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Conduct Unbecoming.....

Dear friends at opposite ends of this discussion,

I believe that there is place for both a group, or 'commonwealth' of sorts that would both serve the means of setting standards of agreement, without interfering or controlling individual organizations, ministries, families, or people involved.

I will admit it would be quite a balancing act, but it could be done.

No matter what we do, there will never be 100% happiness.

If we approach this as men of wisdom, and men of honor, I believe that God can use this in order to set us apart from the more fringe groups, and definitely set us apart from the fundamentalist Mormon groups who who made plural marriage as stained as it is.

This is a good debate and discussion. I am sure our founding fathers here in the US wrestled with some of the same issues when it came to forging a document that made 13 diverse colonies and commonwealths, various territories and Indian lands, "America".

I believe that Biblical Families has a unique identity, and a unique place in the reawakening of the issue of Christian plural marriage, but it is not the end all and be all, nor do I think it has to be. I agree with Pastor John, for Biblical Families to give up its identity or purpose to be part of a larger organization, then it would cease to be Biblical Families. However, I do not think that has to be the case. I believe that there are standards that we can agree to as segmented groups that do not diminish the identity of any single group.

And besides that, I would consider it to be a voluntary cooperative, that is, any member could leave at any time, if they disagree with the purpose and function of the compact.

No doubt, at some point in the future, the number of believers in Christian plural marriage will increase significantly. There will probably be sub-groups of pentecostals, charismatics, baptists, non-denomantionalists, etc. We have already seen segmented groups of messianics and even some african-americans. And what about groups that may develop internationally? Imagine a world where no matter where you went, there would be a group nearby?

Regarding anonymity, that has never really been a big issue for me. I understand the reasons for it, and I consider it a matter of conscience. This is yet another reason for a compact standard that even those who choose to remain anonymous can participate and know that they have protection, fellowship, and encouragement.

Requiring passports, driver's license, etc in an atmosphere that functions 75% of the time in cyberspace is simply not realistic. Even if you were able to come up with a way to verify ids, either in the real world or online, there is still the opportunity for manipulation. Besides that, by requiring ids or verification of people might actually work against those that are new to the movement, who choose to remain cloaked for any number of reasons. There are also those who choose to remain anonymous online for issues not at all related to polygyny.

So, how could this all work? I don't really know yet. I see it in my head, but I am not quite sure yet how issues such as leadership, autonomy, 'blacklists', and such would work. All I know is, I sure do feel good about talking about it. Even if nothing else comes out of this general discussion, I hope that we can all come away with a renewed sense that as men and women of faith, we have a responsibility to set a higher standard than there has been. It is our duty to take a issue that has been dragged through the world's gutter, and to redeem it.

I, for one, am in favor of a higher calling. We can do better.

Blessings

Doc Burkhart
 
"Besides that, by requiring ids or verification of people might actually work against those that are new to the movement, who choose to remain cloaked for any number of reasons."

I didn't intend for it to be mandatory. I think I used the word optional. It would be a good way for those that want to show the others here that they really are who they say they are (credibility). For others that wish to remain anonymous that would be their choice.
 
Maybe BF, as in the organization or group, wouldn't need to be part of this new organization. It could be just individuals from the various groups that would be a part of it. Example, someone that was looking to meet with a potential "domestic partner" in the Lord, could go to this organization and search the name and find out if that person was in good standing or not. It is similar to the backgroud checks that I sometimes do on my tennants, though it isn't always accurate.
 
John Whitten says'
Perverts should be afraid to show their face on this site
Click to expand...

Whatever action is deemed appropriate, the above quote should be the end result !

Blessings,
Fairlight
 
Fairlight said:
John Whitten says'
Perverts should be afraid to show their face on this site
Click to expand...
Whatever action is deemed appropriate, the above quote should be the end result !
Blessings,
Fairlight
Click to expand...

Oh, YEAH!
 
