The Rule of the Order
1) Do not invite your friends to join the mailing list nor give them the address for the list. Do not give them the link to the site nor tell them the password. Do not submit the link to this site to search engines or advertise it in any other way. There is a good reason for the secrecy: a lot of very helpful and informative discussion groups have gone downhill because people joined up who were unclear about the purpose of the group, or who thought they would just watch but decided to start throwing their two cents in. This is not about elitism; this is about making sure that each and every member of the group is on the same page regarding what we're trying to do: Christian philosophy that has a positive, constructive task and not only apologetics. If you know someone who is interested in pursuing this project, by all means ask them to join. If you know someone who's interested in reading the material, print it out for them.
2) Be willing to both criticize graciously and to receive criticism even if it is not gracious. Discussions can get heated. We are all Christians here, and care must be taken that we express our views and criticize others' work without being a jerk. However, all of us will slip up from time to time. When this happens, please point this out to the offender in private email, but do continue the public discussion as if the inflammatory comments had not been given. Christian philosophers need extra sensitivity for others and a thick skin for themselves.
3) Please submit papers. When you do so, email the paper to Philip Ledgerwood at ledgerwood@covenant.edu. Please do not email papers to the group. Some members will not have file attachments, some will not have sufficient space on their mail servers or hard drives, and some couldn't care less about your freakin' paper. Many word processors will allow you to save your work in HTML format, which is ideal. If this is not the case, save your work in RTF (Rich Text Format). If you are using a word processor that will not allow you to save under either of these options, put down your quill pen, shut off your Gutenberg Press, and email Phil the thing in whatever format you can muster. He will code it into HTML and place it on the site.
4) If your chapter would like to schedule a chat or a meeting, or if you would like to schedule a group wide chat or meeting, let Phil know and he will post it under the "Events" link.