Rather than derail John's thread (since he's pretty specific about what he's seeking), I'll post this thread to state my piece.

I'm sorry to hear that Stephen was banned. However, I'm assuming it was his behaviour rather than his views that led to that ban. The rare times he wasn't thrusting and parrying with scripture, I actually had some decent exchanges with him. Not great, but decent and a sign that, to me, there was more than just a fundamentalist troll behind the username. If this is a sign that WC is going to start mod'ing harder, there's been remarks and actions from the liberal and even atheist sides that merit examination as much as anything from the conservative side, though stephen was probably the most egregious example of bad board behaviour on WC. Heck, I could probably hunt through my own posts, esp. with stephen, and find places where a mod warning would be in order on some other boards.

As is well-known here, I am neither Christian nor particularly conservative. However, I do find that conservative viewpoints are as likely to contain nuggets of wisdom and truth as progressive ones and I come here to learn from the wisdom and views of others. Tyson, RevJohn, and even the somewhat temperamental blackbelt, to name three but not intending to exclude others, have all given me insight into various conservative beliefs and theologies and even given me pause for thought. In at least one case, they got me thinking seriously about an aspect of Christian thought that I'd kind of neglected over the years.

If WC is about learning from others' faith and experience, then we need all viewpoints to be represented, conservative Christian, liberal Christian, progressive Christian, and non-Christian. I hope that conservative Christians will continue to be welcomed and included here and that we will all learn to interact with each other with respect for each other.

However, I must concede that conservatives who come on here expecting to be able to preach their gospel unchallenged and unquestioned or with a view to enlightening the liberal masses may well feel unwelcome no matter how much we do to make them welcome. And they need to realize that they will be called out on disrespectful comments or attitudes toward others.

Mendalla