Comment Policy

Christ and Pop Culture is not homogeneous, and our editors and writers invite varied and lively discussion and feedback.

While we encourage disagreement, we insist that it be charitable. The question we will ask when deciding whether or not to delete a comment is “Is this person making an attempt to be charitable?”

Here are some pointers:

• Contribute to the discussion and don’t get personal. Sometimes a comment sounds personal but is meant to convey a substantive criticism. In those cases, chances are we’ll delete it. We’d rather err on the side of positive discourse. Discuss issues, not personalities. Ideas and actions are up for discussion here. Respect for one another’s personhood is not.
• Arguments that shut down conversation rather than encourage it are also kind of a jerk move. Don’t do that either.
• Clarify your comment if you believe it is in danger of being misinterpreted as uncharitable.
• If you start using Nazis as an example, or you begin to use words like “obviously,” “clearly,” “idiot” or “stupid” in place of actual argumentation, you are probably into the “not charitable” territory.
• Anonymous names don’t help.
• Before you post a comment, ask how you would react if it were directed at you. A comment may be accurate yet non-constructive.

We delete comments rarely, but it happens. We’re sorry. If we delete your comments regularly, you can expect eventually to be blacklisted. We’re not sorry about that.

If you’d like to rephrase your comment after it’s deleted, feel free to email us at christandpopculture [at] gmail.com. We’ll send you the old draft with an explanation of what was wrong with it.