After a period of 90 days of exile
from Billy Hamm's Baptist
Pastors email list (which was originally designed for pastors
listed in the BBFI directory but also includes BBFI missionaries,
former pastors, evangelists, and other interested parties),
I was
reinstated by the list moderator Bob Woosley. Upon reinstatement I
observed that little had changed.
The same men were basically
taking the same positions. The leftwingers on the list continued to
speak highly of Billy Graham, Promise Keepers (although some of
them began to see problems with PK), women's pants, preachers in
shorts, and modern "bible" perversions (NKJV, NIV, etc.). The
rightwingers continued to speak against these same people and
issues.
Eventually, Bob Woosley's gavel came swinging down. He
announced that list member Shelton Cole and I were given a
suspension of 30 days. This was around Nov. 1. As had happened with
my previous suspension, I was not given the exact offense I had
committed.
At least this time I was given public notice of my
suspension and its duration. Woosley merely said he had received a
sufficient number of complaints from list members. He has enacted
a rule (which does not apply to himself, of course) whereby three
complaints from list subscribers is sufficient excuse for him to
kick someone off the list.
This could keep me kicked off
indefinitely, of course, because I have more than three guys on the
list who get aggravated every time they see my signature file at
the bottom of each note, which I reproduce here:
-----------------
God bless...
Michael D. O'Neal (1 Cor. 15:58), Pastor
Gospel Light Baptist Church, P.O. Box 3071 (235 Roosevelt Ave.)
Albany, GA 31706 912-432-0039 (church) 912-698-2127 (Parsonage)
(Scriptures in my notes are from the Authorized Version 1611
- KJV - and are used by permission of the Author - Eph. 6:17)
Visit The Bible-Believing Fundamentalist Web page -
http://www.brothermike.com
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In between suspensions, an alternative list was started up by
my partner in exile, Pastor Shelton Cole. It was called a BBF
Pastors Only List, although an exception was made for my good
friend, former pastor and now staff member of Pacific Coast Baptist
Bible College, Dr. Marvin McKenzie.
So far I have not been kicked
off Brother Cole's list, although I have already been involved in
controversy there with leftwingers who have subscribed to his list.
As a matter of fact, at least one of them has already taken
statements of mine on the BBF Pastors Only List (run by Shelton
Cole) and repeated them on the Pastors List (run by Billy Hamm and
Bob Woosley), misrepresenting me by inaccurate quotes and
conclusions without my having opportunity to correct them.
Although Bob Woosley periodically announces that he is
as conservative as anybody (he usually does this right before he
argues with or pronounces judgment upon one of the list's
conservative members), in practice he habitually leans toward and
favors the leftwing brethren and he constantly rebukes, rebuts, and
disassociates himself from the rightwing brethren.
By no means is
he an impartial moderator.
Shelton Cole has endeavored so far to be fair and impartial on
his BBF Pastors Only list, but he is definitely on the conservative
end of the spectrum in his beliefs.
Meanwhile, THE FUNDAMENTAL FORUM, an application-only
discussion group hosted by myself since 1995 on the online service,
Delphi, is now accessible from the Web.
Formerly a person had to
buy a Delphi membership in order to participate in our forum.
However, now Delphi offers free Webside memberships, and once on
Delphi a person need only type in the URL for our forum, so no cost
is involved. Contrary to the requirement of the other two lists
that a person be associated with the BBFI, a person merely has to
agree to abide by THE FUNDAMENTAL FORUM constitution in order to
participate on our list.
There are numerous email discussion lists, and more and more
of them are being started by Bible believers. I will mention one
other list here, Pastor Jim Schoolfield's Fundamental Truth list,
on which I have been a participant for a year or two.
Jim
Schoolfield is a Bible-believing independent Baptist. He offers the
distinct option of participating in a debate list and/or a non-debate list. (Since this article was written, the list's moderator has changed from Jim Schoolfield to Terry Stewart.)
For information on how to join these discussion lists, merely
click on the names below to send a brief email request to: