These days, many people avoid open discussion. Safe spaces, political correctness, and anti-biblical ideologies resist free speech and open exchange in the the marketplace of ideas. Here’s our two-word summary of the situation: not good.

We want to hear from you. We welcome your comments on our posts. We appreciate your encouragement and value opposing views, because “iron sharpens iron”. (Proverbs 27:17) Your view may enlighten us. Our view may enlighten you. And in any event, as Christians, we should be able to disagree without being disagreeable.

However, all of us can get carried away sometimes. Right? Moreover, anybody can visit this website. So we need to add some safeguards for everybody’s peace of mind, and especially so that our discussions will glorify the Lord.

So here are our rules for the comments section. The following types of content will not be allowed. If our filters miss them when they are posted, they will be removed or edited as soon as they are discovered. Violating these basic few rules will result in the suspension or deletion of a user’s account.

1. NO SPAM! I’m not yelling at you. I’m loudly sharing our policy with spammers, because they don’t listen. In fact, they don’t even read comment policies, because they’re too busy using bots to deliver thousands of spam comments about discount shoes, prescription meds, and money-making schemes all over the internet, every second of the day. But if you are a spammer, please consider the err of your ways and visit our How to Get Saved page.

2. No malicious comments. You can say you don’t like a product, a theological stance, or a certain type of worship music. You can disagree with people who like them. You can point out why you feel that way. And of course, around here, we call sin what it is. That’s not malicious. It’s malicious to personally attack people’s character or toss around insults.

3. No politics. I have concrete political views. If we meet eachother in person and go hang out, I’ll share them with you and listen to yours. But please don’t be political here; it hinders the Gospel needlessly. When people come to 4L Press, I don’t care which side of the political aisle they’re on, my main concern is whether they’re on the broad road to destruction or the narrow road to eternal life.

4. No bad language. Does this seem really obvious? I think so too. However, I was watching a video the other day about some people’s thoughts on Contemporary Christian Music. Imagine my surprise to hear some swear words in that context. (Yes, I turned it off.) When speaking to somebody who uses foul language, I generally ignore it in favor of cultivating an important conversation. Not here, though.

5. Stay on Topic. Sometimes, good conversations meander throughout various topics. It’s the verbal equivalent of rafting down the river. Its unpredictable nature is part of the fun. But if the post addresses parenting, we can expect appropriate comments to loosely reflect that topic.

We welcome your help in this effort. You’ll see a red flag icon after every comment on every post. You can click that if the comment violates these rules. This action reports the comment to us, so that we can review it and either just edit the text (to remove or rephrase a portion) or take other action. Busy blogs can require many hours of comment moderation; so your help will be invaluable as 4LPress.com grows.

We’re all adults. We shouldn’t need a bunch of rules to keep things civil. It’s easy to neglect discernment when we type. It’s easy to type things we shouldn’t or in a less than ideal way. Let’s just focus on loving the Lord first and loving our neighbors as ourselves.

“Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.” (Ephesians 4:29)

Let’s work together to make this a welcome and enlightening place for people to discover and learn good things.