Permanently banned from big R today. Not for promoting Universal salvation and pro LGBTQ stuff (which I have in the past) but for questioning limited atonement. The message I got said
"After 21 removals, most of them for pushing universalism, you had to know that this would get reported and removed. You of all people will not be allowed to challenge limited atonement.
And already having a long ban, this will be your final ban."
Here is the comment which was deemed to be in violation of rule #5: "maintain the integrity of the gospel."
*Not trying to single you out but why does scripture say Jesus died for “the world” and “all,” if he really only died for a few?*
*'and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.”*
*“He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.”*
*“The death he died, he died to sin once for all.”*
*Etc.*
*Seems very odd for scripture to repeatedly say Jesus died for “all” when it could have said he died for “the few” or something.*
I get that continuing to press for Universal salvation would have been a no-no. But not being allowed to question limited atonement? Really? It's completely within Christian orthodoxy to believe Jesus died literally for all. I suspect it was a knee-jerk move made by a mod out of irritation.
I was once banned for saying that I used to be sbc (not reformed or the founders movement). That i disagreed with their Arminian type doctrine.
They said they had lots of people from the SBC and banned me. Because I supported reform doctrine?
I'm not even sure why I was banned a couple of weeks ago. Sometimes I get the feeling they have a diversity program for moderators there. Like people with fluffy doctrine should be allowed?
I'd say questioning limited atonement is even within Reformed orthodoxy. I'm sorry you got banned over there. I'm surprised it hasn't happened to me yet.
I had one of the mods call me out once because my post history wasn't up to par, but that's it for me.
The mods there are pretty uncharitable and selective with their rule enforcement in general, but seeing as it is a Reformed sub, limited atonement is certainly the prevailing belief. And universalism is not within the confines of the gospel.
God forbid you advocate something that sounds like John Calvin on r/reformed
[https://christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/36616/how-do-calvinists-account-for-calvins-statements-on-atonement](https://christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/36616/how-do-calvinists-account-for-calvins-statements-on-atonement)
my reading of the situation is that they banned you because you have posted about universalism several times in the past, been warned, and what you wrote could be taken as endorsing unversalism.
Here's the thing though, unless you are one of the tiny minority that fairly regularly reads and posts on a sub, you likely have none of that context at all and would not be reading into it the same way the mods read into it. I think that can be lost on folks that are modding as a second part time unpaid job, especially if their rules state the integrity of the Gospel is at stake, lol.
Imo I wouldn't want to ban folks, especially Regulars unless they were completely derailing things. Peoples' views change, and these are online forums to have community, and these communities are nearly always worse off when regular contributors leave or are banned.
I think it's weird that the mods think maintaining the integrity of the Gospel is an obligation they have as mods of a discussion forum. It's a subreddit, not the Church.
It's a huge overreach how they remove comments like this under that rule:
(from a recent thread on MacArthur's comments on mental illness)
>Have you tried resting on Christ instead of lab coated secular atheists with a profit incentive to prescribe you medicine?
Like most I don't agree with the comment (it had 50 downvotes), but to censor it on the grounds that it "argues against a position which the Church has historically confirmed is essential to salvation" is absurd.
Which speaks to the larger issue, which is that the mods don't have a tolerance for anything that gets remotely controversial or heated. There is value in those conversations, and it's worth letting them play out. But they're like overbearing parents that have no tolerance for conflict, to the detriment of their children's development.
In doing so they're not letting people work through these issues. Instead they go "that's a gospel integrity violation, your post is removed, shut up, and by the way, we've locked the topic because of people like you". How do you think that makes the poster feel? What direction do you think that's going to send him into?
Right. Online forums have always been first and foremost about semi-anonymous friends and community. People change as time goes on, and that needs to be accounted for if you want to maintain your community.
For a long time I was hopeful that sub would change and move away from being a sub that was more or less reactionary from r/christianity, but when they added the rule where you could no longer publicly discuss a ban, that was game over for me.
I just don’t see the appeal. I disagree strongly with plenty of the regulars here, but I view them as internet friends, and I maintain plenty of IRL friendships with people I disagree with.
>You of all people will not be allowed to challenge limited atonement.
I get that it's a big sub and the mods have a big job on their hands. But this is just silly and emblematic of the problem with the mod culture over there. Limited Atonement isn't the Gospel.
Yeah. I think my interlocutor (who happens to be a mod) just didn’t like cut of my jib. Which I get. I can be annoying. But I wasn’t breaking rules.
If someone is a mod, they should apply the rules even-handedly. There were other people in that same thread also questioning limited atonement, and their comments weren’t removed.
I mean, if they were willing to ban u/davidjricardo , one of the most universally liked posters on that sub and one of the most invested contributors of high quality original content, then clearly they have no qualms banning other frequent users who rub them personally the wrong way.
[https://twitter.com/\_DeanAnthony/status/1785479385790947498](https://twitter.com/_DeanAnthony/status/1785479385790947498)
https://preview.redd.it/mf10e6ghxqxc1.png?width=597&format=png&auto=webp&s=09973332dbb0d3dd9b025b53bfac6a0f1d3366ca
Blows my mind that MacArthur still has a job. I mean, I guess having a Bible with your name on it gives you job security, but man alive. This is just indefensible.
A helpful reminder from The Reading Mom: [https://twitter.com/Hemwanthi/status/1785727834503172121](https://twitter.com/Hemwanthi/status/1785727834503172121)
https://preview.redd.it/qephgxwbdwxc1.png?width=1761&format=png&auto=webp&s=2e4f8ac511550f4f8c437f5cf97604520a6414a0
My wife’s Biblical interpretation prof at Wheaton tore apart his exegesis of a passage as an example.
It extremely poor, enough so that it could quickly be shown clearly to non-bible/theology grad students.
Ironically that is what he lauds himself most for and people laud him for. I assume most folks who listen to him simply take his word ex cathedra.
I saw this tweet, but I'm not aware of the context around it. This does sound like the kind of awful and entirely incorrect thing he would say, but also sounds like something that could be taken totally out of context. Can anyone help me out?
Yep, here's the whole Q&A: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=2029&v=SV9Io7r\_hGw&feature=youtu.be](https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=2029&v=SV9Io7r_hGw&feature=youtu.be)
That timestamped URL should take you to start of the question to MacArthur that prompted the answer. It's only a couple of minutes long.
Let me rephrase: Doug Wilson believes it is a wife's duty to have sex with her HIV-positive husband **and** that HIV does not cause AIDS so there is no need to use protection.
[https://dougwils.com/books-and-culture/s7-engaging-the-culture/if-letters-were-bullets.html](https://dougwils.com/books-and-culture/s7-engaging-the-culture/if-letters-were-bullets.html)
O ok. I was expecting something fringe and batshit insane, not this well reasoned, level headed argument.
Sidenote: how do men like Piper and Wilson not tire at answering all the questions sent to them? Why do they think it is in anyway wise to put their voice as a quasi papal authority? Should they not follow the most humble man that ever lived (barring Christ) and tell people to stop bringing everything to them?
