"A little CONTEXT blows your theory away... he speaks only in differentiating the generations, not to elevate the stature of the (uncapitalized) fathers."
What do you mean by "my theory"? I didn't write any theory. Quite the opposite: it was perfectly customary and unremarkable in Apostolic times to call older men "fathers". That's very much my point. I sure didn't say anything about elevating the stature of the "uncapitalized" fathers.
So again and again (and again), you're refuting things I didn't say.
(By the way, when you're trying to discern the meaning of a text, it helps to know just a little teeny bit about the original language. The Greek New Testament was written in all capital letters, without spaces, punctuation, accents or diacritical marks. "Uncapitalized" is completely irrelevant in this context: it was all capitalized.)
The true “original language” was Hebrew; John couldn’t even speak Greek, and certainly couldn’t write it. Hebrew also uses uniform letters, but that isn’t as important as the fact that every early English translator left ‘fathers’ uncapitalized, and did capitalize Father, when it referred to Yehova.
What I mean by your theory goes back to when you first offered the verse out of context in support of addressing men as father in authority. Neither John, Stephen, nor Paul ever did that. It was always generational when they used the word.