Does it strike any of you as it does me what a model thread we have this morning on the HOB vote canonical question? We have reappraisers and reasserters, we have questions and disagreements, but no venom, no sidetracking, and no personal attacks.
My dilemma is how to get all threads to be like this one. Suggestions are welcome….–KSH.
Rigorous enforcement of rules – no ad hominems, no changing the subject, plenipotentiary powers to elves ….. aaaarrrgh!
[i] And the elimination of one liners. [/i]
-Elf Lady
The thread is focused on a technical question. This helps it stay on track.
The fact that you’ve been posting about the tone of comments and having the Elves do same is obviously helping. Like any important point, it has to be made again and again.
And now you are recognizing and encouraging the good behavior – celebrating and giving thanks is important – maybe even more important than the warnings!
Pretty good ministry on the part of this blog. Over and above the flow of info and intellectual discourse, you are helping your readers practice their faith.
Kendall, another significant point is the presence in the thread of a series of comments by the blog host. I have noticed in several places, and especially on T19, that when the blog host joins in on the conversation it has a definite tendency to keep the thread on track.
[size=2][color=red][url=http://resurrectioncommunitypersonal.blogspot.com/]The Rabbit[/url][/color][color=gray].[/color][/size]
I hate to admit it, but #1 is right. Other places I can get away with more venting. Here I know I have to behave myself. Whew! A two-liner.
…make that three. Must go now; brain short on protein.
I don’t think there is any thing you can do to make comments be as peaceful as they have b
Maybe it’s because we’re so close to Holy Week.
[i] That’s a one liner… but it’s valid. [/i]
-Elf Lady
I try very hard to stay away from one-liners. I also know I wander as I generate many liners. At times the elves caution me but I don’t think it I have needed the corrective action too often have I?
[i] Not so far. [/i]
My experience is in agreement of #4 Br_rabbit – it is the participation of Kendall that influences the works.
There were a number of one liners in the thread, but as Kendall points out, the flow remained on track and there was development of the issue with some remarkable insight.
If this is to be a teaching thread about the scriptures and the workings of the church, then there needs to be adult supervision.
A rather interesting post from wvparson (Fr. Tony)
I must remember to paste 🙂
There has been some controversy lately about the use of Canon Law, or its absence to manage the matter of the schism in the Diocese of San Joachim, the status of the members of its Standing Committee and the appointment of a temporary bishop for the rump TEC diocese. Certainly TEC has never encountered this sort of thing before. When congregations and groups left in the past, as in the Reformed Episcopal Church or the African Orthodox Church secessions, those leaving, aggrieved Evangelicals on the one hand and disenfranchised Black Episcopalians in the second case, departed without diocesan structure.
In perilous times many otherwise sane and liberally minded people are often seduced into surrendering their liberties in the name of corporate peril. Those charged with protecting the endangered body fudge the law, or break it, and get away with it all because the times dictate the measures. Situation ethics triumph.
My older son reminded me that there was a time, as in the English Civil War period when, to destroy an enemy, justice might be side-stepped by getting Parliament to adopt a Bill of Attainder. By so doing a trial was avoided and the wretched business of having to produce evidence or granting the accused their constitutional rights obviated. A majority might vote and then “off with his head”.
May one ever assume that a body empowered to prosecute may be permitted to interpret the law by which an offender or a group of offenders are dealt with? Who interprets the law?
I return again to my theme. Who interprets our ecclesiastical law? It is extraordinary to be told that the Presiding Bishop’s Chancellor assures us that the Canons were observed in the matter of the deposition of two bishops this week. In secular society the equivalent would be for the prosecution to assure the court that all was being done in accordance with the law. I leave aside the undoubtedly canonical business of getting, or not getting, the three longest serving bishops to approve of a bill of attainder or of a committee meeting in private signing off on the alleged guilt of the accused.
That there is an overwhelming desire on the part of our bishops to shoot as many admirals as possible on their quarterdecks “for the encouragement of others” is respectably British but questionably Christian. I am often told nowadays that our doctrine and much of our tradition is the fruit of victory. “Winners write history.” Well it would seem obvious that we are in the hands of “winners” now and the history they are writing -may I become modern and wax anecdotal? – is that we make examples of at least one very old man whose wife is in the grips of a terminal disease, look as if we are after another elderly bishop, all in an attempt to “discipline” a bishop who has attempted to run off with the family silver, and perhaps warn two or more others not to do the same or else?
The “or else” is that without any form of trial or judicial hearing a group of persons will vote to declare that such persons have been deposed from the Sacred Ministry, our canonic version of a Bill of Attainder. The wretched bishops are obviously guilty and so “Off with their heads. ” Ah! we say but that means “our” sacred ministry rather than that of the Church Catholic. Yet we are not prepared to say “from the ministry of
this jurisdiction”. It’s OK to imply it, or merely suggest that we don’t mean that which the language states.
Now all this wouldn’t matter a fig but for two points. The first is that we are doing this in the face of a world and in a nation which prizes due process and a system of justice tilted towards the accused. “But”, I shall hear, “Bishop X did this or that ergo we are justified in doing this or that.” Do two wrongs make a right?
Secondly we are part of a jurisdiction which makes much of justice. What sort of justice may one expect in a body whose laws are solely interpreted by those bringing charges and executing judgment and sentence? What sort of Christian justice may we expect of a jurisdiction for whom turning the other cheek, walking the extra mile,
“seventy times seven”, not going before secular courts are quaint old-fashioned sayings to be ignored when examples must be made or property defended?
No one deplores schism more than I. “I’ve been there, done that” as
the saying goes. Nor do I suggest that there should not be serious consequences if someone, in what ever Order, willfully breaks our discipline. BUT I must say loudly that nothing has offended me more or sickened me -and that includes some actions of GC 2003- more than the activities of our leaders and their use of “law” during the
past few months. There seems to be a ruthlessness, a bloodlessness, and a determination to proceed whatever our Canons may suggest, whether authority is clearly given or not, all because of a present crisis. The nearest parallel I can see is to be found in the post 9/11 activities of the present administration. This will come back to bite us.
—
Posted By Fr. Tony Clavier to Fr. Tony Clavier at 3/15/2008
There is a clear sense of “rooting out all conservatives” from TEC, and this is not the Christian way of doing things………or is it? One wonders at times.
what is this business with (selectively) deleting one liners? Are the moderator and elves of the opinion that a quality contribution can not be delivered in one line? Obviously not, since there are several comments on this thread that are one liners. yet my comment regarding Obama and Rev. Wright being akin to a “Sister Souljah moment” for him is removed for reasons that are unclear- it was germane to the thread, did not attack another poster, and could reasonably be interpreted as being correct. Note there are several other one line responses (3, 4 and 17 to be precise) that have been left to stand in that thread.
I am very disssappointed.
[i] Decisions on one liners are judgment calls. Some one liners are appropriate. But in the main, they’re quick shots across the bow. We do the best we can in making (selective) decisions. [/i]
-Elf Lady
disappointed.
I just want to say that I often learn as much or more from the comments as I do from the articles. The comments, both antagonistic and concillitory, angry and kind, rude and polite, prod me to think and through the give and take, help me to see the issues more clearly.
Peace
Jim Elliott <><