John_for_Christ said:
John Whitten wrote:
I have a simpler plan that should not even need to be mentioned, but since our society is so fragmented and weakened, I will. I can't speak for other nations, but the good ol' US of A has become so mollified by a group mentality that we tend to not defend ourselves or police ourselves. "Let the Cops take care of it", "Call 9-1-1" is the cry of the day. this is a true statement, "When seconds count, the police are only minutes away". The recent 10th anniversary of the Islamic attack on America recalls the perfect example of the problem and proposes the perfect solution to the ethical conduct issue for BiblicalFamilies.org.
On any of the four planes that were hijacked and used as weapons, the only weapons that are known of are box cutters or utility knives. Short blades that can slash and cause pain and bleeding, but are not lethal unless a major artery is cut. These knives in the hands of a few men who are obviously not there in an official position should never have stopped a few brave, red-blooded American men from eliminating their threat. Briefcases, serving trays, purses, coats, even seat cushions could be used as defensive instruments to overtake the knives. In the available space on board an airliner a few brave men could have won the day. The valiant men on flight 93 did the job, they just waited too long to act. Why did the terrorists win??? They won because everyone on the planes have been acclimated to thinking, "Call somebody". Our ancestors knew better, the right to self-defense is an inalienable, God given right. We must not convey with simplicity of mind the health and well being of BiblicalFamilies.org into the hands of another entity or even our government officials.

I submit that this is prideful and a bit foolish. BF is not the be-all and end-all of polygamy, nor Christianity. At least the early church had the good sense to be humble and work together, like when the elders and apostles met in Jerusalem in Acts 15.
Click to expand...

NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Pastor Whitten is right on target here! I believe he was speaking in a much broader context regarding the gradual emasculation of the American male over the last century. I know for a fact that he definitely believes that Christians need to work together for the common good.

Also neither he nor I believe that B.F. is the "be-all/end-all" of Biblical polygyny (and I don't think B.F. believes that either)....but they are a major leader, IMHO.....and I would love to see B.F. become a trail-blazer in setting a higher standard for ethical conduct. I believe they have the ability to do just that.

JFC...your idea is noble and it deserves closer examination. Will it work ? I don't know. Perhaps you could work out the specifics of your plan in more detail and present it again. One concern I've heard is regarding membership. How many groups are likely to join ? There are some "lone ranger" groups who I know won't join. What if you have only a few groups who do join? How will that effect the success of your organization ?

Blessings,
Fairlight
 
There has been a lot of discussion regarding various ways to police ourselves. I agree that we need to do that. The government has shown that it will eventually step in and regulate any movement that does not keep its own yard clean, to borrow a metaphor from one of the contributors to this thread.

The problem, as I see it, is twofold:
First, we operate mostly in cyberspace. How do any of you really know that I am Dr. Marvin George, D.Div., of Gallup, NM? Even at the conference, no one asked to see my identification, which could be faked, anyway. About the only "proof" that I am who I say I am is the fact that I was able to go through the police-state airport security and fly from Albuquerque to Asheville and back in order to attend the Conference. But is the person who attended the Conference the same person who is posting all these outrageous :lol: things on the BF forum?

Second, using our real names (as I do) might cause problems, some related to our belief in polygyny, most potential problems not related to that belief. One of those potential problems has been mentioned, and I agree that it alone is reason enough to not require the use of real names in the public forum - that of providing any information at all that a stalker might use. As has been said, we need to protect our ladies. They are a precious gift, on loan to us from our loving Heavenly Father, and their safety is the responsibility of every man who calls himself a Christian.

I also understand the risks we men take if we use our real names. Some of the men who are part of BF have a lot to lose if they were to be "outed" (I hate using a word that is associated with the gay movement, but it really does apply here) and so they need to maintain their anonymity online. I came out to one person - my Pastor, when I was his Assistant Pastor - and it cost me everything I had in that denomination, including my membership. I came out to the next Pastor I had, and it cost me the right to do anything other than sit in a pew in his church and pay tithes and offerings. So I decided not to say anything at all to the Pastor of the church where I am now worshiping unless specifically asked. Then, I will be like George Washington when his father asked him who chopped down the cherry tree: "I cannot tell a lie. Popeye did it." :lol: :lol: :lol:

IMHO, the two things we absolutely must have are these: a code of conduct/ethics, and a basic doctrinal statement. We need the doctrinal statement because we call ourselves Biblical Families, not Koran Families or Book of Moron families. (A purposeful mis-spelling...) We need a code of conduct/ethics because we are called to live by a higher standard than non-Christians.

As to a basic doctrinal statement, there are certain things that all true Christian denominations agree on, and they are best summarized in the Apostle's Creed. I know that some on this forum disagree with that, but I can defend any and all articles in the Apostle's Creed using nothing but Scripture. So maybe the most fundamental thing we need to include in our doctrinal statement is that the Bible is God's Inspired Word. All that we need to know about being a Christian and living a life that is pleasing to God can be found in the Bible.

