Talk:Episcopal Church (United States)/Archive 2

message: I haven't checked the other colleges on the list, but whoever wrote that Columbia is affiliated with the Episcopal Church does not seem to comprehend the meaning of the word "affiliated".
Initially, Columbia was indeed affiliated the Epipscopal Church.  That was around 1754.  Here is a passage from the Wikipedia article on Columbia University:
"The nature of the [1784] reopening, however, made possible via the encouragements of Governor Clinton and the state legislature, ensured that Columbia College would be an institution as distinct as much in kind as in name. The new charter made no mention of the college's former Anglican/Episcopalian affiliations."
So there has been no affiliation with the Episcopal church since 1784.  Nothing wrong with mentioning this former affiliation, of course; it just should not be described in the present tense!
So I am removing it.Daqu 04:12, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Given that there are quite a few colleges with historical ties to the Episcopal church--Trinity College in Hartford, for instance, should we have separate lists for currently and formerly associated colleges? Pgentry 06:43, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Colleges "affiliated" with the Episcopal Church

message: A proposal is being floated at the project page that there be a  standard format for organising each article about national provinces of the Anglican Communion, including this one. Please consider participating in the straw vote and discussion. Cheers! Fishhead64 21:55, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for the pointer. JenKilmer 00:37, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

text: Why don't you wait on this until next week. It may become a moot point. The ECUSA is not likely to remain in the AC for long.  Unless rearranging deck chairs pleases you.  129.74.201.70 18:49, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think that reports of full schism are overblown. The CoE itself does not interpret the Bible literally either, or put the Bible above tradition and reason. Sometimes I wonder if the conservatives focused on ECUSA have even noticed that CoE voted to consecrate women bishops or that that CoE priests have entered into "civil partnerships". JenKilmer 00:35, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Uniform format proposal

message: Hello, my name is Kaitlyn Wilson.  I am 13 years old and I am currently attending Gallatin High School.  The only problem I have with this article is you don't really tell the true meaning of being Episcopal and you also don't go into great detail about their beliefs or what they study.  Please inform the people that read this article what the true meaning of being Episcopal is.
Thank You, Kaitlyn Wilson—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 204.185.88.253 (talk) 14:33, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  What is episcopal 

message: There are tons of unsourced statements and facts given on this page that need to give citations.--Bremkus 00:45, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sources??? 

message: The format of the article is a mess. The artile used to have a much better structure and provided a lot of information. In the last few months (since I last looked at it), it seems to have become a mess. It looks more at minutiae instead of the big picture. It seems there needs to be more on general beliefs (the article uses too many specifics, i.e. an overubandance of bulleted points, and doesn't concentrate enough on generalities). Also, it seems that the history section should be merged back into the article. It seems superfluous not to be able to condense either article enough to fit it into the main page.--Bremkus 00:53, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Format of article... 

message: The "recent controversies" section should be updated with information about the recent primates' meeting in Tanzania and the ultimatum sent to the Episcopal Church USA, as discussed here and here.  I'd do it myself, but I'm not entirely clear on the precise details of the communique, and it's important to be precise about these things.  Anyone up to the challenge? —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 02:26, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Update request 

message: Hi 129.74.228.121, I've only removed the editorial comment. But I have a bigger question. Why is Average Sunday Attendance important in this article? There are two problems: first, lack of context. What are the figures like for other mainline denominations? Second, nobody takes attendance at a TEC church. Unlike some denominations, there is no strict membership requirement. Of course, you have to be baptized but membership is not determined through registeration. You can attend a TEC church for several years and not be on its rolls. In other words, attendance numbers in the TEC are muddy because of a large cloud of self-identified Episcopalians who sometimes show up and regulars who never register. And to repeat myself, there is no head count: no turn-stile at the door. Someone after a service might note "about 30" attended: these records can be mighty sloppy! Cheers! Wassupwestcoast 14:42, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi 129.74.228.121. You seem to be new to WP 'cause " as long as it is cited and accurate and relevant, the material stays" aint't true. WP is all about persistence and nasty power struggles. Truth, accuracy, relevance and verifiability are all for the real world. Joking: with the recent WP Controversy (with a capital C) I think not! As for the stats question, I'm quite familiar with the issue. And choosing Average Sunday Attendance as a measure is not exactly reliable. Religion and stats is - to say the least - quite a quagmire. For example, the number who are in inter-communion between the Anglican and Catholic churches (at a personal level) is hard to measure and yet must be fairly high. Other stats: retention rate, baptism (child and adult) rates and Sunday offeratory rates? Anyway, religion is not a numbers game or popularity contest. Surely, no one chooses their belief like a bad episode of American Idol? Cheers! Wassupwestcoast 16:50, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