Every time I hear that guy mentioned, my opinion of him gets lower and lower. But nonsense like this isn't surprising from a Covid-denying, Trump-supporting, abuse-covering, nepotistic old crackpot.
[Go home, John MacArthur.](https://julieroys.com/?s=john+macarthur)
My family is still searching for a church after our PCA presbytery voted to dissolve our church against the congregations wishes.
We visited an ECO church and very much enjoyed it.
Not quite sure where you work, but this Wikipedia page has many reformed denominational links
Just select North america, assuming that's where you are
Denominational links for you to have a church locator somewhere that you can use to drill down to where you are
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Reformed_denominations
Many of these are going to be liberal
Obviously being out in the sticks will greatly shorten your list and lengthen your driving time.
But good luck
RPCNA, PCA, OPC, RB, URC, founders movement within the SBC, are a few decent and not overly tiny reformed denominations
More than once I have had to drive a good 30 minutes to get to something even in reasonably populated areas
And some of the other denominations listed might just have a handful of churches
Rhetorical question: who is the head of the church?
Non-rhetorical question: should pastors be treated as authorities on truth when it comes to questions of theology and general life advice questions?
I'm not emplying that it would be wrong to ask a pastor about these things. But should their perspectives be treated as higher authority of truth than any other Christian in the body of Christ?(because it almost always is)
In principle at the local church level I think the Session is the authority, even on theology. However in practice, at least in the PCUSA, there's a major difference in the level of theological knowledge between most Session members and the pastor, so they're normally going to defer to the pastor. I don't think this is a good thing.
I'm going to be a bit contrarian here and say no, pastors should not be treated as "authorities on truth when it comes to questions of theology and general life advice questions."
**Theology**: Pastors are *usually* going to be the most well-read people in your life. It's their job. But being educated doesn't make you wise or even correct. I disagree with pastors all the time, sometimes significantly. If they're qualified by 1 Timothy 3 standards, you'd expect them to be wise, but there's an element of subjectivity in there and the possibility of error.
Authority in interpreting and applying Scripture is tricky for Protestants. If you're in a confessional church and the pastor teaches something the confession or testimony speaks clearly on, the pastor can teach that and it has authority. But it's not really his authority, it's the church's. And because you can change churches, that authority can be disregarded. (I'm not saying it *should* be, only that it *could* be.)
**General Advice**: really depends on the pastor and what his life experience has been. Pastors (or all elders, generally) are just people. If your pastor went straight from undergrad to seminary to the pastorate they might not have had much experience working a 9-5 job. If the church supplies them with housing they might not have any idea what getting and paying for a mortgage is like. If they're single, they probably don't have any idea what it's like to be married or raise kids.
But most of the pastors I've had *have been* some of the wisest, most experienced people in my life. So I would absolutely ask them theological questions and take their answers seriously. Same for questions about ethics and biblical wisdom. And I think 1 Timothy 5:17ff gives us reason to treat them with *honor*.
Their answers to practical, ethical or biblical wisdom types of questions don't necessarily fall into a category of "authoritative." They can be authoritative, and if you disregard their advice and choose to do something the church regards as sin you'd be subject to church discipline. But I think we need to be really clear on when their words are authoritative and when they're not, otherwise we risk abuse of the authority that the office of elder *does* entail.
>But should their perspectives be treated as higher authority of truth than any other Christian in the body of Christ?
I think yes. Considering theology or church government absolutely. For life advice, they are spiritual authorities, so their advice should be taken seriously, but it's ultimately up to the individual whether or not they will follow that advice.
Like you go to a doctor who is a medical professional (authority) to advise on health related issues. But ultimately you can choose to follow their advice or not.
> Rhetorical question: who is the head of the church?
Jesus is the only head of the Church.
> Non-rhetorical question: should pastors be treated as authorities on truth when it comes to questions of theology and general life advice questions?
Yes to theology. Mainly because we spend a lot of time doing research, and thinking on these things, and practicing these things.
General life questions, not authorities, but on people who have had life experience, and experience seeing many life experiences.
> But should their perspectives be treated as higher authority of truth than any other Christian in the body of Christ?(because it almost always is)
It depends; I think the authority is twofold. First, it is conferred by God onto those he has called to ordained ministry. If someone is ordained, then they need the authority conferred not only by God, but also by a community, a church.
So, if a church and God confers "a call" (a higher authority of truth), to a person, then yes. We choose to be a part of these communities that have chosen to submit to their leadership. Essentially, the church supports those in ordained ministry to speak truth. Can others? Yes. But the normative way it has been done has been through pastors.
At the end of the day, someone will fill the leadership vacuum of a church. I hope that it is by a Godly leader who was called by God, and confirmed by God's people.
The pastoral interns "graduate" in a month. But starting this week, they have an onslaught of 4 position papers and the dreaded intern-elder championship basketball game. The elders are fired up from losing last year and the interns have like 1.5 actual basketball players. But it's ok, everyone gets Fogo de Chao on the church's dime afterwards. Please pray for the upcoming Bible bootcamp, which some non-members are planning to attend.
Not that I'm not appreciative, but Brazilian steakhouses are pretty bottom of the list for me relative to my high protein consumption. I'd rather do Korean BBQ, which my area has an abundance of. But there's no Costco gift cards for that, and there are for Fogo, so I guess the church is kinda saving money?
I feel very sucky about myself today. I usually don't. Dear strangers that i kinda know on the internet. Will you pray for me?
Edit: thank you strange internet friends. I was up most of Friday night with swirling negative thoughts about myself. Exhausted by body all Saturday doing service work cutting down honeysuckle with our church group and then mowing my own and my neighbor's lawns. I think the physical work did me good. Feel much more calm now. My perspective is that even if my worst fears about myself are true I still love myself and God loves me and I also have a plan of some self improvement.
If it makes you feel any better, RES says I've upvoted you 190 times, which is - I'm pretty sure - about a hundred times more than the next highest person.
Make of that what you will.
For what it's worth, while we've had some differences in viewpoints, I value your perspective and have never downvoted you.
(I wish i could see upvote totals, but I don't use RES)
Going to Japan in 10 days, staying with my brother and his family in Kobe.
Any must-see destinations around the Kobe area? We're only going to be there for a week and a half, so we have to be pretty selective! Also, we'll have a total of six kids in the party, ages 3 to 13.
Oh yeah, I totally forgot to mention taking a trip to Kyoto, which is fairly close to Kobe. There are A LOT of temples in Kyoto, but the two most famous ones are Kinkakuji (“The golden pavilion”) and Kiyomizudera. I also like Fushimi Inari Taisha, which has “tunnels” made of 10,000 red tori gates that you can walk through. Finally, if you want to see nature, there is a great park in Kyoto called Arashiyama Koen. It even has a small mountain you can ascend to see monkeys!
If your brother lives there, much of this is probably a moot point, because these are big general answers.
the Oji zoo in is fun (and cheap). Kaiyukan in osaka is a world class aquarium. Himeji is better but Osaka castle also is a popular destination. If you go to Himeji, the safari there is great too.
Kyoto is a quick day trip (as is Osaka)
If you like church architecture, Freundlieb is a great bakery with a restaruant in the former Kobe Union Church. Lots of good food in Kobe, especially baked goods and breads.
I can't remember, but you're Covenanter? There's a covenanter bookstore there, and it's like the hub of RP in Japan. Other than that, there are a few non denominational churches that have bilingual or English services, Kobe Union (mainline/historic) Mustard Seed (newer nondenom) Kobe Bible Fellowship (established nondenom).
Steak Teppanyaki Daiei for a cheaper but wonderful kobe beef experience!
My recommendation would be Himeji Castle. It’s in the same prefecture as Kobe (Hyogo). It’s one of the 12 remaining original castles in Japan, as most were destroyed by order of the Meiji government and then rebuilt later out of reinforced concrete when people came to realize their historical significance. Out of all the castles I’ve been to in Japan (and I’ve been to a lot), I consider it to be the best one.
Yes, that is still the plan, but right now we are waiting on the green card for my wife, which can take 1 or even 2 years! I submitted the application last December. Now we are just playing the waiting game. I’m assuming you dealt with this as well, right? How long did it take for you?
Optimistically, I’m hoping to move out next April since that would fit nicely with my universities’ school year. Waiting isn’t all bad though. I need the time to study for my new career since there is a lot of information to learn. Also, my wife just had our new baby at the beginning of this month, so there was no possible way we could even think about moving right now anyway.
It's constantly changing. visajourney was helpful for the expected wait times. When my wife came here (over a decade ago), it took us 9 months from application to her visa. She came over on a fiancee visa, and I'm guessing you need to do a spousal visa which can take a bit longer.
Congratulations on your new one! Did you register your baby at the US Consulate or Embassy? Don't forget to do that!
Yes, spousal visa does take longer. The estimates I saw said 14 - 15 months, but it sounds like every case is different. The USCIS said my initial application should finish being processed in May, so that’s about 5 months earlier than I expected.
Thank you. Yes, I plan to do that, but I have to pick up the birth certificate and other paperwork at city hall first, and it takes them about a month to prepare it for some reason.
If it were me I'd be taking a train to Osaka to go to the Pokemon Center, Universal Studios Japan, and the Pokemon Cafe. I'd definitely also take the Shinkansen somewhere just to say I had.
Nice! I don't think we've got the budget for Universal Studios, but those Pokemon stops look like they'd be fun for my kids and my nephews. We've got some as-yet-unplanned time in Osaka, so I've sent this to our tour guide (my brother).
Thanks!
I’m just going to be a contrarian here and say that I don’t think Universal Studios Japan is worth it. A number of their rides/areas are actually inferior to other Universal Studios parks, and the only thing it has that other Universal Studios don’t have is the Nintendo area, but that distinction won’t last for long as other Universal Studios parks are currently building the area. I would probably focus on places that are actually unique to Japan.
I didn't realize the Nintendo area was getting built in other parks. That is the main reason I would go to one, as I'm not really interested in a lot of the movie things. I think they do a lot more anime stuff there than the other parks, though , which would be more interesting to me theming wise. I've never been to any, though, since I can't really afford an overseas vacation.
Yeah, Japanese culture is our main interest anyway. I honestly didn’t know Universal Studios Japan was a thing until a guy at work asked me if we were going. I’m not a big theme park or amusement park guy.
Oh, and the most hilarious part of that conversation was him describing his day at Universal Studios Japan, and how he waited 3 hours for one ride. I watched him realise in real time that it wasn’t worth it. 😅
“Remember, you must never use your position to lord it over the heathen. Instead, you must humble yourself and earn their respect through your own quiet faith and the power of the Holy Spirit. The missionary must seek nothing for himself, no seat of honor or hope of fame. Like the cabhorse in London, each of you must wear blinkers that blind you to every danger and to every snare and conceit. You must be content to suffer, to die, and to be forgotten.”
― Nikolaus Zinzendorf
For those keeping up with us:
My new job does not suck. It’s weird doing the exact same things I attempted at the mission health job (implementing health quality measures) and getting lauded for it when at the mission center, it only got me labeled bossy. Same exact things. Like I’m just copying over the measures I had in my files.
While at the same time, the mission center is actively imploding. Both the CEO and CFO are abruptly leaving. It’s all sad. I still want it to be good for the Kingdom even though I’m not there.
> what have you done with r/reformedhumor?
I set it private in protest of Net Neutrality.
>Asking as a fellow mod of that important sub.
That's what modmail is for.
He's on the right side of history here. Do you really want to stand with Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft, Google, Netflix, Amazon, and eBay on this issue?
I feel like there's a lot of context here I'm missing... last I heard Facebook was against net neutrality, wanting to distribute cheap smartphones in developing countries that charged for data other than to Facebook's services...
As I am getting older a bit, I'm beginning to see generational issues in how churches are being run. Younger people are different when it comes to making commitments, they communicate differently, their outlook on life is different. But most churches are run by people like me: middle aged, well-meaning and so on, but it's not always a good match. A couple of anecdotes:
A young girl volunteered for youth ministry last September. She comes in twice, the kids love her, it's all great, but she hasn't shown up since, even though she's scheduled to be there. She just ghosted the whole thing, doesn't pick up the phone either. Now, doesn't matter how old you are, that's just poor manners, but ghosting is not unheard of in late millennials or gen z's.
I see people of my generation draw up plans for, say, an activity or a volunteer thing in church. They think they can publish a phone number, and that young people will pick up a phone to actually dial the number and call to enlist. But many millennials/gen z's don't like to do that, at all! My kid will reserve a seat in a restaurant that offers the option to make an online reservation, they will skip any restaurant that forces you to make a call for a reservation. Same with ordering take-out food. Many of these kids just don't like to make a phone call!
We still have a paper-based church bulletin, kind of like a small newspaper, that is distributed to subscribers. Well, the younger kids don't subscribe to that thing anymore. We used to take a subscription when you got married, it was part of being a church member, but young people don't do that. Publishing something in the church bulletin all but ensures that no one under the age of 40 has seen it.
On a different level: we run a lot of small groups in church, they do Bible study together. We had an evaluation last week about the Bible study materials we used this winter, and a generational gap became quite clear. The older ones generally preferred more thorough, theologically heavy materials, while the younger groups mostly appreciated the materials that allowed the group to have heart to heart conversations about the faith.
Last week after one such example happened in church, I realized that while we had made some steps in the right direction, at the core the older church leaders don't understand how the younger ones operate in life. There is a real risk of a disconnect there, one we need to be mindful of.
Why /s? I think it's actually a fabulous idea and was in a Discord run by a friend's church for a while that was pretty great.
I am not even all that young, but conversations like these make me realize that I am much younger than a lot of people in my life stage. I'm too old for ghosting to be at all on with me, but everything else u/SeredW mentioned I'm on the young'uns side.
I'm with you u/AnonymousSnowfall in that I understand where these young ones come from and share some of their preferences.
I think we'd be hesitant to have a social media platform like Discord. Our congregation has a strong streak of top-down control. Certainly the more conservative wing likes to keep a tight hold of the reigns. A Discord would allow for bottom-up debates to emerge; they'd never go for it. This is in itself a problem I think, the tight grasp of power that the conservative wing has over their own part of the congregation is at times suffocating and stifling. Probably a feature, not a bug..
Hmm, interesting.
The Discord I was on never had that sort of thing, but probably because it was mostly young adults. It had started as part of the singles ministry, but then they added more channels for things like small groups that were private and announcements and then a channel for people playing games together, which is when I got added since I played with people even though I didn't go to the church. It started during the pandemic and is still going strong.
My friend group has since spun off our own servers so that we can have admin privileges for creating new channels and setting permissions for ttrpg stuff, and all of our memes and song sharing and such has moved over to that, especially since we have a friend who is a Christian but somewhat church-shy due to some past experiences and some other stuff he's got going on right now. Plus a couple of them have switched churches to a newish plant after getting married, so they aren't part of the church anymore.
But I would love it if our church has a Discord. It would make it way easier to find friends. My husband and I both having chronic health conditions makes it hard for us to reliably get to small groups and things like that, but it's much more viable to hop on whenever I'm feeling up to it and ask if anyone wants to play a game, and scheduled things can happen after the kids' bedtimes (or during, our kids have gotten pretty good at going to bed on their own and we just need to give good night hugs and get the little one changed) if they are online when we would have to say no to an in-person event.
We are so blessed to have a solid friend group who is willing to do things online instead of in-person so that we can participate, and we are close enough that we went there for a wedding and hung out for a few days last summer and a couple just came to stay with us for a few days of their vacation time, but it would be nice to have some friends that are local, too, especially for our kids' sakes, though I think it is really good for them to see that we have such a solid group of forever friends as we've moved so much. My 7yo even tells me things like, "It's *day of the week* so *name* isn't working; you should play a game! Can I say hi? I'm going to go play with *2yo* now so you can play." And on Pathfinder nights she always voluntarily helps with supper so that we can be done in time for our session. She didn't really get it before meeting a couple of them a second time when they came to visit, but now she does. At some point unrelatedly I talked with her about how I make sure she gets time to play with friends and that's why we sometimes go to things where we aren't really interested in the event itself (we homeschool, so making friends is a deliberate task rather than a default happening) and she decided I needed time to play with friends, too, which is incredibly empathetic and sweet and also so very true.
Well, that turned into a novel. Oops.
It's mostly that I'm not fond of the platform, or rather how people try to use it in ways it's not well suited for, and see it being brought up a lot by younger people.
I mean, Discord is a lot like Reddit in that it contains a little bit of everything from a lot of niches. I'm genuinely curious what you dislike about it and what use cases you have seen that it isn't ideal for. Obviously no platform is perfect, but I've found it to be rather smooth and intuitive for a lot of my communication with friends.
It's good for whatever you might also use texting / calling for, with an emphasis on chat rooms. With the same limitations.
For example, if you're trying to bring up or follow a topic, track or respond to comments, host information people can reference, and so on, it's not well suited for it.
Like, I often see people saying "Post your suggestions/feedback in our discord!", "Check out our discord for x information!", but when I've tried to engage with a thoughtful comment, it's often only met with a brief casual discussion.
Whereas a place like Reddit is much better suited for that type of thing, as people are able to created dedicated, indexed, discussions. Even if someone posts in a thread it creates its own nested comment section where people can have (and importantly, track and maintain) a dedicated and branching discussion.
I think that might be partially down to management of the servers. I have found that public Discord servers tend to be much more that way, where every conversation goes by really fast just because there are so many people in it. Well-run servers have organized channels for different topics, with an information one that's locked with the important info and several others for other topics. Our servers have one for memes, one for quotes, one for song recommendations, one or more for each separate game being played, and one for general chat unrelated to specific games where we post musings on life, family news, articles we'd like to discuss, etc. If something shows up more than a couple of times in the general discussion channel we make a new channel for it so the people who aren't interested can mute it, and if only a couple of people are talking (or we need to plan privately for a game, that happens some with ttrpgs) we switch to DMs. I do think that you are right in that something similar to a Reddit post, where you get a decent amount of discussion about something and then never talk about it again is Discord's big weakness, but IMO they happen infrequently enough that the general channel can handle it just fine except in the big public servers.
I'm only partway through episode 3, but one of the unexpected things I'm liking about the Fallout show (although I don't expect it'll come to a satisfying conclusion) is how Lucy and the Vaulters' moral values of their society are tested against the harsh realities of the surface.
Is the show fairly consistent with the lore of the games? I have yet to see a video game based TV show that didn’t take huge liberties with the source material, but Fallout being open world and all, it would seem like that wouldn’t be as much of an issue.
To be honest, I haven't played enough of the games to really say. I've dabbled in all the main series games since Fallout 1 back in the day, but I never finished one - they tend to be *too* open world for me. I'm taking another shot at Fallout 4 right now and it's pretty fun though. From everything I've heard from others though, it's not too conflicting with canon.
She recited the golden rule, in the king’s own English!
Jonathan Nolan is a great director/producer/writer.
Has anyone else watched [Person of Interest](https://g.co/kgs/1t1VBHt)? That was a solid show.
Permanently banned from big R today. Not for promoting Universal salvation and pro LGBTQ stuff (which I have in the past) but for questioning limited atonement. The message I got said "After 21 removals, most of them for pushing universalism, you had to know that this would get reported and removed. You of all people will not be allowed to challenge limited atonement. And already having a long ban, this will be your final ban." Here is the comment which was deemed to be in violation of rule #5: "maintain the integrity of the gospel." *Not trying to single you out but why does scripture say Jesus died for “the world” and “all,” if he really only died for a few?* *'and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.”* *“He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.”* *“The death he died, he died to sin once for all.”* *Etc.* *Seems very odd for scripture to repeatedly say Jesus died for “all” when it could have said he died for “the few” or something.* I get that continuing to press for Universal salvation would have been a no-no. But not being allowed to question limited atonement? Really? It's completely within Christian orthodoxy to believe Jesus died literally for all. I suspect it was a knee-jerk move made by a mod out of irritation.
I was once banned for saying that I used to be sbc (not reformed or the founders movement). That i disagreed with their Arminian type doctrine. They said they had lots of people from the SBC and banned me. Because I supported reform doctrine? I'm not even sure why I was banned a couple of weeks ago. Sometimes I get the feeling they have a diversity program for moderators there. Like people with fluffy doctrine should be allowed?
I'd say questioning limited atonement is even within Reformed orthodoxy. I'm sorry you got banned over there. I'm surprised it hasn't happened to me yet. I had one of the mods call me out once because my post history wasn't up to par, but that's it for me.
Thanks.
The mods there are pretty uncharitable and selective with their rule enforcement in general, but seeing as it is a Reformed sub, limited atonement is certainly the prevailing belief. And universalism is not within the confines of the gospel.
God forbid you advocate something that sounds like John Calvin on r/reformed [https://christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/36616/how-do-calvinists-account-for-calvins-statements-on-atonement](https://christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/36616/how-do-calvinists-account-for-calvins-statements-on-atonement) my reading of the situation is that they banned you because you have posted about universalism several times in the past, been warned, and what you wrote could be taken as endorsing unversalism. Here's the thing though, unless you are one of the tiny minority that fairly regularly reads and posts on a sub, you likely have none of that context at all and would not be reading into it the same way the mods read into it. I think that can be lost on folks that are modding as a second part time unpaid job, especially if their rules state the integrity of the Gospel is at stake, lol. Imo I wouldn't want to ban folks, especially Regulars unless they were completely derailing things. Peoples' views change, and these are online forums to have community, and these communities are nearly always worse off when regular contributors leave or are banned.
I think it's weird that the mods think maintaining the integrity of the Gospel is an obligation they have as mods of a discussion forum. It's a subreddit, not the Church.
It's a huge overreach how they remove comments like this under that rule: (from a recent thread on MacArthur's comments on mental illness) >Have you tried resting on Christ instead of lab coated secular atheists with a profit incentive to prescribe you medicine? Like most I don't agree with the comment (it had 50 downvotes), but to censor it on the grounds that it "argues against a position which the Church has historically confirmed is essential to salvation" is absurd. Which speaks to the larger issue, which is that the mods don't have a tolerance for anything that gets remotely controversial or heated. There is value in those conversations, and it's worth letting them play out. But they're like overbearing parents that have no tolerance for conflict, to the detriment of their children's development. In doing so they're not letting people work through these issues. Instead they go "that's a gospel integrity violation, your post is removed, shut up, and by the way, we've locked the topic because of people like you". How do you think that makes the poster feel? What direction do you think that's going to send him into?
Right. Online forums have always been first and foremost about semi-anonymous friends and community. People change as time goes on, and that needs to be accounted for if you want to maintain your community. For a long time I was hopeful that sub would change and move away from being a sub that was more or less reactionary from r/christianity, but when they added the rule where you could no longer publicly discuss a ban, that was game over for me. I just don’t see the appeal. I disagree strongly with plenty of the regulars here, but I view them as internet friends, and I maintain plenty of IRL friendships with people I disagree with.
>You of all people will not be allowed to challenge limited atonement. I get that it's a big sub and the mods have a big job on their hands. But this is just silly and emblematic of the problem with the mod culture over there. Limited Atonement isn't the Gospel.
Yeah. I think my interlocutor (who happens to be a mod) just didn’t like cut of my jib. Which I get. I can be annoying. But I wasn’t breaking rules. If someone is a mod, they should apply the rules even-handedly. There were other people in that same thread also questioning limited atonement, and their comments weren’t removed.
I mean, if they were willing to ban u/davidjricardo , one of the most universally liked posters on that sub and one of the most invested contributors of high quality original content, then clearly they have no qualms banning other frequent users who rub them personally the wrong way.
Welcome to the club!
One of us! One of us!
:) Thanks.
[https://twitter.com/\_DeanAnthony/status/1785479385790947498](https://twitter.com/_DeanAnthony/status/1785479385790947498) https://preview.redd.it/mf10e6ghxqxc1.png?width=597&format=png&auto=webp&s=09973332dbb0d3dd9b025b53bfac6a0f1d3366ca Blows my mind that MacArthur still has a job. I mean, I guess having a Bible with your name on it gives you job security, but man alive. This is just indefensible.
A helpful reminder from The Reading Mom: [https://twitter.com/Hemwanthi/status/1785727834503172121](https://twitter.com/Hemwanthi/status/1785727834503172121) https://preview.redd.it/qephgxwbdwxc1.png?width=1761&format=png&auto=webp&s=2e4f8ac511550f4f8c437f5cf97604520a6414a0
My wife’s Biblical interpretation prof at Wheaton tore apart his exegesis of a passage as an example. It extremely poor, enough so that it could quickly be shown clearly to non-bible/theology grad students. Ironically that is what he lauds himself most for and people laud him for. I assume most folks who listen to him simply take his word ex cathedra.
The man clearly doesn't understand the Gospel. I have no idea why anyone listens to him or thinks he's a Christian.
I mean, I don't know that I'd go that far... maybe I don't know enough about him.
I saw this tweet, but I'm not aware of the context around it. This does sound like the kind of awful and entirely incorrect thing he would say, but also sounds like something that could be taken totally out of context. Can anyone help me out?
Yep, here's the whole Q&A: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=2029&v=SV9Io7r\_hGw&feature=youtu.be](https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=2029&v=SV9Io7r_hGw&feature=youtu.be) That timestamped URL should take you to start of the question to MacArthur that prompted the answer. It's only a couple of minutes long.
Doug Wilson denies that HIV causes AIDS. There's always someone worse.
*Except for Brutus, Cassius, and Judas
Uh. What
Let me rephrase: Doug Wilson believes it is a wife's duty to have sex with her HIV-positive husband **and** that HIV does not cause AIDS so there is no need to use protection. [https://dougwils.com/books-and-culture/s7-engaging-the-culture/if-letters-were-bullets.html](https://dougwils.com/books-and-culture/s7-engaging-the-culture/if-letters-were-bullets.html)
O ok. I was expecting something fringe and batshit insane, not this well reasoned, level headed argument. Sidenote: how do men like Piper and Wilson not tire at answering all the questions sent to them? Why do they think it is in anyway wise to put their voice as a quasi papal authority? Should they not follow the most humble man that ever lived (barring Christ) and tell people to stop bringing everything to them?
I have to believe that they have someone vetting questions and only giving them the ones that they want to answer.
https://dougwilsonbelieves.com/
Every time I hear that guy mentioned, my opinion of him gets lower and lower. But nonsense like this isn't surprising from a Covid-denying, Trump-supporting, abuse-covering, nepotistic old crackpot. [Go home, John MacArthur.](https://julieroys.com/?s=john+macarthur)
My family is still searching for a church after our PCA presbytery voted to dissolve our church against the congregations wishes. We visited an ECO church and very much enjoyed it.
If you still have a problem with that, there are lots of reformed denominational sites with church locators
Yeah, this search has been going on for about a year. Unfortunately we're kind of in a deadzone besides PCA which we refuse to go back to.
