Charter for aus.religion and aus.religion.christian
This charter covers both aus.religion and aus.religion.christian (henceforth AR and ARC). It is normative, but should be seen as offering guidelines rather than hard-and-fast rules.
First of all, note that the dividing line between the two groups has nothing to do with the beliefs of the poster -- atheists, Jews, Buddhists, etc. are welcome in ARC and Christians in AR. The division between the two is solely on content, and is fairly simple: anything whose primary subject is Christianity or some aspect of Christianity belongs in ARC; anything else to do with religion or religions belongs in AR.
For the purposes of this document, "Christian" is to be interpreted in the widest sense, with self-ascription as the primary criteria. This does not imply anything about usage elsewhere, and it is likely that who really "qualifies" as Christians will be a common topic of discussion in ARC!
Other topics that would belong in ARC include (but are not limited to):
- Christian theology
- Biblical studies
- Apologetics: the historicity of Jesus; Christian "evidences"; etc.
- Devotional practices
- Discussion of Christian books
- Current issues: women priests; Toronto blessings; child abuse
- (non-commercial) announcements of new Christian groups, services
- Aboriginal religions
- Current issues: bias against Islam in the media; desecration of Jewish cemeteries; the euthansia debate
- Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, etc.
- atheism/agnosticism
- general questions of moral and ethical philosophy
- separation of church and state
- comparative religion; anthropology of religion
- new religious movements (is Scientology a religion?)
Proselytising
- Christians proselytising other Christians, or assuming a Christian background in their readers, should post to ARC.
- Christian evangelism should only be posted to AR if it connects substantially with the worldview of other religions or of atheism/agnosticism.
- Non-Christians addressing some aspect of Christianity, or wishing to question the truth of various parts of Christianity, should post to ARC.
- If you must post real flame-bait ("Christianity is 100% evil", "All atheists should be locked up", "Hitler had the right idea about the Jews", etc.), then please consider posting to groups other than AR and ARC (some suggestions are given below).
Crossposts
Crossposts between AR and ARC should be limited, otherwise there is no point having separate groups. If you do crosspost, please consider directing followups (by putting a Followups-To: line in the header of your post) to one of the groups only. Examples of appropriate topics for cross-posts would include:- Jewish interpretations of the Old Testament that are likely to interest Christians
- the position of Jesus in Islam
Relationship to other newsgroups
Despite the aus.* prefix, general discussion (ie with no specific relevance to Australia) on the appropriate topics is welcome in both AR and ARC (please pick the appropriate one). It is understood that people may choose to post to AR or ARC rather than to talk.religion.misc or {soc,alt}.religion.christian simply because they wish for a more intimate discussion amongst fellow Australians (who seem to be, on the average, less polemical and more open-minded than overseas posters). It is requested that you do not cross-post general discussion to the wider religious groups (alt.atheism, alt.religion.christian, etc.). Similarly people from outside Australia are requsted not to post to AR or ARC unless a) they are expatriates or have some connection with Australia or b) they are posting material specific to Australia (such as a query about Aboriginal religion or the status of ordination of women in Australia).