oneness

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Some more list history y'all.

Bill Clifton asked:

> Tyler Nally wrote:
> > Seems like the topics that have been closed are ....

> >    Godhead (oneness - the *mother* of all threads for 6-9 months once)

> These two - especially "oneness" seems kinda strang to me. I joined mid
> the recent hair threads (pun not intended!) and so I understand the
> reasoning a bit, but oneness? I hope I dont start a discussion on it,
> but how on an "Apostolic" mailing list can a discussion of oneness get
> wound up too far? - maybe replies should be addressed to me personally
> and not the list to avoid such an outburst.

Waaaaay back in 1994 there was furious debate on *several* discussion
lists about the trinity and oneness (with a few Mormons and Jehovah
Witnesses joining in for the fun of it).  On the oneness side, the
primary contender was Bro Mike Blume.  Bro Blume is a UPC pastor up in
the maritime provinces of Canada.

Anyway, the H-F list was started in the fall of 1994 partly as a
response to that debate -- a "resting place" where Oneness folks could
have discussion without being roasted alive at every turn.  You see,
during and after that huge debate on the 'net, all the oneness folks
were "marked."  Those lists which didn't kick us off each had several
people who took every opportunity to mock every view we held.

For example, somebody would say something about prayer, and wise-guy
would feel compelled to mock "Since you pray to another Jesus, your
prayers obviously aren't being answered by God.  If your prayers are
seemingly answered, it's proof of demonic deception."  There might be
some discussion about the existence of hell, and a trinitarian would
post in response to a Oneness believer that "That's a good description,
but I guess you would know since you'll be spending an eternity there."

Anyway, you can imagine my dismay when shortly after H-F was started,
discussion on Oneness began and **nobody could agree on a definition of
Oneness!!!**  We had pastors disagreeing with David Bernard's history
and definitions, we had other pastors disagreeing vehemently with one
another, and we had our good friend Winter disagreeing with everybody
and cursing them out "in the name of Jesus."  *groan*

Back then,  H-F wasn't moderated and it was an open list (no
questionaire).  Some backslid Jehovah Witnesses joined in and the whole
thing just descended into chaos.  Dozens quit the list in disgust and
I'm sure they have bad memories about this forum to this day.  Maybe
we should follow the lead of ValuJet and change our name :-)

I seriously considered just giving up on the list, but then Prairienet
got a software upgrade for the list software that gave me the ability
to moderate the list.  I imagined this would significantly impact my
workload, so I asked Bro Tyler Nally to help out.  Tyler was also able
to make some decisions about the list that I wasn't quite ready to make
yet.  I'm very thankful for the help and input that he's put into this
list; Tyler's been a Godsend.

We still get the occasional debate here, but as Tyler noted the
"Oneness" thread was the "mother of all threads" for several months.  I
think list moderation was definitely the right move to make.

Richard Masoner
richardm@cd.com