Re: [asa] Archives on the web

Just to clarify:

All ASA posts are public, the only exceptions being truly exceptions and I
won't develop that further here.

No one, flat no one, should assume that any opinion expressed here
represents something like an "official" ASA position. The exceptions, rare,
are when Randy points to our published statement of faith. That speaks for
us as an organization, nothing else here does.

Many posters are not members at all. And a large majority of our members
don't speak up on this list. Even "unofficial" conclusions about the views
of our members, collectively, cannot be drawn from what is said here. I
myself think that a lot of the comments here are off base, and some of them
are simply inappropriate and I wish they could be expunged. But that is not
the nature of this particular medium.

As for the journal, that's a bit more official, but really the same
cautions would apply if perhaps with less force. Many contributors to the
journal are members, and many members resonate with some of the views
expressed there. But many members don't resonate with certain views,
either. We have been, remain, and will continue to be a forum for
discussing Christianity and science. The journal is more careful about
focusing the conversation than the list is, obviously, but one thing they
have in common is that we are a forum--not a policy institute or a think
tank or a lobbying organization. It's unusual for us to make official
statements or to take official public steps, though sometimes in rare cases
we do when the elected leadership believes that circumstances call for it.
We usually don't.

I just wanted to place this on the public record, since almost all posts
already are.

Ted

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Received on Wed Mar 28 13:31:49 2007