The Code of Conduct

Most community rules written today are feelings codes. They forbid whatever might hurt someone's feelings, and the word uncharitable has become the all-purpose muzzle — brought out not against slander or gossip, but against any statement someone didn't like.

That is not what charity means, it is not what the Reformers meant by it, and it is not the standard here.

Our standard is the ninth commandment, as Scripture teaches it and as our church fathers explained it. It is stricter than the modern rule in some places and far looser in others, and it will surprise people in both directions.

What the ninth commandment actually requires

Ask most Christians what "You shall not bear false witness" forbids and they will say lying (Exodus 20:16). Our fathers said a great deal more.

The Westminster divines explained the commandment at length, and their explanation is worth reading slowly. Among the duties required:

the preserving and promoting of truth between man and man… appearing and standing for the truth… a charitable esteem of our neighbours… sorrowing for, and covering of their infirmities… freely acknowledging of their gifts and graces, defending their innocency; a ready receiving of a good report, and unwillingness to admit of an evil report, concerning them; discouraging tale-bearers, flatterers, and slanderers.

And among the sins forbidden:

concealing the truth, undue silence in a just cause, and holding our peace when iniquity calleth for either a reproof from ourselves, or complaint to others.

Silence can be a sin against the ninth commandment (Leviticus 5:1).

Not always, and not everywhere. But when sin is happening in front of you and you say nothing because speaking would be unpleasant, or because you would be accused of unkindness, or because it is easier to let it pass — that is counted as breaking the commandment, as surely as if you had lied outright.

The modern instinct is that saying nothing is always the safe, gracious option. Scripture does not treat it as safe. It treats it as a failure to stand for the truth.

We say this because it is true, not because we will enforce it. Nobody here is reported or removed for holding his peace. Speaking up when it costs something is a skill most of us were never taught, and this community is a place to learn it — to find that a true word said plainly does not have to end in an explosion or the loss of a friend. Treat it as the direction we are walking, not a rule at the door.

What charity actually is

In Christian argument, uncharitable is the trump card. It usually means I did not like that.

Have you ever noticed how much of what the Apostle wrote about love is written to the one on the receiving end? Love is patient. It is not provoked. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. It does not take into account a wrong suffered (1 Corinthians 13:4–7).

Patience, endurance, bearing, believing the best, refusing resentment, keeping no ledger — these describe what love does when it is wronged, or believes it has been. The hurt may be real where the sin is not. Either way, these are instructions to the person on the receiving end, not restrictions on the person who spoke.

So charity binds you when you are the offended party. It obliges you to assume the best, to let a slight go, to refuse resentment, to consider that you may have misread the tone in a message from someone you have never met. And often the best construction is simply the true one — what felt like a wrong was a misreading, and charity has not overlooked a sin but discovered there was none.

What you owe when you speak

The ninth commandment also binds the speaker, and it binds hard. Also forbidden:

slandering, backbiting, detracting, talebearing, whispering, scoffing, reviling, rash, harsh, and partial censuring; misconstructing intentions, words, and actions… aggravating smaller faults.

That list is long, but it is one thing. To bear false witness is to give others a false picture of a person — of what he did, what he meant, how serious his fault was, what he is worth. Every item on the list is a way of doing that, which is why the divines filed them all under the ninth commandment.

Read harsh the way they meant it: not a hard tone, but an exaggeration of the fault. Rash, harsh, and partial are about how you judged, not how you sounded — and how you judged can be checked against what actually happened.

So the permission is narrow and specific. You may say the true thing to a man's face. You may not:

• Lie or slander. Say a false thing about a member.
• Misread intentions. Answering the worst possible reading of what someone said, rather than what they plainly meant, is a sin against the ninth commandment. It is also how most disagreements here will go wrong, if they go wrong.
• Judge rashly. A judgment formed before you have the facts is forbidden.
• Judge harshly, or magnify smaller faults. An exaggeration of the fault. Treating a slip as a scandal.
• Judge with favoritism. One measure for a friend, another for a stranger.
• Flatter. It sits on the forbidden list beside slander, and the divines put it there for good reason: both of them trade the truth for something more comfortable (Proverbs 29:5). Nobody here has to perform agreement they do not feel or soften a conviction to be thought kind.
• Scoff or revile. Contempt is not an argument. Mockery of a person is not the same act as refuting a position, and a bearer of God's image is never too low to deserve an answer.
• Backbite. Saying behind a member's back what you would not say to his face. The thing said may be perfectly true; the sin is where it was said.
• Detract. Take something away from a member's good name — the qualifier added to his praise, the fault mentioned when nobody asked. It needs no lie; it needs only a wish to make him smaller.
• Carry tales (gossip). Repeating something damaging about a member to other members is forbidden whether or not it is true. And the person who listens is not innocent: "the hearer of scandal is a sharer in the guilt of it" (Spurgeon).

Notice that most of those are things a plainspoken person does when he gets careless. Notice, too, that none of them is saying something true that upset someone. And every one can be checked against something outside the offended party's feelings: what was said, what actually happened, how big the fault really was, and who was listening.

Who decides?