And, as one contributor to this thread noted, we are trying to rehabilitate a way of life that has been dragged through the mud by cults, most notably those who believe that the Book of Moron is inspired scripture. Our cause is righteous, but is not something that is a salvation issue for any adult. But as I keep ranting, it is a salvation issue to the many orphans in our churches that the adults in their lives believe in polygyny and act on that belief so that they might have a father who will bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord. (But I won't repeat my favorite soap-box rant here. Oops, I just did. :D )

Maybe the leadership needs to know as surely as possible that each of us is really who we say we are. Ron Higgins suggested to me one way to do that: require a $1 membership fee, paid by credit or debit card. Then allow that verified member to use any screen name (s)he desires, and have some way to note the person's "verified" status - probably place "VERIFIED MEMBER" under his avatar. If a person is kicked off for violating the code of conduct/ethics, he would then not be able to just choose another screen name and sign up again, because his real identity would be verified when his $1 membership fee is approved by the credit/debit card company. (Unless he is a real crook and has credit cards in several names!)

We could also have a verified-members-only sub-forum where the "real" business of facilitating the Biblical Family Values lifestyle would take place. We might require real names in that sub-forum, or maybe not. That should be discussed by all concerned before making a decision. (I vote to require real names in the verified-members-only sub-forum, but not in any part of the website that is accessible to the general web-surfing public.) No one would be allowed to post anything in any part of the forum, whether public or the private verified-members-only sub-forum, unless (s)he is a verified member. Or maybe we could have two levels of membership - verified and non-verified. Allow non-verified members to post in any part of the forum they can access (they obviously can't access the "verified member's only" sub-forum), but place a big, red, flashing "NON-VERIFIED" under his avatar to warn others that he might not be who he claims to be.

One potential problem I see with the idea is that some people might not have a credit or debit card. But such people usually don't do anything online anyway, so it might not be a problem.

Just a few thoughts...
 
I agree with PolyDoc, we must protect the single woman. It is already hard
to figure who is who. There is so much deceit on the internet and BF is no
exception. I realize that it could be the reverse and the woman is not who
she says she is.
dd
 
Hi PolyDoc,

I have to get to work, but I wanted to make a quick note, because what you are saying is what I have been saying and planning for some time now.

As I see it, we need a "trust" organization that has a moral stance related to polygamy. It can provide verification services for people that want to be trusted, without revealing their identity to anyone but the trust organization.

Websites have this kind of trust organization, and to get a good secure certificate, they have to PROVE who they are, by providing identification and proof of their general reliability. Bad organizations find it difficult to get through this barrier, protecting people that do business on the Internet. It's not IMPOSSIBLE, but they usually get caught and it is quite rare.

I have some experience in this area, having provided web hosting services in one of the world's largest hosts (back in the early 2000s) for more than a decade. That experience showed me a way to help people determine who is who in the polygamy world, and even in other aspects of Internet life.

My thoughts, to quickly summarize, are that we have a two- or three-tiered trust system. The lowest level consists of simply identification to establish a modicum of trust. The second level might be based upon experiential knowledge by others that are already trusted, like a trust "vote" on an individual. The third level would be those PERSONALLY KNOWN to other trusted persons, and their data files would be complete, though the data would not necessarily be available to anyone, except by their choice, and only that data that they want to be released.

I'm not saying it would be easy or perfect, but it's a darn sight better than anything that exists now...

That same organization can avoid overtly blacklisting people, instead only pointing out who is to be trusted, based on various contextual criteria (i.e., if they support polygamy, then a polygamy profile will be developed and a logo designed to reflect that for them to use or something like that). On the other hand, the organization could supply blacklisting support to SISTER organizations...like Biblical Families.

Again, the point isn't to control Biblical Families, but to help bring some safety into the polygamy arena. In fact, I can't see any reasonable way in which such a group COULD control Biblical Families if BF simply decided to quit that organization if they didn't like the way things were going--which is part of my original proposal!

Since BF would have equal representation with any other group--like our American Republic works--it would offset any argument that the organization, which I shall call PolySafe (tm) could take over or boss any single group around.

