A rhetoric for some Orthodox Christians some of the time

Sometimes we plain ol' Orthodox get involved in open-ended verbal disputes or differences. It might be on Facebook or Twitter, it might be in a classroom discussion, it might be around the proverbial water cooler.

The kinds of disputes or differences I'm talking about are open-ended because they aren't about a decision that has to be made or a formal debate with a time limit and vote. And the disputants, being plain ol' folk of various kinds, do not have the obligations, constraints, and power of someone in authority.

Here under the heading of "a rhetoric for some Orthodox Christians some of the time" I'm going to describe patterns of speech and behavior that benefit (or at least do not harm) disputants and that are, for the lack of a better immediate term, saint-like. I will not be claiming that this rhetoric is the only or best set of patterns, only that it is useful and good for some people in some circumstances.

Folks who are not Orthodox Christians are welcome to read and comment, but I will be speaking to Orthodox as Orthodox using Orthodox examples and practices. My own church is the Orthodox Church in America ( www.oca.org ).

These posts are more exploration than exposition; their texts are fluid, not fixed.

I don't have clear ideas about how the comments section fits in but I do plan to moderate it closely. I may arbitrarily exclude or remove a comment as a gardener might a weed -- and in a tulip garden a rose is a weed.