Dear Brothers and Sisters,
After much consideration, prayer, and counsel, I’ve decided to pull the plug on the comments option for the blog.
The original intent of allowing comments was to give people a forum to civilly discuss what was posted here. To compare notes. To sharpen each other. To exhort one another. But I suspect many are now logging in simply to watch the muck slinging. This forum was never meant to become an outlet for what I would call “spiritual internet pornography”—the ability to log on, sin anonymously, and no one ever know about it. Such is counter to the accountability we want to foster in the family of God. I did not anticipate this turn in events, though given our fallen human nature I should have. This has been a failure on my part, and I apologize sincerely.
Some of you have adhered scrupulously to the original intent of the comments section. To you, I say that whether you be against this blog or for it, you have my deepest, most heartfelt thanks for conducting yourselves with integrity, uprightness, and Spirit-filledness. You, on both sides, have encouraged and sharpened me. I bless you in the name of Jesus, our precious Sacrificial Lamb and Coming Savior.
But some of you have not held to these ideals. You have delved into the muck and mud of the world, using crudities, personal attacks, and vitriol in your posts. This became abundantly clear yesterday. You should be ashamed of yourselves. You know better—you’ve been under biblical teaching, you profess to be Believers, and you know what Scripture says about our conduct. To you, I rebuke you in love as a fellow journeyman with Christ.
On this note, I must apologize to my audience for allowing some of these comments to slip through. After reading pages of vitriolic comments I reject, some comments that still contain things they shouldn’t, appear rather mild and make it through. I learned this after hearing over the phone of two comments I didn’t even know had made it out. Further confounding the situation is the fact that I simply do not have time to completely read hundreds of comments. These two factors, however, do not excuse my allowing certain things to get through which should not have. And for this I beg your forgiveness and pardon.
Finally, all of this said, I will be deactivating the Comment feature presently. I will save certain of the more outstanding comments (please don’t be offended if I don’t take yours, it’s just that we’ve got limited space on the front page), and display them in post form on the front page. These will be standards to look to as we discuss in the church and amongst ourselves the recent goings on at Bellevue.
This blog will continue to host interviews, updates on correspondence, and other relevant materials—updated as frequently as it is now. It will stay above the board, filled with integrity to the best of my ability, and Christ-honoring. What’s been happening in the comments section has not done these things, and that ends now.