Unlike our good President Lincoln who stopped secession in the U.S., there would be no such power for the PolySafe (tm) organization. Thus, there is no rational basis for fear, other than the thought that maybe it would get powerful enough to influence many groups--and that can occur with or without BF's membership or not, and no matter what precautions we'd like to take. Anyone could do something like that at any moment. But I really don't see it happening. Most people would jump ship the moment PolySafe (tm) tried to throw their weight around. It's not a rational fear.

A far more rational fear is that the government will come down like a ton of bricks on us because of negative press.

For the first time in the thirteen years I've been in leadership in the Christian polygamy world, I have found someone that I believe will be my second wife. I don't want to risk her well-being or the well-being of my current family because some short-sighted Christian pro-polygamists are fearful. I'm more concerned about bad government than any other fear I would have in this area of life.

We need to take the long-term view, and recognize that eventually, most Christian polygamy groups will be working together--whether in loose or tight organization--at some point in the future if we hope to have any success in making our belief a mainstream belief that is mostly safe from the interference of government and religion. There will be no lone wolf pro-polygamists building the success of our movement. That never happens in any movement, and it won't happen in ours.

I said more than I had planned and I'm really late, so talk with all of you later, and I look forward to your honest responses!!!

May God bless you brethren, and let's pray that we can come to a place where we can all generally agree and make something happen!


John for Christ




PolyDoc said:
There has been a lot of discussion regarding various ways to police ourselves. I agree that we need to do that. The government has shown that it will eventually step in and regulate any movement that does not keep its own yard clean, to borrow a metaphor from one of the contributors to this thread.

The problem, as I see it, is twofold:
First, we operate mostly in cyberspace. How do any of you really know that I am Dr. Marvin George, D.Div., of Gallup, NM? Even at the conference, no one asked to see my identification, which could be faked, anyway. About the only "proof" that I am who I say I am is the fact that I was able to go through the police-state airport security and fly from Albuquerque to Asheville and back in order to attend the Conference. But is the person who attended the Conference the same person who is posting all these outrageous :lol: things on the BF forum?

Second, using our real names (as I do) might cause problems, some related to our belief in polygyny, most potential problems not related to that belief. One of those potential problems has been mentioned, and I agree that it alone is reason enough to not require the use of real names in the public forum - that of providing any information at all that a stalker might use. As has been said, we need to protect our ladies. They are a precious gift, on loan to us from our loving Heavenly Father, and their safety is the responsibility of every man who calls himself a Christian.

I also understand the risks we men take if we use our real names. Some of the men who are part of BF have a lot to lose if they were to be "outed" (I hate using a word that is associated with the gay movement, but it really does apply here) and so they need to maintain their anonymity online. I came out to one person - my Pastor, when I was his Assistant Pastor - and it cost me everything I had in that denomination, including my membership. I came out to the next Pastor I had, and it cost me the right to do anything other than sit in a pew in his church and pay tithes and offerings. So I decided not to say anything at all to the Pastor of the church where I am now worshiping unless specifically asked. Then, I will be like George Washington when his father asked him who chopped down the cherry tree: "I cannot tell a lie. Popeye did it." :lol: :lol: :lol:

IMHO, the two things we absolutely must have are these: a code of conduct/ethics, and a basic doctrinal statement. We need the doctrinal statement because we call ourselves Biblical Families, not Koran Families or Book of Moron families. (A purposeful mis-spelling...) We need a code of conduct/ethics because we are called to live by a higher standard than non-Christians.

As to a basic doctrinal statement, there are certain things that all true Christian denominations agree on, and they are best summarized in the Apostle's Creed. I know that some on this forum disagree with that, but I can defend any and all articles in the Apostle's Creed using nothing but Scripture. So maybe the most fundamental thing we need to include in our doctrinal statement is that the Bible is God's Inspired Word. All that we need to know about being a Christian and living a life that is pleasing to God can be found in the Bible.

And, as one contributor to this thread noted, we are trying to rehabilitate a way of life that has been dragged through the mud by cults, most notably those who believe that the Book of Moron is inspired scripture. Our cause is righteous, but is not something that is a salvation issue for any adult. But as I keep ranting, it is a salvation issue to the many orphans in our churches that the adults in their lives believe in polygyny and act on that belief so that they might have a father who will bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord. (But I won't repeat my favorite soap-box rant here. Oops, I just did. :D )

Maybe the leadership needs to know as surely as possible that each of us is really who we say we are. Ron Higgins suggested to me one way to do that: require a $1 membership fee, paid by credit or debit card. Then allow that verified member to use any screen name (s)he desires, and have some way to note the person's "verified" status - probably place "VERIFIED MEMBER" under his avatar. If a person is kicked off for violating the code of conduct/ethics, he would then not be able to just choose another screen name and sign up again, because his real identity would be verified when his $1 membership fee is approved by the credit/debit card company. (Unless he is a real crook and has credit cards in several names!)

