www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Thoughts on a new forum area?

Christ is risen! Indeed, He is risen!

As we all celebrate the Holy, wonderful, and life giving Resurrection of Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, I would like to solicit some feedback regarding an idea that has been probing my brain for awhile.

Could we benefit in having a new topic forum dedicated solely to Theological and Idealogical writings and books?

Example: Lets say in another discussion thread, we discuss purgatory/toll houses, or The Immaculate Conception. As the topic starts to heat up, references to solidify a persuasive argument usually will include a reference to one or more writings.

How many times have we mentioned "The Orthodox Way", or "The Faces of God", etc? These postings usually prompt me to find the book to read, and after reading these fine works, alas, I usually have a few questions that somehow never get answered.

I also feel this would be a great area to discuss the holiness and writings of the Saints, and Early Church Fathers.

If we had a sub forum, and some person was reading "The Faces of God", or any other Theological book, it would be beneficial to me at least to be able to go to the topic, read it, see if someone else had the same or similar question, or to be able to share my interpretation of the material.

I can see a great potential for this, with some great sharing of ideas to help our faith increase towards He who died on the Cross.

Does this seem like a plausible idea? Is space available via the server and software to do this?

Thank you all; and I pray that while we all have our own viewpoints, we can still remain as one in our undying love and commitment for Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ!

In Christ,

Michael

An interesting idea!

Let�s see what the posters have to say.

For the purposes of discussion I�ll ask the following questions:

Are there enough discussions on theological and ideological writings to justify the creation of a separate forum (one apart from the Faith & Worship forum)? We could not justify a new forum if it only had one or two active threads per month.

What specific title and focus should such a forum have?

Dear Administrator:

Christos Voskrese! Voistinu Voskrese!

I feel this could be done with regards to books in theory centered on Eastern Theology, Desert Fathers, and the Early Church (which would then discuss the whole Church of the first century).

Recently, I read "One Holy Catholic and Apostolic" and am currently finishing "Three Byzantine Saints". Also, I observed today at the parish a person highly recommending "Mountain of Silence" and the sequel (I cannot remember that name).


In my for instance, with regards to "Three Byzantine Saints", my focus would be regarding the large amounts of miracles, the column itself, the receiving of Holy Orders without the touching of hands, and there is a very quick mention of +St. Theodore elevating the Diskos and seeing the veil of God over it. In the last case, what type of liturgy was used since I do not observe our priest elevating the diskos without also elevating the chalice near the end of the invocation, and what messages can we take from their lives to apply to today.

With regards to "One Holy Catholic and Apostolic", the focus of the book is on the Early Church and the Primacy of Peter and the first Ecumenical Councils. If the references are correct, as I believe (another question), then this book holds a wealth of information in the history and conduct of the early church that would inherently lay the ground work for our modern church. Once again, what lessons can we learn, and how can we apply these to our faith?

These are just a couple of examples. I thought, if this could be a go, as a person reads a book, they could create the topic based upon the title, if they wish to discuss it. Others could then reply, add their own comments, and if down the road, someone else reads that book, they could read through the threads to find answers and other insights they may have missed or overlooked.

Any value here, or possibly just a waste of space?

Happy Pascha to all!

Michael

Christ is Risen!

Sounds to me like an excellent idea - but I know nothing whatever of how complicated and/or costly such a thing might be (that, surely, is the Administrator's department).
If I understand the proposal correctly, a suitable title for the suggested threat might be "theological/liturgiological source materials". A bit of a mouthful, but there we are.

Incognitus

An excellent idea!

A forum just for books and writings is an excellent idea !

It might not be very active, but it should prove to be a very useful resource: especially for seekers.

I hearitly encourage this.

-- John

If such a forum wouldn't be active, then we would have no excuse for posting in the other forums.

Sorry, I disagree. I think it would be good to have a separate forum for books and writings even if it wouldn't be very active.

That's because it would be a clearly identifiable information resource. As it is now, people who are seeking books, etc. on a given topic have to do a search and hope someone posted book references in a given thread. It's hunting and pecking. It's slow, inefficient and frustrating. But, with a separate forum for books and writings, a person knows that there is a place to look for bibliographic data, references and discussion. And if a topic hasn't been addressed yet, the person can post it and let people respond with their recommendations.

I think this idea is great, and even if it is slow (in comparison to other forums), it holds a lot of promise as a useful resource that will grow over time.

-- John

Uhm, doesn't anyone else want a new forum for books and writings?

-- John

There are a lot of guys on here that like to get into serious theological discussions(not that we women don't) but anway I think it is a distraction sometimes when thing get intense and someone is just posting a small thought on another subject. So it sounds like a good idea to me. I am sure I will learn a lot my just reading all the discussions there.

bump......

Thank you, Pani Rose.

