Jim Yohe was in the vanguard of a new era of open communication among Oneness Pentecostals. The reality for all of us is that the world in which we live and serve God has been dramatically altered by the Internet, for the better and for the worse.
As Silent Service as said, Jim wanted a place for open discussion; in that respect Jim was a leader in dragging Oneness people into the Internet era. FCF was the first forum that I participated in, and had the privilege of posting with Jim Yohe there, but FCF wasn’t Jim’s first forum. My understanding was that Jim Yohe had started FCF because of the lack of opportunity for open discussion on other forums (I think that he held the “ban record” before he became Mr. FCF.)
In that respect, AFF is the forum that Jim Yohe began. Jim Yohe set out to challenge the status quo, to challenge preachers and saints alike to discuss, debate, and defend their views. I think that he had a passion to see the movement he loved move into the post modern era, and to provide a viable faith for the countless Jesus Name people that were and are struggling with traditions that don’t do well under Scriptural scrutiny.
Having said that, I think that FCF was not a sustainable experiment, due to several factors: one being that it challenged traditions that are much loved but that lack strong Scriptural foundations; and another being that it challenged preachers to meet questioners on equal footing without the weight of the pulpit or position. In the beginning, because it was new, people from every part of the spectrum of Oneness Pentecost joined the conversation with gusto, confident that they would convince others of their view of correct doctrine.
Although my saying so will probably be dismissed as merely partisan rhetoric, the traditional positions, particularly concerning standards, have not fared well in forum discussions. The lines of reasoning and theological grounds for many of the standards that Jim Yohe set out to challenge have not been successful in convincing questioners. This has caused many who hold to the traditional positions to withdraw from open discussion, believing that the end result of open conversation is to see people depart from standards.
It has somehow become popular to claim offence as a reason for withdrawing from this forum. In reality, neither side of the lib/con divide has any right to claim the high moral ground in terms of attitude and posting style, and the claim of “offence” as a reason for leaving looks like a smokescreen to those left behind. There is undeniable peer pressure among the more conservative brethren not to post here, and those who have posted have felt compelled to justify their being here to their peers.
In conclusion (Don’t you hate long posts? I rarely read them), the conservatives are doing their cause and the seekers who show up here a disservice by withdrawing into their closed forums. I feel, as did Jim Yohe, that it is important that there be a strong
Acts 2:38 voice on the Internet. Young people in this day look to the Internet as one of their primary sources of information, and, when they ask questions, their first response is to click for answers. If the
Acts 2:38 message is only proclaimed behind impenetrable barriers young people will be the first to miss the message. The reality of this day is that many people, and they’re not all young, are questioning standards, and they are going to show up here with their questions. If the conservatives withdraw from the conversation, the only answers that the questioners are going to find are going to be liberal opinions.
This forum, and the twenty first century, may not be a comfortable place for conservatives, but an important part of the battle for the heart and mind of this generation is going to be fought on the bandwidth battlefield. I would appeal to the conservative brethren not to abandon the battleground.
(Please excuse any typos and the garbled syntax. This post is too long for me to proofread without being put to sleep through the monotonous cadence of my own laboured and belaboured sentences.)
Threaded Mode