We could also have a verified-members-only sub-forum where the "real" business of facilitating the Biblical Family Values lifestyle would take place. We might require real names in that sub-forum, or maybe not. That should be discussed by all concerned before making a decision. (I vote to require real names in the verified-members-only sub-forum, but not in any part of the website that is accessible to the general web-surfing public.) No one would be allowed to post anything in any part of the forum, whether public or the private verified-members-only sub-forum, unless (s)he is a verified member. Or maybe we could have two levels of membership - verified and non-verified. Allow non-verified members to post in any part of the forum they can access (they obviously can't access the "verified member's only" sub-forum), but place a big, red, flashing "NON-VERIFIED" under his avatar to warn others that he might not be who he claims to be.

One potential problem I see with the idea is that some people might not have a credit or debit card. But such people usually don't do anything online anyway, so it might not be a problem.

Just a few thoughts...
Click to expand...
 
PolyDoc said:
IMHO, the two things we absolutely must have are these: a code of conduct/ethics, and a basic doctrinal statement. We need the doctrinal statement because we call ourselves Biblical Families, not Koran Families or Book of Moron families. (A purposeful mis-spelling...) We need a code of conduct/ethics because we are called to live by a higher standard than non-Christians.
Click to expand...

AMEN !!!!!

I completely agree ! We need both a doctrinal statement and a code of conduct !!!! I have a ladies group and I have a copy of the reformed Apostle's Creed on the home page. The A.C. pretty much sums it up, IMHO. :)

Blessings,
Fairlight
 
The Apostle's Creed I think is a solid, trustworthy, and acceptable standard that nearly all Christian believers can adhere to, and would be the best form of doctrinal standard.

JFC mentioned 'trust levels', and I actually like that better than 'blacklisting', and this coming from someone who supported the blacklist...me! I think a 'whitelist', that is, a list of APPROVED members and their trust level based on some of the items mentioned before, would be a GREAT way to advance our cause. That way, if someone communicates with someone that only has a trust factor of 20/100, they would want to know why that score isn't higher. Great idea John!

I also like Ron's "$1" concept as well. Many online services require such membership denotations in order to verify age and identity. This would also serve a third purpose of being able to say to anybody looking in that we ABSOLUTELY avoid any underage contact on this forum, that age being 18.

So, here's how I see it:

Level I - The "$1" Trust/Verify online via credit card. I call this "Verified by Ron" LOL!
Level II - Experiential verification - That is, this person has been verified by an established member by a 'real world' relationship, in person, at least one.
Level III - This person has received the endorsement of five other members (I was going to say two or three witnesses, but I decided that may not be enough online).
Level IV - This person has provided documentary information available only to other members (ie copy of driver's license or passport...I realize that these could be faked as well, but hopefully they have worked through the other levels first).
Level V - This person is public, and is generally open and supportive of plural marriage, and has gone through the other levels.

What do you guys think? Too convoluted?

Blessings

Doc
 
DocInKorea wrote:
What do you guys think?
Click to expand...
I tried to think and nothing happened... :eek:

Seriously, I think you guys (JFC and DOK, with a few contributions from several others), have come up with an excellent set of ideas that now needs to be put into a formal proposal and discussed, then voted on. And, of course, implemented, assuming that enough of us libertarians and wannabe-lone-wolves can agree to the finalized version.

