It’s also possible that some of those individuals you referenced are law enforcement agents doing some sweeps online for evidence of extremists and perverts. Dollars to donuts….i saw a man wearing shorts in church only once.... on the mainland when i was visiting family - and i attended church with them one sunday.... ..... it was in the sunday school class where i saw this guy and where everyone was seated in chairs in a circle.. ....he was actually what they called one of the church "worship leaders"... (first time i had ever heard the phrase).... he had on khaki shorts and a light blue t-shirt - which was tucked in... new balance running shoes... and a hat worn backwards which he kept on the entire time.... the usual breaking bad style goatee that was trendy at the time.... and since he kept the hat on i had no idea whether there was hair on his head or not.... but it would not have surprised me to see a shaved head if he had taken it off.... ...he also had enough hair on his legs to more than make up the difference had there been a lack of hair on his head so i guess that was his trade off....
the point is - that guys appearance was such a distraction that i don;t even remember what the sunday school lesson was about.. - in many ways it was disturbing.... ..it would have been different.. maybe even ok... if he was just another member of the class.. and i didn;t feel as if i had to look at him while he spoke... it was almost a relief when they had a round robin time at the end where everyone spoke up to say something - and i had an excuse to look away... ...
to me it was a classic example of at least one of the things paul was admonishing against in 2nd timothy...... refraining from allowing your appearance to become a distraction in church...and being mindful of your actions as well... . ..living in the tropics and attending churches that are not air conditioned i know all too well that appearance and actions are not the only things about a person that can become a distraction in church.... .....those who never realized right guard goes under the left arm too can be a bigger distraction than all appearances put together.... but paul was a man and no doubt had a mans limited nose sensitivity... so he probably didn;t notice things like that..... (sorry - no offense intended to any men reading this.....)
we had cultish groups here before... mostly on the previous forums - and they were definitely here to recruit..... some of them called themselves christian polygamists... ..and not even the mormon kind either... . they claimed polygamy should be acceptable even to baptists too.... . one of the more notorious and infamous polygamists - whose name i will not mention because it always causes him to pop up somehow - even insisted it should be acceptable for a grown man to marry a 12 year old..... as far as i know he was never banned.... but thankfully he moved on to other websites....
there was even a group of klansmen here once trying to recruit new members.... i rmember the name of one of them too... but these kinds of people in these perverse and repugnant groups do more than just recruit... they constantly search the internet to see where someone else might be talking about them... and they go to those places to join in and start new fights..... ...previously famous preachers who fell into sin do the same thing... but they seldom show up under their own name... they usually pop in under a new moniker and go straight in to defending themselves as if they are a third party or "insider" to the church in question....
