A New Friend Just Alerted Me To A Problem With My Facebook Profile.

A New Friend Just Alerted Me To A Problem With My Facebook Profile.  Most of us write our profile info, post it on our Facebook Profile page, and never check it again.  Today I learned that is not good.

My new Friend told me, "I just noticed three links on your FB page, but I cannot successfully get to any of the three sites, for some security reasons.  Any ideas?"  So happy he alerted me to this problem.  This is my response to him:

Hi Reed, Thanks for alerting me to the problem with the three links on my Facebook profile page.  I have made corrections:

1. WAS:  http://www.facebook.com/bill.gray.5/notes
    NOW IS: http://www.facebook.com/bill.gray.5/  

Several years ago, Facebook discontinued the Facebook Notes feature - which is too bad for I had 500 blogs posted there.

2.  WAS:  http://www.BillDory-Christian-Ministries.BlogSpot.com/
     NOW IS:  http://BillDory-Christian-Ministries.BlogSpot.com/

By God's grace, this blog site will continue for many more years.

3.  DISCONTINUED:  http://www.tnvalleytalks.hoop.la/displayForum/forum/208733512872150234

In 2016 a new atheist-leaning publisher discontinued the Forums, even though many read and posted there.

THE FIRST link is my Facebook page and I have removed "NOTES" so you should be able to open my profile page, but no longer the Notes page.

THE SECOND link is our Bill & Dory Gray Christian Ministries blog site and it appears that I needed to remove the "www" from it.  When I attempted to open it myself from my profile page, I also got a security notice.  But once I removed the "www" it opens fine. 

That is a good point for all of we Facebook users - we should periodically check any links we put in our profile, for web browsers frequently change the game by adding some new security feature.  It is good to keep links we want to share up to date.

THE THIRD link is sadly no longer valid.  I suppose I leave it there for sentimental reasons.  It is from from my hometown newspaper, the TimesDaily, based in Florence, Alabama.  For years I read the newspaper online to keep up with the happenings in my hometown area, the Shoals of Alabama. 

But I would never enter their Forum site - for to me Forums were only "spitting contests" and I had no time for that.  However, in Jan 2007, I noticed a Forum post titled "What Is A Christian?" and that intrigued me.

The Shoals area of Alabama is like the Belt Buckle of the Bible Belt.  So I wanted to read how my hometown folks would answer that question.  What I found was that the Forums, especially the Religion Forum, were dominated by two atheists, GoFish and DeepFat.  So I joined to refute them - and stayed for 8 years.

During those years, I found myself in the middle of discussions with the two resident atheists - with a few more atheists and agnostics - with vanilla-flavored non-believers - with an angry Legalistic believer - with Roman Catholics - with a few New Agers and cultists, and others.  By the way, there were a number of solid Christian believers active in the Forum also.

There was one fellow who adamantly preached The Urantia Book which he claimed is a spiritual, philosophical, and religious book equivalent to our Bible. 

And just as there is an active "Flat Earth Society" worldwide - there is also a large number of people who are members of the "Urantia Book Society" - begun in the 1950s when, supposedly, aliens from outer space gave the Urantia Book to a medical doctor in Chicago - and from that he formed the society which is still very active today.  

Do I hear the Twilight Zone theme song playing in the background?

Needless to say, we had a lot of interesting discussions.  And I believe I was the only one using my real name to post.  To the best of my knowledge, most other forum members used pseudonyms.

On the TimesDaily Forums, a moderator asked me why I was using my real name to post, warning me it could be dangerous, and I told him that when I share the Word of God, I will not do it hiding behind a pseudonym.  He commented that he had been tracking my posts and that he never found me to be argumentative nor rude.  

On the Religion Forum the program kept track of how many members were posting at any given time - and how many non-posters were just there to read.  The Readers-Only typically outnumbered the members posting by a 10-20+ to 1 margin.  I often reminded the naysayers that the non-posting readers were my target audience, not the many flavored antagonists active on the Religion Forum.

I stayed on that Forum until 2015 when a new publisher took over.  He had all the flavor of an atheist - so I was banned when I reported a member for posting, "Bill Gray should be killed!"  The man posting that open threat was banned for one week, I was banned for life.  Why?  Because I posted Conservative Christian writings on the new publisher's Religion Forum. 

When I tried to appeal my case, he told me in no uncertain terms that I would NEVER be allowed back on "his Religion Forum" again, never!  Within a year, he removed all the Forums, even though many Shoals area folks, living in Alabama and all across America, were very actively posting and/or reading to know what was going on back home.  I don't think I have to tell you that the new publisher was not an Alabamian.

During that 8 year run on the Religion Forum, online I met a fellow Alabamian named Nathan Tabor, a Christian from a small town near Huntsville, now living in North Carolina.  Nathan was, and is, very involved in Republican politics from a Christian view - with many contacts in the GOP ranks.  He ran for Congress and, although he did not win, he made a good showing. 

