Talk:Christianity/Archive 28

message: Template:Christ is a new template I started for wikipedia. Hopefully, we might be able to put a whole lot of articles on just one template.
1. Feel free to contribute to it, I've just spent an hour copying and pasting existing templates in there.
2. Can it be added to this page? Once it's ready, of course.A J Hay 11:26, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, it needs a lot of work but I think it's a neat idea and could prove useful. —Aiden 14:36, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

text: I found a slight problem with the NOTOC if  is included in a page, so I'm trying to fix the problem. --Eric R. Meyers (Ermeyers) (talk) 00:23, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I found a fix to the problem, and I've put the template on the page. Again, feel free to edit it.A J Hay 01:19, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Christ template 

message: Old-Catholic denomination is not in full-communion with Roman Catholic Church. The Roman Catholic  Church considers the Old-Catholic denomination as a heretical sect.
Kindly remove Old-catholic denomination from any association with the Roman Catholic Church
:The Old-Catholic Church is correctly placed into the fold of Catholic Churches, i.e. Churches that derive their existence from the RCC. The OCC began in 1870, splitting from the RCC after Vatican I - that it since has turned itself into a Protestant bodies with Catholic forms is another matter. Maybe it would be time for a reconsidering of the branches as they are now reported in the article, but until that happens and is broadly accepted, we have to report things as they are. Str1977 (smile back) 19:02, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  No reason to club old-catholics with Roman Catholicism 

message: If there is a consensus, can we mention about Nasrani people on the main page. They are important as they are one of the oldest denomiantions of christianity. (Christianity reached in India before it reached Europe).--nids 05:28, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Nasrani]] people 

message: The tree chart does not express that some Nestorian and Oriental Churches have unified with Catholicism and or Greek Orthodoxy in recent years; it should.  Lostcaesar 09:15, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tree chart 

message: To the person who edited the last paragraph of that section, I commend (for whatever my commendation's worth). At least it's not stating categorically one way or the other the accuracy of those churchs' doctrines in relation to mainstream Christianity. That's much better than the way it was presented before.Jlujan69 13:14, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Christian divisions section 

message: The following suggestions were generated by a semi-automatic javascript program, and may or may not be accurate for the article in question.
*Per WP:CONTEXT and WP:BTW, years with full dates should be linked; for example, link January 15, 2006, but do not link January 2006.See footnote
*Per WP:MOS#Headings, headings generally do not start with the word "The". For example, ==The Biography== would be changed to ==Biography==.
*Please alphabetize the interlanguage links.See footnote
*Per WP:WIAFA, this article's table of contents (ToC) maybe too long- consider shrinking it down by merging short sections or using a proper system of daughter pages as per WP:SS.See footnote
* article may need to undergo summary style, where a series of appropriate subpages are used. For example, if the article is United States, than an appropriate subpage would be History of the United States, such that a summary of the subpage exists on the mother article, while the subpage goes into more detail. 
*Watch for redundancies that make the article too wordy instead of being crisp and concise. (You may wish to try Tony1's redundancy exercises.)
**Vague terms of size often are unnecessary and redundant -  “some”, “a variety/number/majority of”, “several”, “a few”, “many”, “any”, and “all”. For example, “All pigs are pink, so we thought of a number of ways to turn them green.”
*As done in WP:FOOTNOTE, footnotes usually are located right after a punctuation mark (as recommended by the CMS, but not mandatory), such that there is no space inbetween. For example, the sun is larger than the moon [2]. is usually written as the sun is larger than the moon.[2]
*Please provide citations for all of the s.
*Please ensure that the article has gone through a thorough copyediting so that the it exemplifies some of Wikipedia's best work. See also User:Tony1/How to satisfy Criterion 2a. See footnote
You may wish to browse through User:AndyZ/Suggestions for further ideas. Thanks, Arch O. La Grigory Deepdelver 10:49, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: semiautomatic peer review

message: The following two paragraphs from the Encyclopedia of Christianity perhaps could be used as a source for the monasticism material in the History and origins section. 
:The transition to asceticism outside the congregation took place in the second half of the third century AD. It did not simply derive from earlier forms but may be explained by the changed situation in the church. The tightening organization of the congregations under bishops left increasingly less room for lifestyles that were not oriented to the functioning of the whole and could not be integrated into the common order, while the greater numerical and organizational strength of the churches now permitted individuals and groups to separate. The trend toward a mass church, which became visible in the third century, meant that the church was no longer in opposition to the world, as it had been since the beginning. Now in fact the church increasingly seemed to be part of the world, from which one had to withdraw if one was really to follow Christ.
:We also must not undervalue the pessimistic attitude to society and its orders that was widespread in many social, religious, and philosophical forms in late antiquity, which could make common cause with the Christian urge to flee the world. Whether monastic organizations in non-Christian religions (e.g., the Therapeutae or the Qumran community) and Greek philosophy had any direct influence is questionable, though there can be no doubt as to the importance of philosophical theories for the theology of monasticism. Of decisive significance finally was the person of the father of monasticism, Anthony (see 3.2.1), along with his biography, the Vita Antonii of Athanasius (ca. 297–373; see 3.2.3) [Erwin Fahlbusch and Geoffrey William Bromiley, The Encyclopedia of Christianity (Grand Rapids, Mich.;  Leiden, Netherlands: Wm. B. Eerdmans;  Brill, 1999–2003), 3:625]. —Wayward Talk 02:48, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Citation for Monasticism in the History and origins section 

message: Would anyone object to implimenting the revision at User:A.J.A./Tohu&Bohu/Beliefs?  A.J.A. 14:38, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Hmm, the "is often referred to as "mere christianity"" part seems a stretch, as the term as far as I know is normally only used concerning the title of his book rather than anything referring to how Christian's in general consider basic beliefs. Homestarmy 17:17, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Beliefs Section 

message: I deleted the following paragraph:
:The literal meaning of the word "Catholic" is "inclusive".  The literal meaning of the word "Protestant" is "protesting", ie, protesting the claimed supremacy of the Pope. The literal meaning of the word "Orthodox" is "straight teaching".  The official name of a number of denominations, and not just Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox, is "One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church" (qv) because that was the name of the original undivided Church (ie before any schisms) taken from the Nicene Creed.
Reasons are as follows: the word catholic means universal, or perhaps general, “inclusive” in English means something quite different from this, especially in a religious context.  Protestant is inappropriately limited to the description protesting papal primacy – protestants protest much more than this.  Indeed, Protestants originally used the term evangelical, with “protestant” first being limited to certain German groups.  Orthodox is defined differently later in the article.  The business about other churches being “officially named” after the four Nicene marks sounds odd, where else in the article is this articulated?  There were schisms before the Nicene Creed.  The whole paragraph is bad. Lostcaesar 08:59, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Deletion 

