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I"m speaking ONLY about rebukes with harsh WORDS....hypocrite, murderer, thieves, Satan, etc.

The passage in John 21 doesn't qualify.

Pastors who use abusive language from the pulpit can speak about: those outside their congregation who are not Christian, those outside who are Christian, those inside who are not, those inside who are.

It seems that Jesus would call murderers murderers, thieves thieves, adulterers adulterers. He knew the FACT of their violation.

I don't recall him calling anyone "stupid, imbecile, retarded, @ssh_le, etc." He did use "viper," and I doubt that they were literal vipers, but they could have had a "poisonous" result. But, again, he would have known that as a fact.

He didn't use the words to demean and thereby subjugate; instead, he used them as factual descriptives. But while he might know when someone was a thief, a pastor might have no idea. Jesus could say it, but a pastor couldn't.

What do you think?

Pastors who use abusive language from the pulpit can speak about: those outside their congregation who are not Christian, those outside who are Christian, those inside who are not, those inside who are.

Apparently, you Methodists are a lot tougher than I thought. I can't recall any abusive language on the above topics in the Baptist churches I've attended. But then, I do expect a minister to tell us why we're Baptist and not RC/Mormon/liberal ex-Protestants/Muslims/etc.

I don't believe delineating the distinctives of your denomination is abusive provided the description is factually accurate. My experience with non-Baptist churches is much the same. Personally, I wish we'd hear more about Baptist distinctives and comparison to other traditions so that more Baptists would themselves understand the Baptist tradition better. I would guess a lot of churches have less than half the membership who know and value the particular doctrine of their denomination enough to explain the most basic distinctives to a stranger, let alone give any sort of detailed history of it.