Community Guidelines

First Rule

The WT has been designed as a place to ask questions and discuss issues in a genuine spirit of brotherly love and to provide a forum for people who are exploring or already adhere to the Lutheran confession of the Christian faith.

Second Rule

The public Forum discussions and member blog posts on Wittenberg Trail are not places for extended discussions of internal synod matters. Please limit all extended discussions of internal synod matters to the member-only discussion boards found in all groups on the Wittenberg Trail.

Groups are an optional experience on the Wittenberg Trail and require members to join. Due to this fact, groups are the best place to discuss issues not appropriate for the public Forum discussions or member blog posts.

Third Rule

The Wittenberg Trail is not a place for debates on issues already resolved by the Word of God (i.e. Trinity, Resurrection, etc.)

For example, it is appropriate to discuss and explain the Trinity and/or Resurrection. However, it would not be appropriate to use the Wittenberg Trail to debate whether the Resurrection occurred or whether the Trinity is actually true.

Fourth Rule

Please be respectful and polite with other members. Debate and discussion are encouraged, but please do it with Christian charity and brotherly love. Members who break these basic rules may be banned from the community.

Fifth Rule

Please remember the purpose of the Wittenberg Trail -- theological discussions are to be foremost among the topics presented here. While the Trail allows you to create groups that discuss non-church related topics, the Trail will only exist if the preponderance of items discussed are church related. You may be asked to cut back on off-topic postings on the Trail at any time.

Guidelines for Discussions on the WT

The public Forum area has been designed for questions and discussions focusing on the current 27 categories (i.e. Baptism, Canon, Justification, Law & Gospel, etc.).

The Member Blogs have been designed to allow individual members to share their own journeys of faith, explain theological insights, discuss personal opinions and observations, offer Bible studies, share sermons or offer other personal information.

The groups are designed to allow members to focus on specific topics or issues of interest.  Groups are an optional experience on the WT and require a member to join.  Therefore, groups consist of members who are all interested in the same specific subject matter and have freely chosen to associate for such discussion.

It is in the group forums that members are free to discuss synod issues that might be bothering them or to simply vent about something that they need to “get off their chest”.

Groups have the option to set their privacy settings.  The highest privacy settings allow the group to be “invite-only”.  At this privacy level, only the invited members can view all the discussions and activity. All other items on the trail are public -- they can be found using Google or other web searches, and links to the material can be sent to non-members and they can read the information.

Group creators are asked to use good judgment and common sense when choosing the group privacy settings. Feel free to discuss your options with a WT Administrator.

All content on the WT should conform to the published Community Guidelines. Group creators are, by default, also group moderators. Discussions on the WT will be moderated for personal attacks or unsubstantiated allegations against private citizens, profanity, and other inappropriate language.

The opinions expressed by members of this online community are not necessarily the opinions of the owners/administrators of the Wittenberg Trail.

If you have any questions or would like to discuss these guidelines further, please feel free to contact one of the WT Administrators through the "Support" tab at the top of the site or by clicking here.

To report an issue or to provide feedback please click on the "Support" link at the top of the page.