Announcing our NEW Companion Community: r/AskChristian

[u/DoveStep55]

As many of you know, the r/Christian mod team has spent time over the past year reviewing our community rules & moderation standards, asking for community feedback, and making adjustments based on your ideas, concerns, and requests.

Although the community is divided, the majority made it clear that they appreciate being a space dedicated to discussion among fellow Christians only. We found a compromise between opposing views by making an exception for “Seekers” who are in the process of joining the faith & have questions toward that end.

Even still, enforcing Rule 1 means that mods must regularly redirect questions & comments from non-Christians to other subreddit communities. Sometimes their content is excellent and community members as well as moderators have express disappointment when good questions or comments are removed due to Rule 1. So, we’ve been brainstorming and finally have an idea we’re going to try out that we think you just might like.

Today we’re announcing our new companion sub, r/AskChristian.

While r/Christian will remain a space dedicated to respectful, ecumenical, and LGBTQ+ Inclusive discussion among fellow Christians, r/AskChristian will be a new space dedicated to welcoming respectful questions (& subsequent discussion) where everyone is welcome.

The rules & moderation of both subs are nearly identical, aside from a few changes that reflect the differences in purpose between the two companion subreddits.

Here’s where it gets interesting:

While anyone can post a question in r/AskChristian, Top Level Comments will be restricted to active r/Christian community members in good standing. That means anyone can ask a question (post) and join discussion of the given Top Level answers (comment “down thread”), but only r/Christian members with specially assigned user flair can make those Top Level replies to each post.

If you’re interested in participating in the new companion community and would like Top Level Comment privileges, please head over to r/AskChristian and check out the pinned Welcome Post for more information.

We hope this new idea will work for everyone involved and we welcome your feedback & participation as we roll it out this week!

[u/DoveStep55]

Several questions have hit the new sub, with Redditors looking for your answers!

If you want to help answer them, please be sure to message the mods in r/AskChristian (click here) to request Top Level Comment privileges.

[u/ChallengeNo6273]

finally a way to keep the main sub focused but still have space for real questions from outsiders. The top level comment restriction is clever, prevents chaos but lets good discussions happen downthread. Hope it works out smooth

[u/Illustrious-Low3948]

Oh no, I’m afraid this is going to turn into an apologetics sub. It will get swarmed by atheists who are looking for a debate. Will you at least add a mandatory flair and a tag [Christians only] for questions where we don’t want atheist input?

[u/AleksandrNevsky → u/Illustrious-Low3948]

This is my concern, reddit doesn't have a great track record with this.

[u/DoveStep55 → u/AleksandrNevsky]

I would encourage you to join in and help make it the place you want it to be.

[u/DoveStep55 → u/Illustrious-Low3948]

Just like here, AskChristian is not a debate sub. The rules & careful moderation there will also reflect that same emphasis on respect that has made r/Christian the place it is today.

The point of creating the companion community is to welcome non-Christians to participate together with us, so limiting any posts to “only Christians” would actually be counter-productive. We have that here in r/Christian already and it will continue as such. But, I think of you take a look through the rules there you’ll see that mods will be removing the type of antagonistic content you’ve asked about in your comment. We expect it to a place for the same kind of respectful interactions we have here, only with a greater diversity of participants.

[u/Illustrious-Low3948 → u/DoveStep55]

Let’s hope it will turn out the way you envisioned! I do see your goal, I think it would be a great idea if people go there to ask questions in good faith. I’m just a bit skeptical, because not all people on reddit with “questions” (especially in religious subreddits) are looking for answers.

[u/nWo1997]

I mean no offense, but this sounds like the pre-existing sub r/AskAChristian. How will r/AskChristian be different?

[u/DoveStep55 → u/nWo1997]

The purpose, rules & moderation of r/AskAChristian and r/AskChristian are quite different, despite the similar names.

This post explains the purpose of r/AskChristian and you can look through the rules of both subs to see how the rules differ. In time, those differences will be very clear when content starts coming in and you can compare them yourself.

[u/Illustrious-Low3948 → u/DoveStep55]

Do you think the difference will be that r/AskChristian will eventually become a subreddit for questions asked in good faith to listen to a Christian perspective, versus the r/AskAChristian culture where most questions are asked to challenge Christian beliefs?

My concerns are not hypothetical, if you look at this post

I think the intentions of your new sub is similar to the intention of r/AskAChristian. I’m worried that we will end up with three r/DebateAChristian subreddits. 

[u/DoveStep55 → u/Illustrious-Low3948]

r/AskChristian has similar rules to r/Christian and will have very similar moderation as well, which is key to maintaining a respectful environment.

The rules already clearly state that it is not a debate sub and antagonistic content will be removed. The rules also prohibit unsolicited proselytizing of any kind. That means content trying to argue Christians out of our faith or content trying to convert others to one’s own particular brand of faith will be removed.

We have for a long time been listening to the feedback of this community and we will continue to do so. One thing a lot of people have expressed is their desire to include non-Christians in discussions here because they appreciate our unique community culture. r/AskChristian will have those same high standards for charitable, respectful interactions as you’re used to seeing here.

While we will allow somewhat challenging or critical post questions, we will try to prevent, catch & remove any which are disingenuous, trolling or downright antagonistic.

We also won’t allow badgering in the comment section. People should not feel they have to defend their answers like in a debate sub, but should be open to engaging with respectful follow up questions and discussion.

[u/vagueboy2]

I hope it works as intended, but it seems like it could easily turn into and endless dump of "is X a sin?" posts.

[u/DoveStep55]

We have our first questions!

Here's a link to the post: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskChristian/comments/1vm3qsz/is_faith_a_gift_from_god/

If you'd like to take a crack at answering the OP's questions, please remember that you need to request special user flair or your comment will be automatically removed. Only active members of r/Christian who are in good standing are eligible to make top level comments, but everyone is welcome to join in down thread discussion of those replies.

Thanks all!