I'm surprised -- with all the academic and intellectual interest here -- that more people haven't yet posted their support for a new forum for books and writings ...

-- John

I just saw it this morning and of course it is a very excellent idea.

The only drawback I fear will be that the moment a discussion heats up it will be shut down.

Now I have learned after many years owning and running Internet listservs that there are two kinds of heat, with varying degrees of course, and one can produce gold and the other dross.

I am not sure that I have seen much of that kind of discernment on the part of the moderators of the forum in terms of the shutting down of discussions, at least in my wandering around in the archives.

There's not much of a pattern that I can see. Now that is an acceptable way of doing things, as Pani Rose says, in discussions where the ideas are small and manageable.

Do the same kind of moderating in a more theologically oriented forum, one dedicated to the free flow of ideas, and you kill the growth of ideas.

So that is a consideration unless the new forum is going to look like an old library card catalogue and not be for discussion at all.

Eli

Admin,

Actually, I've been thinking Faith and Worship needed seperate forums for a while. A quick look over that forum and one see there are plenty of threads dedicated to either subject. Seperating would make for easier searching.

Fr. Deacon Lance

What does that mean?

Thanks for the interesting ideas.

Michael suggests a new forum for the discussion of books. This could be useful to those studying the Faith, especially if the thread titles were the name of the book.

Father Deacon Lance has suggested separate forums for Faith and Worship.

These are two quite different suggestions. Can we discuss this a bit further as to the type of discussions that belong to each?

A concern here is that too many different forums makes the Forum too complicated. Too complicated means less inviting. I occasionally participate in a couple of forums where they have neatly and logically divided the subjects into about 20 forums. Most of the forums have little or no participation and I find myself only using the �Today�s Active Topics� link because I don�t want to have to click my way through all those forums.

Also, maybe this would be a good time to discuss the general organization of all the forums that make up the Forum. In the past few years we�ve added the �Focus on Scripture� and �Kliros� forums. What do people think about these? Is there a better way to organize the subjects to make it easy for newcomers as well as attract more participation?

Admin

Administrator,

What we really need is a forum on the relevance of religion in our life. Pope John Paul II and now Pope Benedict XVI have stressed this is the single biggest factor for the decline of the Church in the West.

I am not sure what the focus should be for the new forum. Should it be directed to the question of Atheism? Rather it maybe it should be directed toward the belief all religions are equal. Maybe still it should directed against Materialism.

Either way I think this is the single biggest problem facing the Church in the West today.

My 2 Cents!

Dear Eli you said:

I say:

I tend to agree, which is why I rarely ever press the report button. When discussions are deleted, or topics are ended prematurely, it doesn't give one a chance to explain their position.

Maybe the 'new' forum could be combined with another one, such as Focus on Scriptures?

Zenovia

The new category might comprise discussions of texts on the topics of Scripture, doctrine, liturgy, devotions, lives of saints, church documents, church history, faith and reason, moral theology...and so on.

It surely would take some of the traffic away from the supra categories as they exist now [BTW I personally like the formation of the current supra categories very much.]

That diversion of traffic on more serious and contested topics into a category devoted to discussion of texts would allow for an easing and opening in the other categories, and it would be possible to instruct the members that this new category, though not tolerant of personally cutting remarks, may contain more content that might be construed by the casual or sensitive reader as sharp and contentious.

That codicil would allow for a different sort of moderation then without causing inordinate offense, because of the "Let the reader beware" understanding established for that particular category.

Eli

How about: Theology/metaphysics/philosophy/historicity (historical context)/patristics/scripture exegesis

Administrator:

Would you consider a forum on prosperity and healing? Father Sid Sidor at St. Athanasius BCC in Indianapolis would most likely moderate it.

All the best,

Scott

I'm doing some organizing of possible new forums this week, so anything is possible. Please have Father Sid contact me if he is interested in such a forum.

How about an "Iconography" or "Sacred Arts" section?

Dave

Since a lot of the threads in the �Parish Life� forum are not exactly about parish life we are thinking of moving all of the threads in this forum to either the �Faith & Worship� or �Town Hall� forums and then renaming the Evangelization forum to "Evangelization and Parish Life". That way we can eliminate a possibly unnecessary forum and make room for a few new ones. The new "Books" forum (moderated by Michael B) is already online. Father Sid Sidor of the Eparchy of Parma has asked to host a �Healing & Grace� forum which is almost ready to go public.

Your thoughts and ideas?

I love this forum.

As an iconographer I love the idea of an "iconography/sacred arts" section as suggested by Chtec.

I admit that when I visit here I often do not have time to read everything. Having more defined topics would help me check out my interests quicker which would be nice. (but... more topics might make it too busy)

May God bless all of you who work here. Keep up the great work.

Fr. Bo

P.S. I will make more of an effort to encourage others to join including my parishioners and fellow clergy.