How I view what I do as an administrator on the forums, am I too lenient?
Entry posted by Omegaman 3.0 in Thoughts
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Someone recently had some criticism to express about how some of us charged with administering the forums conduct our tasks there. Their criticism is not without merit, and it expressed largely the idea, that we administrators are too tolerant of heretics and have a higher accountability to God than to allow that. I realize that he was not alone in that opinion, and because of that, I decided to offer some thoughts about that here in my blog.
I am accountable to God, and I agree that as a moderator, I have higher accountability than "regular members" here on the forums.
I have a job to do here, and that is to enforce the Terms of Service, and try to keep some order and peace, etc. There are rules here, and enforcement is part of my task here, but not to be a forum cop, but to try to minister to others here. Being a cop here, is unrealistic anyway.
Imagine a community, of 60,000 people, who are awake at all hours of the day, every day of the week, being policed by a handful of people as a part time job. It just is not possible, but that is analogous to the situation at Worthy.
This is not church. This is a community of people of faith, people with erroneous (missing the true God) religions, and people of no faith whatsoever. Here, I am in the world, and not of it. I am here more to bring light to those in darkness, than to protect the sheep. I want to see the sheep grow, and learn to protect themselves and others. We are not attempting to make a place where Christians can retreat from the world and hide from it's ugly realities. Never the less, those who participate, are free to choose to do so, in areas that are safe. If one does not want to see arguments and friction, name calling and the like, one can go to a praise and poetry section, view shared photographs, enter into prayer and not the enter the areas of theological and political discussion. You know the phrase: “If you cannot stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen!” Makes perfect sense.
As I said, we are not attempting to make this a place of retreat only, this is not a sanctuary. The church tried that after the rise of Darwinism and the industrial revolution. Rather than engage Darwinism and science on that footing, embracing the fact that in God and the Bible is truth, and that the Spirit will guide, much of the church withdrew into congregations and safe havens, while other people thought:. "We do not need religion or God, we have science and technology now!"
Some of the church embraced: If you can't beat 'em, withdraw from them.
The church withdrew from the world, it left politics, entertainment, and education in the hands of the world, and the result has been devastating.
"Well, maybe there is something to this evolution stuff, maybe Christianity should be evolutionary, we can change the faith."
If you can't beat them, join them.
That resulted in seeker friendly churches, something that is going on today, more than ever. It results in a watered down gospel that cannot lead to salvation, but at least no one is offended. Big churches filled with lost people who do not hear the answers they need to questions they do not even know to ask.
There is a better way. Not "if you cannot beat them, isolate from them", not "if you cannot beat them, join them". I suggest another:
"BEAT THEM"
When you have what we have here at Worthy, you have enemies of God, and friends of God, and enemies of God who are future friends of God. Some of His the friends, do not have the answers - yet! They are ill equipped to provide what they do not know. They live their lives among wolves who will prey on their innocence.
Some of the friends are shepherds. They do protect the sheep. They provide answers to challenges issued by the wolves. Here, they do not drive the wolves off always, because the wolves also need to hear the answers, hear the gospel. Some wolves may (and some have) become sheep and even shepherds themselves. Sometimes the wolves are driven away. We ban some. Some wolves just walk away, not even understanding enough to be sad about it. Pity - pray for them as well as for the sheep.
I myself was an Atheist, now a Christian of over 40 years and I am grateful to God for those among His own, who were patient enough to want to reach me for Him, and teach me, not just refute me and attempt to ridicule me and call me names. All that would have accomplished is to show me that Christians are not loving and interested in my soul, just interested in winning arguments or maybe winning merit badges with a God that I was certain did not exist.
By not driving the wolves away, the wolves get answered, they get responded to. In this, the sheep hear the answers. This bolsters their faith, and teaches them how to respond to the wolves of their own lives, be that in the work place, the marketplace, their neighborhoods, their families, social media, and even their churches.
If they learn it right, they learn the facts AND they learn to respond with humility, reverence, and love, such that even their "enemies" (which God has commanded them to love) have to admit the sheep were respectful and kind, and yet not powerless victims either.
Here on the forums, light and darkness meet. However, they do not have to blend together. They can and should remain clearly separate and distinct. No compromise is expected, but kindness is. We cannot control what the other guy does or says, but we can and are expected to control what we say. Why give the other guy an excuse for legitimate criticism. Expose their heresies, and fallacies, but there is no need to be dismissive, mean, condescending, rude, abusive, abrasive, insulting name callers, and the like. I know I fail to live up to those standards, but I am trying to improve.
Jesus may have been seemed harsh at times, in some of those aspects in certain situations with specific people, no doubt about that. However, be mindful of this:
We are not God, we are not Jesus, we are not all knowing, we are not perfect. In fact, we are more like our sinner "adversary". than we are like Jesus. Jesus died for our adversaries in the forums, and our opponents were created in God's image, the same as we were. Let's try to keep these things in our minds in our conversations with others.
There is bound to be some friction. That is normal. However, let's see that for our parts, there is light, not just smoke and heat.
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