message: This is meant in an amendment to the peer-review above, to further address problematic issues within the article that; quotes indented and discussed below.
: Although Christianity has always had a significant diversity of belief, mainstream Christian theology considers certain core doctrines esential to orthodoxy. Mainstream Christians often consider followers of Jesus who disagree with these doctrines to be heterodox, heretical, or outside Christianity altogether.
*We do not define mainstream Christian theology – what is that?  Christianity accepting the first three / four ecumenical councils perhaps?  Perhaps the Nicene Creed would be a good framework in that case.  Also, this would be a good place to define the article’s use of the word orthodoxy.  Lastly, essential is misspelled.
*In the following section on Jesus, we continue to use “most Christians” as our guidepost.  I thought we were using the undefined “mainstream” Christians.  This is a poor one in my view.  After all, one could rewrite the entire article from a Roman Catholic position and still be consistent with what “most Christians” believe (2 billion Christians, 1.1 billion Roman Catholics = most).  We need a better guidepost.  When we say “Most Christians believe Jesus is true God and true man” we should perhaps say “X (mainstream / most / orthodox / Nicene) Christians follow the doctrine expressed in X council that Jesus is …”  This gives clarity, a reference, and well defined room for non X Christians (so they are less likely to come re-edit this).
*The section on Jesus mentions both doctrinal judgements about his nature and a bio of his life according to the Gospels, with various mentionings about the resurrection mixed throughout.  There is no real connection to Christianity here, odd as that sounds.  “Mainstream” or “Majority” Christianity connects to Jesus through apostolic succession, sacramental institution, and the giving of the Spirit – none of this is mentioned.  How did Jesus found a religion?  After reading it, I am left wondering what Christianity has to do with Jesus.
: Most Christians believe that salvation from "sin and death" is available through faith in Jesus as savior because of his atoning sacrifice on the cross which paid for sins. Reception of salvation is called justification, which is usually understood as Divine grace, not something that can be earned.
*Again, we say “most” Christians, yet do not link anything.  Justification’s page defines it as “God’s act of declaring or making a sinner righteous before God”; that seems distinct (at least to some extent) from “reception of salvation.”  What does it mean “usually understood”, and by whom?  Very next line abandons the “usually” amendment for a more ambiguous phrase: “The operation and effects of grace are understood differently by different traditions.”
: Reformed theology goes furthest in teaching complete dependence on grace, by teaching that humanity is completely helpless (Total depravity) and that those who are given this grace invariably put their faith in Christ and are saved  (See Five points of Calvinism.) Catholicism, while still teaching dependence on grace, puts more emphasis on free will and the need to cooperate with grace. 
*Why do we lead with reformed theology, when the gatepost so far has been majority / mainstream Christianity?  Is Reformed theology mainstream?  I don’t know because we didn’t define mainstream.  We say “Catholicism”, earlier we used “Roman Catholicism”, is the article treating them as synonymous – we should say that concretely then.
: Ancient Gnostic Christians stood out for believing that salvation came from divine knowledge, or gnosis, which Jesus had revealed to selected adepts.
*Are Gnostics Christians?  We didn’t mention them before; they are not in any of the groupings above, they don’t appear on the line chart.  Should we mention Manicheans and Arians also?
*The section on the Trinity references various scholars, and that is good, but shouldn’t we reference some Councils, Creeds, or confessions, especially when quoting them?
: Christians believe the Scriptures were written by the inspiration of the Spirit
*Now we abandon the qualifiers of “mainstream” or “most” and just say Christian, however, the word inspiration is not explained, and the parallel article on Biblical Inspiration is not so uniform in its presentation.  Perhaps that is ok. 
: In Catholic, Orthodox, and some Anglican theology, this indwelling in recieved through the sacrament called Confirmation or, in the East, Chrismation…
*We use Catholic, Orthodox, and Anglican – is this Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy?  Next, we say “in the East”, is that by all Christians in the East, by the groups labelled as “Eastern Christianity” above, or both?
: Most Protestants believe that the Spirit indwells a new believer at the time of salvation
Now we say “most protestants” – what is that?  Is it Lutherans, Reformed, Lutheran and Reformed…?  We could use a reference here to different protestant confessions saying this.  Also, what does “at the time of salvation” mean; the section on salvation didn’t discuss this moment.
: Christianity adopted the practice of drawing up concise statements of belief
*Did the Gnostics ever draw up Creeds?  We called them Christian earlier.  I certainly think the above statement is true, but if so, then mustn’t we exclude any group that avoids precise and concise statements of dogma from being Christian?  If not, then we cannot employ the above sentence.  
: Most Protestants accept the Creeds. Some Protestant traditions believe Trinitarian doctrine without making use of the Creeds themselves
*What are most protestants, which groups accept what Creeds?  This is a great opportunity to be specific about Christian beliefs and to provide clarity, no need to be ambiguous now.  Also, the comment about the trinity seems oddly placed.  We have a section on the Trinity, and later on Non-trinitarianism, broken up by the Creeds – this could be better organized.
:Virtually all Christian churches accept the authority of the Bible
*We have used mainstream Christianity, most Christians, Christians, and now “virtually all Christian Churches” – though not a contradiction, I think this represents yet another attempt at fixing a guidepost, when we should choose one horse and ride it to the finish.
*Again we say “Catholic and Orthodox” when talking about the canon – is this Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox, or is it Roman Catholic and Eastern Christianity, or should we be saying Eastern “Churches” based on the lead sentence…?
: The Gnostics had numerous books outside of the orthodox canon
*Now we use “orthodox” in an entirely different way than “Orthodox”, yet again adding another guidepost along side those mentioned before.
:Traditional Catholic interpretation…
*What is the adjective “traditional” expressing here?  Traditional Catholicism as opposed to what?
:Traditional Christian theology teaches
*What is “traditional Christian” – is this Christianity accepting the first so many odd ecumenical councils?
: Virtually all Christian traditions affirm that…
Is this the same as “virtually all Christian Churches”
I will have to stop here, at Christian practices, but I hope the above is some help here concerning the differing terminology that we use, undefined, and the fluid structure of the article.  Central to this problem is our lack of a solid a guidepost; we use: mainstream Christianity, most Christians, Christians, orthodox Christians (as distinct from Orthodoxy), the vast majority of Christian Churches, Traditional Christian,  virtually all Christian traditions – furthermore, our subgroups are named differently: we call Roman Catholics both Catholics and Traditional Catholics; we use Orthodoxy and Eastern Orthodoxy and Eastern Christianity somewhat interchangeably, all in overlapping (and confusing, if not contradictory) ways.
- hope that is of some help
Lostcaesar 12:34, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No, we do not "use Orthodoxy and Eastern Orthodoxy and Eastern Christianity somewhat interchangeably".  You still do not get it.  We use Eastern Orthodoxy to mean a specific subset of Orthodoxy / Eastern Christianity.  So Eastern Orthodoxy is NOT interchangeable with the other two terms, although the other two may be more fairly said to be more or less interchangeable.  Maybe the only fair division will be along lines of what groups are in full Communion with one another, ie EO and OO are two different organizations, albeit with a lot in common. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 13:20, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

text: If you can't find nits, invent them. A.J.A. 02:24, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Organizational issues within the article 

message: I have my Edit History set to view 50 edits (which I think is the default). On the current screen of fifty edits, there is one new link (itself of dubious value: why "WeSpreadtheWord" but not the Vatican?) and one spelling fix. Everything else is bad edits and reversions.  A.J.A. 14:30, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  A Sad Observation 

message: This page links directly to Acts. While that used to automatically redirect to Acts_of_the_Apostles, it doesn't any longer and these links must be updated. Considering the current state of protection, I'm incapable of doing so myself. Can someone take care of this? Thank you. 70.92.174.251 06:46, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Nevermind, I logged in and did it myself. Ironiridis 07:53, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Disambig for [[Acts]]