Another idea: for many years, I have used and played with a public-key encryption program that is now known as gpg. (Gnu Privacy Guard.) The original free and open source software (FOSS) package was taken over by a commercial enterprise (owned by the author/creator of pgp, the predecessor to both free and commercial versions) and is no longer free (the commercial version kept the name pgp, for Pretty Good Privacy), but another pre-commercial branch of the original free version has been developed by the open-source software community. It is available for most computer platforms, including Windows, Linux, and Mac. (Plus a bunch of others, and for any programmers out there, the source code for gpg is freely available so you can compile it for any computer platform that has a C/C++ compiler.) For those of you who might prefer to use the commercial version, the two are inter-operable. In other words, I, being a FOSS-version-preferring geek, can send encrypted email to you, a user of the commercial version, and vice-versa. Gpg/pgp might be used as a means of verification - a person's public key could be signed by the official (private) key of PolySafe (tm) as proof that the person is verified. Then, any electronic communication (email, forum post, etc) that is signed by the person's private key will be known to have been written by someone who knows the passphrase needed to use that person's private key. Gpg signing (with or without encryption of the document being signed) might be an additional level of verification inserted somewhere within the various levels already proposed, or used in parallel with the other levels. Because of certain technical and practical reasons, gpg keys probably should not be the only means of verification used, but it would be valuable as a means of supplementing other forms of verification. It would be especially useful for email messages, whether sent encrypted-and-signed or just signed, and it could also be used to sign forum posts. I'll be glad to discuss technical details with anyone who has the basic knowledge to understand it, but this thread might not be the best place for that. Do a google search for "gpg" (the free one) and/or "pgp" (the expensive one) to find out more about it.

Just a bit more more about encryption - this program is illegal to use in some countries that have paranoid secret police. It is believed, but of course unprovable to the general public, that NSA would have to spend far more time trying to crack a gpg-encrypted document than the effort is worth for all but the most real threats. (Like terrorist's messages. But Evangelical Christians are starting to be classified as terrorists! I have a friend who was notified by her senator that she is on the terrorist "watch list" because she called the senator and protested some pro-gay legislation.) It is illegal to export pgp/gpg from the US, but gpg (the free one) has been developed in countries with less stringent encryption-software export regulations and so is available in any country where the secret police will allow citizens to use it. In fact, gpg was imported to the US rather than developed here because of those export restrictions. (I'm not sure how the original version was made available outside the US, since Phil Zimmerman, the author/creator of the original software, lives in the US. Maybe it was "stolen" or something, since the source code was freely available - I have a three-inch-thick book by Zimmerman that contains a printout of all the source code for his original free version of pgp, comments and all! It could have been taken out of the US in anybody's pocket on one of those antique floppy disks. The export restriction applies to the software, not the encryption keys and encrypted documents produced by the software.) Due to some things I have heard, like the State Department wanting a "back door" encryption key automatically put in every encrypted document (they would have the corresponding decryption key,) I would trust the free version far more than the commercial version, since the free version was developed in other countries, plus the source code can be examined by paranoid privacy-freak programmers for the presence of code that would do that. If some programmer did find that, it would be all over the "privacy-freak" forums. It would be almost impossible to detect in the commercial version, since the source code is not available.

The $1 donation, used for ID and age verification purposes, will fall far short of providing the needed financial support for the organization. The transaction fees will eat up most of that $1. We can't expect one or two or even a dozen individuals to take on the entire financial burden, so we should also have a donations page on the website. (Like Biblical Families does.) Any donations beyond the initial $1 should be entirely voluntary regardless of the member's level of verification.

Another idea: offer a "verified polygyny-safe email address" for a small monthly fee. The fee would help pay for the expenses associated with providing the verification services. The email address could optionally be used as a further means of verifying the member to others. (If a person has an email address {somename}(at)PolySafe.com then everyone knows that at least his/her ID and age have been verified.) Of course, getting and using that non-free email address would be entirely voluntary, and verification like that which has already been discussed would still be available for all members who make the $1 one-time donation. Maybe the website could also have a service to see the verification level of any member who has such an address. (Accessible only to other verified members, of course - possibly only other email address owners.) To avoid "fishing expeditions" by members who might still not be what they claim to be, only those with the highest level of verification (or maybe only staff members?) should be allowed to see lists of email addresses and names from the email verification page. Others would be able to get information only about those people whose email addresses he (or she) already knows, presumably because he is wanting to verify that someone really is verified, and at what level, because of having received email from that person.

Accepting donations means that we need to have some system of financial accountability. IMHO, we should NOT seek any tax-exempt status (501c3, I think) because that would make us accountable to Caesar rather than to God. ("Where your treasure is...") If you haven't noticed, the IRS has ruled that 501c3 churches can not endorse any political candidate or cause under penalty of losing that tax exempt status. (But apparently, that only applies to those churches that would promote morally-conservative candidates and political causes. The big liberal churches, those that deny the fundamentals of the Christian faith, nearly always have left-wing democrat candidates as "guest speakers" during the election season.)

