A Comment on Comments

This morning I had to censor a comment for the first time since I started this blog. The anonymous commenter did not leave an email address so I could not respond to him/her privately. And this is not really a response to that comment, but the fact that I censored something got me thinking about if and when it is appropriate to do such a thing. Obviously I thought it was appropriate, since I did it! So here is my justification, for better or worse.

The governing principle for content on this blog comes from Ephesians 4:29, which says,

Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.

Whether it is my own personal writing, or the comments of others, this is the standard I try to keep. If I fall short of that in my writing, I would value the loving, firm correction of those who read, so I can make necessary changes or deletions.

Because I am hopeful that non-Christians will also read this blog and leave comments, I do not necessarily expect those who are not believers to adhere to this biblical standard of content. So I will tend to more readily allow a comment from a non-Christian that has some objectionable, malicious content.

However the comment yesterday came from someone who clearly professed faith in Christ and regarded the Bible as his/her authority. Because I perceived the comment to be hateful and malicious toward a particular group of people, with no apparent desire to give grace or edify, I deleted it. And if that commenter does happen to be reading, I'd like it to be known that the practice that was being spoken of maliciously is a practice which I also believe to be sinful. The difficulty I had was that there was no evident heart of compassion behind the words that were used.

With that said, keep the comments coming! I enjoy interacting with others about that which I write about.