Quote:
Originally Posted by Daniel Alicea
The events of the last few months, in my opinion, have shown that forums like CAF, Wordshare, AFF and SynaD are having an effect in the politics of organizations and in the hearts of Oneness Pentecostals.
Am I being farsighted?
Just recently a friend said that a conservative forum specifically and forums in general were called "garbage" at a ministerial meeting.
It was interesting to see the WWPF react to forum discussions on their website.
What say ye???
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I think this is a timely and excellent question.
There is no doubting the impact online conversation has made on recent events in our movement. In fact, I would go as far to say that online forums are a preferred method of communication among twenty-first century leaders in Oneness Pentecostalism.
I know that minister's posts have been used against them in board rooms. There have also been occurences where owners of forums have exposed anonymous poster's identities in the hopes of silencing them. These same owners have threatened livelihoods, ministries - and even the families of posters with whom they have ideological differences.
In short, these folks have the mistaken impression they can stifle free speech. They believe that forums are like their church. A church where they can threaten and intimidate parishioners with shunning, disfellowship or worse.
Examples:
rrford is banned from a forum because he dared disagree with a position the owner held. rrford? The man is one of the most conservative and balanced men in the movement.
The owners of Wordshare are blasted from the pulpit of a District meeting. The guest speaker at the conference rails at them, stating that maybe the owner should go offline so that he could build his church past an attendance of thirty.
I could go on and get even more personal, but it would accomplish nothing.
The bottom line is that forums do make a difference. Lives are changed, Views are changed. This is a battle for hearts and minds.
That is why it is so important to measure what we say carefully. There are some visitors here who may not be as immersed in OP culture as others
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