27th October 2003

I'm writing this as an aid to newcomers.

Many have told me they tried to wade through the assorted posts here, and got lost in the cross-posted stuff, or discouraged by the vitriol.

The only way to enjoy this or any newsgroup is to hang around awhile (the term is 'lurk') and get to know us. At the moment aus.religion.christian is quite an interesting group, enriched by a diversity of views...

So here's my rough guide about where to start. I'd welcome fine-tuning from others who've been here a while...

1. As a rough rule, don't read or respond to *anything* cross-posted to more than two groups. Ideally, almost all replies should be limited to aus.religion.christian. However, there's one thread here - on Homosexuality and the Anglican Church - which has been enriched by contributions from alt.religion.christian.episcopal. Fair enough. (But if you check the thread, some have rightly limited their response to one group or the other).

2. If you want to know the *people* who've been here for some time, and who are currently posting, here's my rough guide (now I'm sounding a bit like the schoolteacher I once was, giving grades :-):

2-1 Three irenic atheists - Chris Ho-Stuart (who offers some brilliant insights and links), Sean McHugh (also highly intelligent, and who responds so thoroughly to some posts that the responses are often long: but always interesting), Theo Bekkers (also quite insightful, and usually short/cryptic). The fourth regular atheist here is Barry O'Grady (also intelligent, but is usually reactive rather than constructive, tends to hate Christianity/God if not Christians, and loathes American spellings. Is there a kinder way to introduce Barry, anyone?)

2-2 Christian creationist - Gladys Swager.

2-3 Irenic conservative-to-progressive Christians (though they might get irritable occasionally :-) - Lawrence Meckan, Bradley (who else is regular at the moment?)

2-4 Progressive-to-radical evangelical Christians - Ken Smith (retired academic mathematician), Rowland Croucher.

2-5 Liberal, sometimes-to-often fiery but very well-read Christian - Mark Tindall.

2-6 If you see the name 'Steve Winter' or 'Willie Martin' against anything here avoid those posts altogether (find your 'block sender' facility for them). (Who'd like to give reasons for this?)

2-7 We have a unique poster here currently calling himself Qolon. Most of the regulars have blocked him, but a few haven't. He disqualifies himself generally because of his excessive cross-posting. (What else - now be kind?)

2-8 Another quite unique poster is Ninure Saunders, a black, gay American deacon in a Chicago Metropolitan Community Church. The Christians here generally appreciate her devotional articles/stories, fundamentalists attack her homosexual orientation, the atheists mostly tolerate-to-ignore her.

Who else has posted here, say, at least a couple of times a week for the past six months? Terry? Where would he fit? Who else?

We've had some regulars here who have left (*sigh*). If you want to chase their contributions, search Google, or perhaps put aus.religion.christian into a Google search of the John Mark Ministries site (http://jmm.aaa.net.au/index.htm ) where you'll find about 700 references, including charter and (soon-to-be-updated) FAQ.

Welcome to a.r.c.!

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Shalom!

Rowland Croucher