A Temporary Measure

I’ve enabled comment moderation until the current spam storm is over – or more precisely, until the troll that has been wreaking havoc in this village returns to his place under the bridge.

The irony is that this individual (who posted here under the name “Tom” but sent me an e-mail under the name Dennis Collis) e-mailed me to say the following:

Hi Dr McGrath,

I am not trying to derail your blog at all. John Loftus needs to get saved. He never met Christ and he denies the miracle working power of the cross. He was never born again by the Holy Spirit. Now he is attempting to derail Christianity and continues to deny Christ. I would very much appreciate the latitude to continue to confront John with the gospel and to show him the truth of God’s word. He banned me because I talked about the miracles in my life. He cannot handle proof of God’s existence. Please let me know.

Thanks for your patience.

Dennis Collis

Then, after I had made it clear on my blog that all irrelevant comments from this point on would be deleted, he tried to post yet another comment (without waiting to hear back from me, as he said he would) nine times. It seemed like more than that…

I cannot be too judgmental, since I was once an annoying fundamentalist myself. But what I ask myself now is how I could ever have been so lacking in sense as to realize that no one will ever be badgered into the Christian faith, while the reverse process is far from unlikely. I do not ask how any of us can become so persuaded we are right that we become immune to criticism. What I’m asking is how do we manage to persuade ourselves that we are banned and ignored because we speak the truth rather than for the more obvious reason that we are annoying and making a nuisance of ourselves? How could this individual Dennis Collis (AKA “Tom”) possibly be convinced that swearing at and insulting someone is a form of “preaching the Gospel”?

At any rate, I got tired of deleting the comment over and over again, and so I’ve enabled comment moderation for the time being. Rest assured, all relevant comments will appear!