Nathan owned an online newspaper called The Conservative Voice.  He invited me to post as a guest columnist.  For about 4 years I posted hundreds of articles, mostly on the Faith & Family page, at times on the Politics page, until Nathan sold to a larger organization and they only wanted columnists with known names, so my run on The Conservative Voice was over. 

But it was fun and educational while it lasted.  Because of my time on The Conservative Voice, I did get mentioned in a book written by a non-believer, my 15 minutes of fame.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~  ~ ~ ~ ~

In the book "The Court and the Cross: The Religious Right's Crusade to Reshape the Supreme Court" (Beacon Press 2008), by Frederick Lane, published June 12, 2009 - Lane declares:

One of the leading websites for the Christian Right is "The Conservative Voice," a news and commentary site founded by Nathan Tabor, who holds a Masters in Public Policy from Pat Robertson’s Regent University.  As the site proudly proclaims, Tabor was once described by the late Jerry Falwell as a “young Jesse Helms.” .  .  . 

Tabor’s "The Conservative Voice" website, however, has been a much more successful endeavor.  Committed to promoting “Faith, Family, Freedom” - Tabor’s site features over 100 columnists, including a variety of conservative icons: Pat Buchanan, William F. Buckley, Robert D. Novak, Phyllis Schlafly, Paul M. Weyrich, to name just a few.

One of the more strident “conservative voices” (on The Conservative Voice) is Bill Gray, a former computer industry worker who runs an online Christian ministry called the Bill & Dory Gray Christian Ministries.  In an editorial published in 2007 on The Conservative Voice website, Gray emphatically summarized the fundamental fears of the Christian Right movement:

America is in a fight for its very life - from the inside!  Our American society, our American culture, is on the brink of implosion.

This may sound very dramatic, but it is true.  America is like a huge keg of dynamite, and the fuse - is the fallacy of “Separation of Church and State” perpetrated by Secular Humanism, comprised of the ACLU, the NEA, Liberal Politicians, Gay/Lesbian Activist groups, and other atheistic organizations.

After recounting numerous references to God and the Creator in the history of the American colonies and the early days of the Republic, Gray concluded his essay with an unequivocal call to Glory:

We must protect our nation, founded UNDER GOD and for the GLORY OF GOD.

The next time you hear some fanatic screaming “First Amendment Rights” or “Separation of Church and State” - tell him to go lock himself in a padded room and scream to himself.  For we no longer want to hear it.

We are Americans, living in a Christian nation which was founded by Christian believers.  You have a right to read your Qur'an, your Torah, or any other sacred book you have, you have a right to worship rocks, stars, the sun, and the moon, or plaster statues, if you like. 

You have the right to live as you like, in any lifestyle you choose.  Just do not try to force that lifestyle upon me, or upon my children or grandchildren.

Gray also took the time to defend the comments that (Ann) Coulter made on CNBC, although Coulter may wish that he had chosen a more felicitous metaphor: 

“What is my opinion of Ann Coulter?” Gray asked rhetorically.   “Ann is like a beacon light - a lot of pigeons will leave their droppings on it - but it raises awareness and guides people.  Ann, like Jerry Falwell, often says things that, to some, are outrageous.  But, you have to admit, it does make you think.” 

Gray said that even though it might not have been expressed well, Coulter’s fundamental argument was correct:

Will Jews who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as their long awaited Messiah be saved?  No.

Neither will Germans, Africans, British, Polish, Latin Americans, Mexicans, etc. - no one, regardless of your nationality or ethnic culture, will be saved except through Jesus Christ.  He makes this very clear in John 3:3, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, He cannot see the kingdom of God.”

So when you think of Ann Coulter; do not think of her as a loudmouth - but instead think of her as a beacon light covered with pigeon poop - but still making her case for Conservative Christianity.  God bless Ann Coulter!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~  ~ ~ ~ ~

During my time writing on The Conservative Voice, I did learn a valuable lesson.  For years I had been writing to an audience numbering in the hundreds and thousands with my eNewsletter, Facebook, and Bill & Dory Gray Christian Ministries blog site - but The Conservative Voice had a readership of over 250,000, worldwide. 

My newsletters and writings had been aimed primarily at fellow believers and also those seeking more Christian information as they considered making an eternal decision.  And I did became guilty of writing in the Christianese language.

On The Conservative Voice, with a much more diverse readership - I learned that if we use Christianese words and phrases, we may lose many readers.  On the other hand, we can use other words which mean the same, but are more palatable, more readily received by the secular world.  Then my writings would be read by the larger target audience we should be looking to connect with, the unbeliever. 

Was I compromising?  No.  I would never change the meaning, only the wording.  Example:  Rather than write, "I am indwelled by the Holy Spirit" - I learned to write, "I have the Holy Spirit within me."  A subtle difference, but effective.  We believers know that both mean the same, but the second phrasing would not cause the non-believer to walk away, thinking I was on an acid trip.

To my new Friend, Reed, thank you for bringing the Facebook Profile problem to my attention.  I look forward to having more dialogues with you.  

God bless, have a wonderful, blessed day,

Bill

Click on the image to enlarge: