Commenting Policy

The following types of comments will be deleted without question.

  • Comments which appear to be legitimate but whose posters’ details point to porn sites.
  • Comments which contain homophobic epithets. I’m open to intelligent discussion but I’m not running a site which allows people to get away with silly name calling.
  • Comments which claim to prove something by quoting a single verse taken out of context from the Bible. Scripture is too precious to me to allow that. This is a place where the Bible is loved and honoured and treasured. Comments which use it as a weapon are unwelcome.
  • Comments promoting one Bible translation because all the rest are flawed. Like quite a few people who comment here, my Greek and Hebrew are a bit rusty. However, it was worth learning them as I can now make up my own mind about such matters. Go thou and study likewise.
  • Comments promoting or trying to raise money for particular missionary societies.
  • Comments disparaging women and in particular comments which undermine my female colleagues. I learn about God from them.
  • Comments trying to explain Penal Substution as a theory of Atonement. I know what it means. I know how it works. We’ve already established that like most Christian people I don’t think it is adequate. It gets boring if you try to explain it to me again.
  • Comments in which those of us who are gay are likened to murderers either in the eyes of the commenter or in the eyes of God. To be honest, when it becomes that offensive, I don’t think we are talking enough of the same language for me to want to bother carrying on listening. I’m also not in the business of providing space for that kind of rhetoric. Those who want to make such comments can do so on their own blogs but not on mine.
  • Comments which respond to any issue at all relating to LGBT people with a request for biblical proof that God would agree or approve.
  • Comments which suggest that a particular category of people (the gays, the Muslims, the Roman Catholics etc) are all going to hell.
  • Comments which attempt to open up the question of whether same-sex couples can be married or not. That question is settled in the Scottish Episcopal Church. Such couples can marry in Scotland and can marry in the Scottish Episcopal Church and I’m authorised to marry them. Discussion about the legitimacy of that can happen in many places and I may well engage with it in other places, but it is not appropriate here.
  • Comments questioning whether Anglican clergy really are ordained are also unwelcome and will not be allowed through moderation.

As I’ve repeatedly said before, I like an intelligent argument and tend to adopt this policy as much for the sake of those others who like a sane corner of the web as for myself.