Uncharitable is not the only trump card. Its twin is unseasonable. A member says a true thing, plainly, and someone answers not by disputing it but by ruling on it: poorly timed, not a word fitly spoken. The truth is never denied — it is declared out of season, and the speaker stands corrected without anyone opening a text.

So ask plainly: who decides?

God's Law is objective, and He defines it Himself. He gave the commandments and then defined them across the whole of Scripture — what lying is, what slander is, what gossip is. When a member breaks one, nobody here has to decide anything; God already did. That is why our forbidden list is built on them.

But Scripture also contains wisdom passages about speech — a time to be silent and a time to speak (Ecclesiastes 3:7), a word spoken in right circumstances (Proverbs 25:11). Those are true, and they are searching. But there is a difference. When God forbids lying, He also defines it. When God says there is a time to be silent and a time to speak, He never tells us which time is which, and He never appoints anyone to decide it for another man. A wisdom passage is given to a man as a mirror for his own speech, not as a gavel for his brother's — because a gavel God never handed to anyone ends up in the hands of whoever is most offended, and any hard truth can then be waved off as uncharitable or unseasonable without ever being answered. A community where taking offense settles arguments will be steered by whoever takes offense loudest.

Sharpen one another

You are among people who disagree with you about baptism, the covenants, church government, the Lord's Day, and the millennium. Those disagreements are real and some of them matter enormously.

Take them up. Press hard. Bring the texts. Tell someone plainly that you think they are mistaken and why. Ask the uncomfortable question. Refuse to pretend a difference is smaller than it is.

None of that is unkindness, and nobody here will be disciplined for it. Faithful are the wounds of a friend, and reproof that is revealed is better than love that is hidden (Proverbs 27:5–6). A community where nobody may be told they are wrong is not a loving community. It is a community where error goes uncorrected, everyone grows slowly less honest, and nobody loves anyone enough to say so.

What you may not do is despise the brother you are reasoning with. The ninth commandment forbids false witness, not hard truth spoken to a brother's face.

When you are the one wronged

If a member wrongs you privately, go to that member privately first (Matthew 18:15). Do not post about it. Do not tell three friends. Do not write to us before you have spoken to them. This is not a preference of ours; it is what Scripture directs, and every member affirmed it at the door.

If it was done publicly, it may be answered publicly. What was done before everyone is not owed secrecy.

Before either, ask honestly whether you have been wronged at all — responding with a word before you hear is folly and shame (Proverbs 18:13). Much of what wounds in written conversation is tone that was never there: a blunt sentence from someone typing quickly, read in a voice they never used. Charity requires you to consider that first. "If you are naturally sensitive do not indulge the weakness, nor allow others to play upon it" (Spurgeon). A person who can be wounded at will is a person who can be steered at will.

How reports are judged

Reports are judged by the commandment, not by the offense taken. Real people read every report and judge it against what was actually said and the standard God defined, not against how it landed. That someone was upset tells us they were upset. It does not establish that they were wronged. And no report is judged on one side's telling: the first to plead his case seems right, until another comes and examines him (Proverbs 18:17).

So every dispute here is settled by three questions, and refused on a fourth. What was said — was it false witness in any dimension the commandment measures? If it was a private wrong, was it handled in the order Matthew 18 gives? What did you sign at the door, and did you keep it? And was it a matter God left to wisdom — timing, tone, charity, season? On that last there is no ruling. Each member weighs his own word before the Lord who hears it, and nobody here sits as the judge of another member's charity or season.

What actually gets you removed

Not disagreement. Not bluntness. Not making someone uncomfortable with a true statement.

Two things get a member removed: unrepentant sin, and standing outside the doctrinal statement.

Unrepentant sin. Nobody is removed for a sin he repents of. Removal is for the member who is shown his sin and keeps at it:

• Slander, gossip, or talebearing about another member.
• Sustained contempt — reviling, mockery, or a pattern of treating others as not worth answering.
• Dishonesty about who you are — your history, your marital status, your church standing, your photographs.
• Pursuing a woman who has asked you to stop. Once is a misunderstanding. Twice is a decision.
• Divisiveness. Not disagreement, which this page welcomes, but faction: working to set members against members, gathering a side rather than making a case. A factious man is warned once, warned twice, and then removed (Titus 3:10).

That is the biblical pattern — the sin named, the man warned, and the one who will not repent removed — and it governs everything on this list.

Standing outside the doctrinal statement. You affirmed it in writing at the door. Teaching against it is not a matter of opinion or tone; it is a plain breach of an agreement, and we treat it as one. And a member who no longer believes what he signed no longer belongs to what he signed.

What you affirm by joining

• I will bear no false witness. I will be accurate about what a member did, what he meant, how serious his fault was, and what he is worth.
• I will not misrepresent myself. My photos are of me, and my profile is true.
• I will not carry tales, and I will not listen to them.
• I will assume the best reading another member's words will bear.
• I will contend for doctrine as earnestly as I like, but never with contempt for a brother.
• When I am wronged privately, I will go to that member privately first.
• When I witness sin or error, I will learn to speak rather than sit silent.
• I will keep what I signed at the door.
• When a member asks me to stop contacting them, I will stop.

We would rather be accused of harshness for saying a true thing than answer for holding our peace when iniquity called for a reproof (Leviticus 5:1).