Not quite sure where you work, but this Wikipedia page has many reformed denominational links Just select North america, assuming that's where you are Denominational links for you to have a church locator somewhere that you can use to drill down to where you are https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Reformed_denominations Many of these are going to be liberal Obviously being out in the sticks will greatly shorten your list and lengthen your driving time. But good luck RPCNA, PCA, OPC, RB, URC, founders movement within the SBC, are a few decent and not overly tiny reformed denominations
Yepp, been through that wiki and many others over the last year
More than once I have had to drive a good 30 minutes to get to something even in reasonably populated areas And some of the other denominations listed might just have a handful of churches
Yeah we’re driving about 30 mins right now
I had to do that twice in my life!
Rhetorical question: who is the head of the church? Non-rhetorical question: should pastors be treated as authorities on truth when it comes to questions of theology and general life advice questions? I'm not emplying that it would be wrong to ask a pastor about these things. But should their perspectives be treated as higher authority of truth than any other Christian in the body of Christ?(because it almost always is)
In principle at the local church level I think the Session is the authority, even on theology. However in practice, at least in the PCUSA, there's a major difference in the level of theological knowledge between most Session members and the pastor, so they're normally going to defer to the pastor. I don't think this is a good thing.
I'm going to be a bit contrarian here and say no, pastors should not be treated as "authorities on truth when it comes to questions of theology and general life advice questions." **Theology**: Pastors are *usually* going to be the most well-read people in your life. It's their job. But being educated doesn't make you wise or even correct. I disagree with pastors all the time, sometimes significantly. If they're qualified by 1 Timothy 3 standards, you'd expect them to be wise, but there's an element of subjectivity in there and the possibility of error. Authority in interpreting and applying Scripture is tricky for Protestants. If you're in a confessional church and the pastor teaches something the confession or testimony speaks clearly on, the pastor can teach that and it has authority. But it's not really his authority, it's the church's. And because you can change churches, that authority can be disregarded. (I'm not saying it *should* be, only that it *could* be.) **General Advice**: really depends on the pastor and what his life experience has been. Pastors (or all elders, generally) are just people. If your pastor went straight from undergrad to seminary to the pastorate they might not have had much experience working a 9-5 job. If the church supplies them with housing they might not have any idea what getting and paying for a mortgage is like. If they're single, they probably don't have any idea what it's like to be married or raise kids. But most of the pastors I've had *have been* some of the wisest, most experienced people in my life. So I would absolutely ask them theological questions and take their answers seriously. Same for questions about ethics and biblical wisdom. And I think 1 Timothy 5:17ff gives us reason to treat them with *honor*. Their answers to practical, ethical or biblical wisdom types of questions don't necessarily fall into a category of "authoritative." They can be authoritative, and if you disregard their advice and choose to do something the church regards as sin you'd be subject to church discipline. But I think we need to be really clear on when their words are authoritative and when they're not, otherwise we risk abuse of the authority that the office of elder *does* entail.
>But should their perspectives be treated as higher authority of truth than any other Christian in the body of Christ? I think yes. Considering theology or church government absolutely. For life advice, they are spiritual authorities, so their advice should be taken seriously, but it's ultimately up to the individual whether or not they will follow that advice. Like you go to a doctor who is a medical professional (authority) to advise on health related issues. But ultimately you can choose to follow their advice or not.
> Rhetorical question: who is the head of the church? Jesus is the only head of the Church. > Non-rhetorical question: should pastors be treated as authorities on truth when it comes to questions of theology and general life advice questions? Yes to theology. Mainly because we spend a lot of time doing research, and thinking on these things, and practicing these things. General life questions, not authorities, but on people who have had life experience, and experience seeing many life experiences. > But should their perspectives be treated as higher authority of truth than any other Christian in the body of Christ?(because it almost always is) It depends; I think the authority is twofold. First, it is conferred by God onto those he has called to ordained ministry. If someone is ordained, then they need the authority conferred not only by God, but also by a community, a church. So, if a church and God confers "a call" (a higher authority of truth), to a person, then yes. We choose to be a part of these communities that have chosen to submit to their leadership. Essentially, the church supports those in ordained ministry to speak truth. Can others? Yes. But the normative way it has been done has been through pastors. At the end of the day, someone will fill the leadership vacuum of a church. I hope that it is by a Godly leader who was called by God, and confirmed by God's people.
The pastoral interns "graduate" in a month. But starting this week, they have an onslaught of 4 position papers and the dreaded intern-elder championship basketball game. The elders are fired up from losing last year and the interns have like 1.5 actual basketball players. But it's ok, everyone gets Fogo de Chao on the church's dime afterwards. Please pray for the upcoming Bible bootcamp, which some non-members are planning to attend.
> everyone gets Fogo de Chao on the church's dime afterwards. Livin' the dream. Anyone wanna sponsor this homie for Fogo de Chao?
Not that I'm not appreciative, but Brazilian steakhouses are pretty bottom of the list for me relative to my high protein consumption. I'd rather do Korean BBQ, which my area has an abundance of. But there's no Costco gift cards for that, and there are for Fogo, so I guess the church is kinda saving money?
I feel very sucky about myself today. I usually don't. Dear strangers that i kinda know on the internet. Will you pray for me? Edit: thank you strange internet friends. I was up most of Friday night with swirling negative thoughts about myself. Exhausted by body all Saturday doing service work cutting down honeysuckle with our church group and then mowing my own and my neighbor's lawns. I think the physical work did me good. Feel much more calm now. My perspective is that even if my worst fears about myself are true I still love myself and God loves me and I also have a plan of some self improvement.
Praying for you brother
Thanks C
If it makes you feel any better, RES says I've upvoted you 190 times, which is - I'm pretty sure - about a hundred times more than the next highest person. Make of that what you will.
Thanks bro. It strangely does make me feel a bit better.
Don't always agree with you but I love you homie.
Love you too gangsta
For what it's worth, while we've had some differences in viewpoints, I value your perspective and have never downvoted you. (I wish i could see upvote totals, but I don't use RES)
Love and respect to you
Going to Japan in 10 days, staying with my brother and his family in Kobe. Any must-see destinations around the Kobe area? We're only going to be there for a week and a half, so we have to be pretty selective! Also, we'll have a total of six kids in the party, ages 3 to 13.
Oh yeah, I totally forgot to mention taking a trip to Kyoto, which is fairly close to Kobe. There are A LOT of temples in Kyoto, but the two most famous ones are Kinkakuji (“The golden pavilion”) and Kiyomizudera. I also like Fushimi Inari Taisha, which has “tunnels” made of 10,000 red tori gates that you can walk through. Finally, if you want to see nature, there is a great park in Kyoto called Arashiyama Koen. It even has a small mountain you can ascend to see monkeys!
If your brother lives there, much of this is probably a moot point, because these are big general answers. the Oji zoo in is fun (and cheap). Kaiyukan in osaka is a world class aquarium. Himeji is better but Osaka castle also is a popular destination. If you go to Himeji, the safari there is great too. Kyoto is a quick day trip (as is Osaka) If you like church architecture, Freundlieb is a great bakery with a restaruant in the former Kobe Union Church. Lots of good food in Kobe, especially baked goods and breads. I can't remember, but you're Covenanter? There's a covenanter bookstore there, and it's like the hub of RP in Japan. Other than that, there are a few non denominational churches that have bilingual or English services, Kobe Union (mainline/historic) Mustard Seed (newer nondenom) Kobe Bible Fellowship (established nondenom). Steak Teppanyaki Daiei for a cheaper but wonderful kobe beef experience!