Here is where I propose to place the two ideas presented above. (email[at]PolySafe.com and a signed-by-PolySafe (tm) gpg/pgp key.) It should be a branch off of the $1 ID and age verification. IOW, as soon as a person is verified by the $1 thing, (s)he can now go to the next level as already proposed, and can also, regardless of what level of verification beyond the $1 thing has been completed, get the email address (a paid-for option) and get a gpg/pgp key signed by PolySafe (tm) (a free or extremely low-cost, well under $5, option. Maybe free for paid email owners, $1 or $2 otherwise? Or maybe free for any $1 verified member?)

How are we going to decide who will be involved in the planning of this? Will the meeting(s) for that planning be open to any who want to participate, or be invitation-only? Do we need to mutually verify to each other by some means before any meeting?

Do we call it the "Polygyny Constitutional Convention" if a bunch of us get together somewhere (either in real life or in cyberspace {videoconferencing?}) to hammer all this into a workable solution? :lol:
 
The Apostle's Creed I think is a solid, trustworthy, and acceptable standard that nearly all Christian believers can adhere to, and would be the best form of doctrinal standard.
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It is indeed a good foundation but as so often the terms in it need defining. One of the reasons the Nicea Council came together to form that confession was because many had redefined some of the terms in the Apostle's Creed to mean something different than they originally intended.

Also, the five point standard that we agreed upon collectively at the 4th of July retreat in 2010 is a good standard.

But all of the standards and confessions in the world are meaningless if we do not have the integrity and courage to not only stand by it but to require agreement with it as well. That is really where the downfall of so many God-honoring ministries have failed. They had the right confession but lacked courage to maintain their confession.
 
I propose that the members of Biblical Families police our own backyard, clean up our own messes so that we are not an eyesore to our world. When someone is misbehaving, report them with the evidence to the Staff. We will come up with a basic, simple but clear code of conduct, but it must be implemented. Don't wait for someone else to report problems, do it your self. When the staff takes appropriate action, don't criticize and don't coddle offenders. We must be an organization, a fellowship of godly behaving people or there is no reason for us to exist as a group. Troublemakers ought not to be tolerated. If we cannot disagree, agreeably then we should report or shut up. Personally, I would like to see a lascivious person make a comment and quickly be taken to task by every man here (pm's preferably). Perverts should be ashamed to show their face on this site.
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i am in complete agreement with john on this one. (do not worry, it is unlikely to become a habit.) :D


steve, the verified judaizing pharisee
 
mo.nurse said:
It is already hard
to figure who is who. There is so much deceit on the internet and BF is no
exception.
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It isn't just finding out "who is who". A person could use their real name and still BEHAVE badly! The man I spoke of in the first example on my O.P. proudly uses his real name, photo and also has hosted poly get-togethers in his city of residence. Many people have met him already and know who he is. It's his consistent bad conduct that is the issue here. Verifying a person's identity is a good first step but it is only the first thing that needs to happen.

Blessings,
Fairlight
 
Well, I have had some comments from some of my 'extended' friends sent to me personally asking if I thought that if we were to implement something like this, could it ever turn into a witch hunt? How could we avoid the appearance of impropriety and favoritism in a process like this? I would appreciate any thoughts or feedback.....still liking the idea the more I think about it....
 
a witch-hunt on bibfam? :eek:

inconceivable :!:

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

;)

steve, the judaizing pharisee :D
 
DocInKorea said:
Well, I have had some comments from some of my 'extended' friends sent to me personally asking if I thought that if we were to implement something like this, could it ever turn into a witch hunt? How could we avoid the appearance of impropriety and favoritism in a process like this? I would appreciate any thoughts or feedback.....still liking the idea the more I think about it....
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This is exactly why this needs to be based on conduct and not doctrinal issues.

Blessings,
Fairlight
 
steve said:
a witch-hunt on bibfam? :eek:

inconceivable :!:

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

;)

steve, the judaizing pharisee :D
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I'm not laughing, Steve....mainly because this is a serious issue that has been long ignored. There needs to be some kind of measures taken to protect B.F. members. And FTR, I don't know anyone who wants a "witch-hunt".

Blessings,
Fairlight
 
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