Sunday, November 23, 2003
(2:45 AM) | Anonymous:
The first time is always a bit akward
This is my first contribution to The Weblog, the best unsung blog of 2003. Adam asked me to contribute and after the shouts of joy subsided the reality of the situation sunk in. I I have been trying to come up with a great post ever since. I was going to discuss Derrida's Religion sans Religion and liberalism. It was going to be striking and clever, without dumbing down the material for the common blog reader. Then I realized I didn't know anything about Derrida's Religion sans Religion other than sans means without. This was not enough to write a post about. I had some other ideas but they required proof-reading and I hate proof-reading so instead I will relate to you my experience being kicked off of Christian public forums.
I just found out today I have been removed from Olivet's Academy listserv. This is the second time this year. I always wonder why I'm removed and when I ask, I find that I am always put back in without explanation. The first time I think it may have been a misunderstanding concerning me and a suggestion put forth to some of my right leaning "we're not right-leaning" friends on the listserv. I simply attempted to end the debate by suggesting we meet somewhere and brawl it out. I will never know if they accepted or not because I didn't get any e-mails since I was removed. If they did accept I wonder if they went to a field somewhere and waited for me and then I decide that's better than reality so I pretend that's what happened.
Hey Mark Miller, remember that time you went to the field to fight me but I didn't show up? That was some fun times.
So why was I removed this time? The only thing I can figure is that I did insist that Voegelin was not the master of philosophy and I had a little fun with Nietzsche quotes. Now if I had been having fun with Bataille quotes I'd understand. Maybe Adam Smith knows. Though my calling for Michael Pogeski's (or POTUS as he likes to be called) impeachment ought to have been a little more offensive.
The place I was kicked off leaving behind a legacy of profanity and harmful theology was called Decapolis. Decapolis is a evangelical, pseudo-punk rock heaven and when I found it at the tender age of 15 I was a evangelical, pseudo-punk. My stay there didn't start well and it ended worse, from the outgo I fought with people in the "Faith" section (an abuse of the word if there every was one) over women in ministry. Then it went to Arminism v. Calvinism, always ending with the Calvinists crying "heretic" and explaining that it was ok for heretics to be burned back then, but God's grace doesn't work like that now. I was kicked off after yet another debate over homosexuality spurred by the Episcopal Bishop being ordained. The debate was going badly and got worse after one very enlightened young man declared that homosexuality in the church would bring the judgment of God on America. In turn an old man, a kind of creepy old man who spends much of his time on a teen message board arguing Calvinist theology, declared that "Homosexuality is the judgment of God on America."
Now, at this point I should have just let it go. This message board has always been full of very close-minded people, who have told me Christians need to worry about their neighbors, not those Christians dying in South America. Instead I, very maturely I might add, called the man "the biggest fuck I've ever met." The next day my I.P. address had been blocked. Now this is against their rules and I wasn't kicked off with no reason but again, like the Academy listserv, there was no formal message given concerning my deletion.
I am forced to wonder, is this a Christian practice? Are we really that cold to excommunicate without any hope of rentry? Or that spinless to allow the person to come back without discussion? Sadly, I am sure the answer must be answered affirmatively.