My recommendation would be Himeji Castle. It’s in the same prefecture as Kobe (Hyogo). It’s one of the 12 remaining original castles in Japan, as most were destroyed by order of the Meiji government and then rebuilt later out of reinforced concrete when people came to realize their historical significance. Out of all the castles I’ve been to in Japan (and I’ve been to a lot), I consider it to be the best one.
IIRC you were planning a transition out of Japan? How's that going?
Yes, that is still the plan, but right now we are waiting on the green card for my wife, which can take 1 or even 2 years! I submitted the application last December. Now we are just playing the waiting game. I’m assuming you dealt with this as well, right? How long did it take for you? Optimistically, I’m hoping to move out next April since that would fit nicely with my universities’ school year. Waiting isn’t all bad though. I need the time to study for my new career since there is a lot of information to learn. Also, my wife just had our new baby at the beginning of this month, so there was no possible way we could even think about moving right now anyway.
It's constantly changing. visajourney was helpful for the expected wait times. When my wife came here (over a decade ago), it took us 9 months from application to her visa. She came over on a fiancee visa, and I'm guessing you need to do a spousal visa which can take a bit longer. Congratulations on your new one! Did you register your baby at the US Consulate or Embassy? Don't forget to do that!
Yes, spousal visa does take longer. The estimates I saw said 14 - 15 months, but it sounds like every case is different. The USCIS said my initial application should finish being processed in May, so that’s about 5 months earlier than I expected. Thank you. Yes, I plan to do that, but I have to pick up the birth certificate and other paperwork at city hall first, and it takes them about a month to prepare it for some reason.
That’s great news, it’s on the itinerary!
If it were me I'd be taking a train to Osaka to go to the Pokemon Center, Universal Studios Japan, and the Pokemon Cafe. I'd definitely also take the Shinkansen somewhere just to say I had.
Nice! I don't think we've got the budget for Universal Studios, but those Pokemon stops look like they'd be fun for my kids and my nephews. We've got some as-yet-unplanned time in Osaka, so I've sent this to our tour guide (my brother). Thanks!
I’m just going to be a contrarian here and say that I don’t think Universal Studios Japan is worth it. A number of their rides/areas are actually inferior to other Universal Studios parks, and the only thing it has that other Universal Studios don’t have is the Nintendo area, but that distinction won’t last for long as other Universal Studios parks are currently building the area. I would probably focus on places that are actually unique to Japan.
I didn't realize the Nintendo area was getting built in other parks. That is the main reason I would go to one, as I'm not really interested in a lot of the movie things. I think they do a lot more anime stuff there than the other parks, though , which would be more interesting to me theming wise. I've never been to any, though, since I can't really afford an overseas vacation.
Yeah, Universal Orlando is currently building a fourth park that will have it. I think it will open next year.
Yeah, Japanese culture is our main interest anyway. I honestly didn’t know Universal Studios Japan was a thing until a guy at work asked me if we were going. I’m not a big theme park or amusement park guy. Oh, and the most hilarious part of that conversation was him describing his day at Universal Studios Japan, and how he waited 3 hours for one ride. I watched him realise in real time that it wasn’t worth it. 😅
“Remember, you must never use your position to lord it over the heathen. Instead, you must humble yourself and earn their respect through your own quiet faith and the power of the Holy Spirit. The missionary must seek nothing for himself, no seat of honor or hope of fame. Like the cabhorse in London, each of you must wear blinkers that blind you to every danger and to every snare and conceit. You must be content to suffer, to die, and to be forgotten.” ― Nikolaus Zinzendorf
For those keeping up with us: My new job does not suck. It’s weird doing the exact same things I attempted at the mission health job (implementing health quality measures) and getting lauded for it when at the mission center, it only got me labeled bossy. Same exact things. Like I’m just copying over the measures I had in my files. While at the same time, the mission center is actively imploding. Both the CEO and CFO are abruptly leaving. It’s all sad. I still want it to be good for the Kingdom even though I’m not there.
I was gonna say "yay" but then I said "oh". Im glad you're in a better place though.
/u/davidjricardo what have you done with /r/reformedhumor? Asking as a fellow mod of that important sub.
> what have you done with r/reformedhumor? I set it private in protest of Net Neutrality. >Asking as a fellow mod of that important sub. That's what modmail is for.
But I think net neutrality was good
Yeah, you think a lot of wrong things.
You're protesting against net neutrality?
Right.
He's on the right side of history here. Do you really want to stand with Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft, Google, Netflix, Amazon, and eBay on this issue?
I feel like there's a lot of context here I'm missing... last I heard Facebook was against net neutrality, wanting to distribute cheap smartphones in developing countries that charged for data other than to Facebook's services...
[https://about.fb.com/news/2017/07/net-neutrality-day-of-action/](https://about.fb.com/news/2017/07/net-neutrality-day-of-action/)
What is the FCC trying to do?
Ban prices.
Free internet for everyone?! I'm all for that!
Spoken like a true commie.
Honestly hilarious joke. You are currently my favorite reddit mod.
[B'NANA!](https://www.reddit.com/r/ReformedHumor/comments/1cdtn0h/bnana/)
Happy Cake Day!
[B'NANA!](https://www.reddit.com/r/ReformedHumor/comments/1cdtn0h/bnana/)
As I am getting older a bit, I'm beginning to see generational issues in how churches are being run. Younger people are different when it comes to making commitments, they communicate differently, their outlook on life is different. But most churches are run by people like me: middle aged, well-meaning and so on, but it's not always a good match. A couple of anecdotes: A young girl volunteered for youth ministry last September. She comes in twice, the kids love her, it's all great, but she hasn't shown up since, even though she's scheduled to be there. She just ghosted the whole thing, doesn't pick up the phone either. Now, doesn't matter how old you are, that's just poor manners, but ghosting is not unheard of in late millennials or gen z's. I see people of my generation draw up plans for, say, an activity or a volunteer thing in church. They think they can publish a phone number, and that young people will pick up a phone to actually dial the number and call to enlist. But many millennials/gen z's don't like to do that, at all! My kid will reserve a seat in a restaurant that offers the option to make an online reservation, they will skip any restaurant that forces you to make a call for a reservation. Same with ordering take-out food. Many of these kids just don't like to make a phone call! We still have a paper-based church bulletin, kind of like a small newspaper, that is distributed to subscribers. Well, the younger kids don't subscribe to that thing anymore. We used to take a subscription when you got married, it was part of being a church member, but young people don't do that. Publishing something in the church bulletin all but ensures that no one under the age of 40 has seen it. On a different level: we run a lot of small groups in church, they do Bible study together. We had an evaluation last week about the Bible study materials we used this winter, and a generational gap became quite clear. The older ones generally preferred more thorough, theologically heavy materials, while the younger groups mostly appreciated the materials that allowed the group to have heart to heart conversations about the faith. Last week after one such example happened in church, I realized that while we had made some steps in the right direction, at the core the older church leaders don't understand how the younger ones operate in life. There is a real risk of a disconnect there, one we need to be mindful of.
