. There are worse things in the world.
sitetest
Thank you for your support.
“Folks trying to rabidly find loop-holes in your criteria that will allow them to disrupt and soil the nest of a Charismatic caucus seem to have a foolishly low estimate of your alertness and comprehensive understanding.”
I hadn't seen too much of this (actually, I hadn't seen this at all). I saw folks looking for clarification of just what the nature of this caucus might be (so, there were requests to remove “catholic” and similar keywords to avoid confusion - hardly the work of loophole finders). I saw some folks asking about the fact that this label crosses many theological boundaries. Is this “loophole finding” on the part of folks “rabidly” trying to disrupt this caucus?
May I ask you who might be such a poster, “rabidly finding loop-holes...” etc.?
sitetest
The objections on this thread - and the discussion on the previous one - are appropriate for clearing the air.
Hmmmmm . . .
I suppose I should check. That was my small sounding board group from the END TIMES list . . . my understanding is that they would all qualify as Charismatics. However, I’ll poll them to be sure. Sorry.
“I didn’t make that comment,...”
I understand. As I had read the comment, I already knew the opinion of its poster. I had a different impression of what was actually happening. I was more interested in whether you found the assertion to have a basis in reality.
sitetest
Oh, I don’t know that such has really occurred on this thread. It just felt like it was looming, waiting in the wings . . . to me.
Some types of threads most persistently face the most relentless onslaughts of various kinds on FR. Charismania etc. is a very reliable trigger of such frothing at the fingers.
Those of us of that persuasion have plenty of differences amongst us. We certainly don’t need the chronic relentless frothing at the fingers from those rabidly hostile against such a perspective that such threads virtually always trigger from the git-go.
I’m very blessed and relieved that Jedediah’s stuff may well have finally found a fitting context for sane and civil discussion without such rabidly hostile frothing at the fingers from the virulent opposition.
Perhaps part of the reason for my above comments is to assert clearly that some of us care a lot about the distinctions and are not likely to roll over and play dead in the face of abusive assaults on such threads.
I can’t imagine that the rabid old timers would assume that I would but I just like to remind them from time to time.
TEE HEE.
I saw what has transpired as clearing the air, too.
And quite fitting.
I just want to emphasize . . . that Charismatics are not likely to be any more sympathetic to caucus crashing hostilities from virulent opponents
any more than
Roman Catholics/Vatican affiliates are their caucus threads.
Is that clearer?
Thank you!
In the past, I've asked you not to post to me or ping me. You have mostly respected that request. Thank you.
I understand that it is your post that I'm discussing with the Religion Moderator, nonetheless, I only wanted to discuss the assertion made in your post with the Religion Moderator. I was interested in whether the Religion Moderator saw evidence of what you asserted.
I have never read any post of yours on the Religion Forum that seemed even remotely worthwhile in any way. In fact, just the opposite, your posts usually range from incoherent, wild, raving posts to truly vulgar and base offerings. As you know, some of your posts have been so crude as to require deletion by moderators. Thus, I have no general interest in discussing your posts with you, or anything else, for that matter.
For a long time, I'd appreciated the idiosyncratic things that you do with your posts - lots of colors, different fonts and font sizes - as it had alerted me that I may safely pass a post without losing anything of any value whatsoever in any way, shape or form. If you could return to the style, I would be much obliged.
All that being said, if you vowed that your posts would avoid incoherent anti-Catholic and anti-Christian ranting, I would consider discussing your original assertion with you in the post of yours that I cited.
sitetest
Evidently we don’t share enough common experience or vocabulary to have a meaningful discussion.
However, your post does trigger the following . . .
1. Evidently the “Dear” in “Dear Quix”
was a mistake, an error, a fraud or a lie.
2. I wonder which “Saint” you’d credit with funneling such sweetness to you for sharing with me.
3. What attractive aspect of Roman Catholicism were you displaying in that post?
1. “Dear” is a fairly common salutation used in correspondence.
I recently wrote both my US Senators and my US Representative. All three are liberals. Nonetheless, I addressed each as “dear.”
Thus, it's hardly an error, fraud or lie, but merely a matter of preferred etiquette.
Another valuable effect of this minor social grace is that it should serve as a reminder to us to try to write charitably to each other. Not that we always do so, but then the use of the salutation can serve as a reminder of our failures, which is a good thing as well.
In the case of the post that I wrote to you, the use of the salutation had the desired effect.
You shoulda seen the first draft of the post.
Or the second.
Or the third.
2. I'm not sure what saints have to do with the discussion, unless you're merely trying to get in the seemingly obligatory anti-Catholic rant. I can't read your mind, so it's just a guess on my part.
3. “What attractive aspect of Roman Catholicism were you displaying in that post?”
I didn't know that I was trying to display any.
Did you want to discuss the assertion that you made about beginning with, “I remain unimpressed by . . . some folks’ . . . shrill efforts to sabotage the efforts of those who disagree with their constructions on reality.” and then, this, "Folks trying to rabidly find loop-holes in your criteria that will allow them to disrupt and soil the nest of a Charismatic caucus seem to have a foolishly low estimate of your alertness and comprehensive understanding."?
It is you who initially posted to me. I was of a mind to exclude you from the discussion with the Religion Moderator of your post. But I thought in fairness, it IS your post, and if you want in on the discussion, I suppose that the case could be made for it.
But if not, tant mieux!
sitetest
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