Moderator manufactures reason to delete post, and no action taken when reported: What to do?

Question

THIS QUESTION was asked about the fatherhood relationship of God with His son. It was asked openly, inviting answers from anyone. I spent time on my answer, carefully referencing and documenting each point I made, with the textual references all shown below.

A short while later, after a few commenters had expressed their doctrinal disagreements, the moderator deleted the entire post with this comment:

From the tags this question is clearly asking for the Trinitarian view, which this is not. Please refrain from posting invalid answers. – curiousdannii ♦ Jul 16 at 14:00

However, that was false. None of the tags specified "Trinitarian." Perhaps realizing that this was so, and attempting to cover his/her tracks, the moderator then edited the question so as to support this claim. The timestamps on the comment versus the appearance of the added "According to Trinitarians:" heading in the OP substantiate this.

In other words, the moderator deliberately misrepresented the case in order to have a reason to delete the post. The post itself had nothing in it that would run afoul of the rules here: it was civil, on point, and carefully written.

Here is that post, in its entirety (between double horizontal rules below):

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According to the Bible, God is invisible¹ and no one has ever seen Him². In fact, Jesus goes so far as to say we have never even heard His voice³.

In order for His creatures to be able to relate to Him, God manifests Himself to them via what in the Old Testament is referred to as "the angel of Yahweh"⁴ (translated as "the angel of the LORD" in KJV), and in the New Testament is called the Son⁵, or Christ⁶. In the New Testament, Christ is further identified as being a "son" begotten of the Father⁷. This "begetting" was not in all respects after the human order, via both father and mother in what we call "procreation." It was, however, the creation of a separate being from God the Father, one who was placed on an equality with Him⁸ and given authority with Him⁹. It is this Son of God who serves as the mediator for all creation between us and God¹⁰, and he is the spokesperson and representative for God.

God Himself, however, has never been seen, nor heard by anyone^{2, 3}. As we know that Jesus was both seen and heard, according to the Bible¹¹, this "Son of God" cannot himself have been God--which makes perfect sense because a son is never the same person, being, nor identity as his father. The Father is "the only true God¹²," and the Son is the one God sent to represent Himself to us¹³.

Jesus said his Father was both his Father and his God, just as He is to be our Father and our God¹⁴.

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References

¹ - "Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen." (1 Timothy 1:17, KJV)

² - "No man hath seen God at any time, the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him." (John 1:18, KJV); "No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us." (1 John 4:12, KJV)

³ - "And the Father himself, which hath sent me, hath borne witness of me. Ye have neither heard his voice at any time, nor seen his shape." (John 5:37, KJV)

⁴ - "And the angel of the LORD appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed." (Exodus 3:2, KJV)

⁵ - "Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light: Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son: In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins: Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature: For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him:" (Colossians 1:12-16, KJV)

⁶ - "In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them." (2 Corinthians 4:4, KJV)

⁷ - "So also Christ glorified not himself to be made an high priest; but he that said unto him, Thou art my Son, to day have I begotten thee." (Hebrews 5:5, KJV)

⁸ - "Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:" (Philippians 2:6, KJV)

⁹ - "For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son: That all men should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father. He that honoureth not the Son honoureth not the Father which hath sent him. . . . And hath given him authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of man." (John 5:22-23, 27, KJV)

¹⁰ - "For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus;" (1 Timothy 2:5, KJV)

¹¹ - "And, behold, the whole city came out to meet Jesus: and when they saw him, they besought him that he would depart out of their coasts." (Matthew 8:34, KJV); "And she had a sister called Mary, which also sat at Jesus' feet, and heard his word." (Luke 10:39, KJV)

¹² - "These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee: . . . And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent." (John 17:1-3, KJV)

¹³ - "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved." (John 3:16-17, KJV)

¹⁴ - "Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God." (John 20:17, KJV)

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Now, here are screenshots which document the inappropriate deletion, and the subsequent attempt to cover the moderator's tracks. Take note of the timestamps shown as the mouse hovered over those events.

Notice the sequence of the timestamps in each of those, and how the OP itself was edited after the fact in order to give a reason for the inappropriate deletion.

I afterward attempted to report the post as having been deleted without sufficient cause, but no response was given. That was before I had noticed that the OP had been edited to add the "According to Trinitarians:" line. I tried to report this new information as well, and the system would not allow it as there was supposedly one report pending already.

How should issues like this be handled, presuming that the same moderator against whom the complaint comes is the one handling the reports? Is there any mechanism in place on the SE network for addressing complaints with a third-party moderator? I was reticent to even post here, not wishing to be simply banned for complaining about inappropriate moderation, and I would far rather have had some recourse by which to address this complaint. However, as this is not the first time this particular moderator has removed my posts, and typically for a doctrinal disagreement, I feel I need to seek for some solution.

Thank you for any help you may offer towards a worthy resolution.

Answer 1

However, that was false. None of the tags specified "Trinitarian." Perhaps realizing that this was so, and attempting to cover his/her tracks, the moderator then edited the question so as to support this claim. The timestamps on the comment versus the appearance of the added "According to Trinitarians:" heading in the OP substantiate this.

There isn't a distinct "trinitarian" tag; the "trinity" tag is generally understood as indicating that the question is scoped to Trinitarianism ("trinitarian" is even a tag synonym of "trinity".) See this prior discussion. The only time that wouldn't be the case is if the question explicitly gives it another scoping (for example, "how do Unitarians respond to this aspect of Trinitarian doctrine?"), which this question did not. It is not "covering up" to make edits which make explicit what was originally implicit. The question asker has since made many more edits, none of which removed the sentence I added, but instead only further reinforced that they are asking for an explanation of Trinitarian theology.

If you didn't agree with the implicit scoping I saw (and then made explicit via edit #4) then you should've read the question as being inadequately scoped and not answered at all. As an experienced site user you should know by now that we do not allow unscoped questions which are a free-for-all for all denominational positions. I'm sorry you're upset, but this is how the site has operated for years, long before I became a mod.

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However, as this is not the first time this particular moderator has removed my posts, and typically for a doctrinal disagreement, I feel I need to seek for some solution.

None of the mods delete posts because of personal doctrinal disagreements. If we did then we'd be deleting each others' posts all the time! We delete answers when they do not match the scope of the question. That's what happened here, and it's what happens hundreds of other times.

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Is there any mechanism in place on the SE network for addressing complaints with a third-party moderator?

If you want to dispute any moderation decision with SE staff, you can do so via the "Contact" link in the site footer.