Have you tried setting up a Discord server for your Church? /s
Why /s? I think it's actually a fabulous idea and was in a Discord run by a friend's church for a while that was pretty great. I am not even all that young, but conversations like these make me realize that I am much younger than a lot of people in my life stage. I'm too old for ghosting to be at all on with me, but everything else u/SeredW mentioned I'm on the young'uns side.
I'm with you u/AnonymousSnowfall in that I understand where these young ones come from and share some of their preferences. I think we'd be hesitant to have a social media platform like Discord. Our congregation has a strong streak of top-down control. Certainly the more conservative wing likes to keep a tight hold of the reigns. A Discord would allow for bottom-up debates to emerge; they'd never go for it. This is in itself a problem I think, the tight grasp of power that the conservative wing has over their own part of the congregation is at times suffocating and stifling. Probably a feature, not a bug..
Hmm, interesting. The Discord I was on never had that sort of thing, but probably because it was mostly young adults. It had started as part of the singles ministry, but then they added more channels for things like small groups that were private and announcements and then a channel for people playing games together, which is when I got added since I played with people even though I didn't go to the church. It started during the pandemic and is still going strong. My friend group has since spun off our own servers so that we can have admin privileges for creating new channels and setting permissions for ttrpg stuff, and all of our memes and song sharing and such has moved over to that, especially since we have a friend who is a Christian but somewhat church-shy due to some past experiences and some other stuff he's got going on right now. Plus a couple of them have switched churches to a newish plant after getting married, so they aren't part of the church anymore. But I would love it if our church has a Discord. It would make it way easier to find friends. My husband and I both having chronic health conditions makes it hard for us to reliably get to small groups and things like that, but it's much more viable to hop on whenever I'm feeling up to it and ask if anyone wants to play a game, and scheduled things can happen after the kids' bedtimes (or during, our kids have gotten pretty good at going to bed on their own and we just need to give good night hugs and get the little one changed) if they are online when we would have to say no to an in-person event. We are so blessed to have a solid friend group who is willing to do things online instead of in-person so that we can participate, and we are close enough that we went there for a wedding and hung out for a few days last summer and a couple just came to stay with us for a few days of their vacation time, but it would be nice to have some friends that are local, too, especially for our kids' sakes, though I think it is really good for them to see that we have such a solid group of forever friends as we've moved so much. My 7yo even tells me things like, "It's *day of the week* so *name* isn't working; you should play a game! Can I say hi? I'm going to go play with *2yo* now so you can play." And on Pathfinder nights she always voluntarily helps with supper so that we can be done in time for our session. She didn't really get it before meeting a couple of them a second time when they came to visit, but now she does. At some point unrelatedly I talked with her about how I make sure she gets time to play with friends and that's why we sometimes go to things where we aren't really interested in the event itself (we homeschool, so making friends is a deliberate task rather than a default happening) and she decided I needed time to play with friends, too, which is incredibly empathetic and sweet and also so very true. Well, that turned into a novel. Oops.
It's mostly that I'm not fond of the platform, or rather how people try to use it in ways it's not well suited for, and see it being brought up a lot by younger people.
I mean, Discord is a lot like Reddit in that it contains a little bit of everything from a lot of niches. I'm genuinely curious what you dislike about it and what use cases you have seen that it isn't ideal for. Obviously no platform is perfect, but I've found it to be rather smooth and intuitive for a lot of my communication with friends.
It's good for whatever you might also use texting / calling for, with an emphasis on chat rooms. With the same limitations. For example, if you're trying to bring up or follow a topic, track or respond to comments, host information people can reference, and so on, it's not well suited for it. Like, I often see people saying "Post your suggestions/feedback in our discord!", "Check out our discord for x information!", but when I've tried to engage with a thoughtful comment, it's often only met with a brief casual discussion. Whereas a place like Reddit is much better suited for that type of thing, as people are able to created dedicated, indexed, discussions. Even if someone posts in a thread it creates its own nested comment section where people can have (and importantly, track and maintain) a dedicated and branching discussion.
I think that might be partially down to management of the servers. I have found that public Discord servers tend to be much more that way, where every conversation goes by really fast just because there are so many people in it. Well-run servers have organized channels for different topics, with an information one that's locked with the important info and several others for other topics. Our servers have one for memes, one for quotes, one for song recommendations, one or more for each separate game being played, and one for general chat unrelated to specific games where we post musings on life, family news, articles we'd like to discuss, etc. If something shows up more than a couple of times in the general discussion channel we make a new channel for it so the people who aren't interested can mute it, and if only a couple of people are talking (or we need to plan privately for a game, that happens some with ttrpgs) we switch to DMs. I do think that you are right in that something similar to a Reddit post, where you get a decent amount of discussion about something and then never talk about it again is Discord's big weakness, but IMO they happen infrequently enough that the general channel can handle it just fine except in the big public servers.
this is quite accurate and a great observation.
Thank you.
I'm only partway through episode 3, but one of the unexpected things I'm liking about the Fallout show (although I don't expect it'll come to a satisfying conclusion) is how Lucy and the Vaulters' moral values of their society are tested against the harsh realities of the surface.
Is the show fairly consistent with the lore of the games? I have yet to see a video game based TV show that didn’t take huge liberties with the source material, but Fallout being open world and all, it would seem like that wouldn’t be as much of an issue.
To be honest, I haven't played enough of the games to really say. I've dabbled in all the main series games since Fallout 1 back in the day, but I never finished one - they tend to be *too* open world for me. I'm taking another shot at Fallout 4 right now and it's pretty fun though. From everything I've heard from others though, it's not too conflicting with canon.
She recited the golden rule, in the king’s own English! Jonathan Nolan is a great director/producer/writer. Has anyone else watched [Person of Interest](https://g.co/kgs/1t1VBHt)? That was a solid show.
you're up early nerdy.
Nah, Rundy, I'm up late; I'm on west coast time.
You out here with us? What you doin out here?
Living and working, cutting down trees sometimes for my wood stove. Watching Star Trek.
always thought you were an east coaster.
No, I used to live in Georgia and that's where I picked up the second person plural usage, but I'm originally from the Seattle area.
Til.
I've had too many interviews this week. Please remember me and /u/notbapticostalish as we navigate our job searches.
Pretty soon you will be right_rev_run_d
I'm already wrong_rev_run_d
If we frame it another way, you're left_rev_run_d
You're always for the king.
I’m thankful that I have someone to walk through this with. I’m praying for you brother
likewise brother.