text: Hi User:129.74.228.121, for best coverage of the affair it is best to go to the horses mouth. See The New Yorker On the Internet, nobody knows you're a 24 year-old with no advanced degrees. The story is being picked up in the real world media. So even at the top of WP there is rot! Not good. If you read the discussion boards, some are taking Wiki breaks over this. Anyway, it's off topic but points to a big problem blowing up for poor WP. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast 17:52, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Average Sunday Attendance

message: Sorry for the little temporary removal there. I was just passing through from a contributions list, it looked like some kind of bizarre English national pride statement. I then had a quick scan through the article, and saw the link to Anglicanism, and noticed that I was initially wrong, and undid myself. Sorry for the mix-up. --Dreaded Walrus 08:58, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Mother of world Anglicanism" 

message: I realise that this is a somewhat controversial topic I am touching on here but as an English Protestant some of the claims made by the article are somewhat hard to believe, particularly that about increasing mainline membership, but what really concerns me is the fact that these claims are backed up by articles or essays from the official Episcopal Church website, Episcopal Church-sponsored research, etc. Are these sources really valid as points of reference? Madmatt52 22:05, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Nothing wrong with raising the issue, but who else is doing the counting? There is no equivalent to the Nielsen Ratings. There is census data but such data are confusing: they report the numbers of self-identified Episcopalians. There is the Pew Research Centre but they aren't keeping detailed statistics on Episcopalians. They do independent polling. Gallup also does independent polling of religious issues, for example this year-old Gallup report: (April 14, 2006) Mormons, Evangelical Protestants, Baptists Top Church Attendance List - Jews and Episcopalians least likely to attend on regular basis. There are other organizations that do polling. But note that these are not head counts. Any organization that is reporting head counts is almost certainly relying on self-reporting.  As for head counts, when it comes to the numbers of believers, the whole issues is very muddied. There are numerous issues such as turn-over rates, short and long term retention, inter-communion between denominations, 'vacations' from attendance and expectations of attendance. Plus, the faithful will always counter by saying that counting heads is irrelevant. To the faithful the entire subject is perfectly dichotomous: either the correct path has been chosen or it hasn't. This is a long winded way of saying - short of an Episcopalian conspiracy - using TEC numbers is a reliable source and wouldn't violate the WP Attribution policy. Put it another way, we rely on NASA sources for NASA statistics. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast 00:12, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Source Issues

message: In a dozen years of working in the Episcopal Church, I never heard the term "extra-mural." It's been used in this article to replace "Continuing Churches," a term I have heard, among other uses. Shouldn't an encyclopedia article use terms that will be readily understood? InkQuill 04:23, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The phrase comes from non-TEC Episcopalian publications. For example, in The Christian Challenge there is this letter [Letter from Bishop of Ruvuma to David Moyer] of Jan 2005 which says "whom Forward Now calls "Extra-Mural Anglicans". So, the phrase is accepted in "extra-mural" Episcopalian/Anglican churches and is a convenient short-hand to describe the divergent types of Anglicanism outside TEC and the Anglican Communion's walls. "Continuing Churches" is only a sub-set of all the extra-mural Episcopalian/Anglican churches. For example, the Anglican Province of America is outside of the Continuing Movement - see [A History of the Anglican Province of America]:"No formal relations exist with any of the major Continuing bodies". This is but one example. The point being: Continuing Churches is not synonymous with all those Anglican-like churches outside of the TEC. "Extra-mural" as a convenient adjective does encompass everybody.  Cheers! Wassupwestcoast 05:02, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Extra-mural" 

message: Several editors in recent months have repeatedly removed the most accurate and up to date membership statistics which happen to show a decline.  These are figures published by TEC itself!  How can WP go on reporting old statistics as if they were current and systematically obscure official information?  This is ridiculous!129.74.165.187 17:49, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Remember this is supposed to be an encyclopedia article about the TEC and not a critique. According to Wikipedia policy a good article is broad in its coverage, focused without going into unnecessary details, and written from a neutral point of view. The membership statistics are an unnecessary detail. The overall membership and the simple statement that membership is flat adequately reflects the TEC and the level of numerical detail needed to describe the TEC. We don't need to state that there are 2,284,233 baptized members: 2.2 million is adequate. The precision of these statistics isn't better than +/- 10 percentage points. Yes, the statistics are indeed published by the TEC. The source isn't in doubt. It is simply too much detail. For example, between 2004 and 2003, "Active Baptized Members" declined 1.59% "Communicants in Good Standing" declined 1.67%, and "Average Sunday Attendance" declined 3.31%. And that is just a sample of all the statistics prepared by the TEC. How to interpret three similar numbers? How to contrast these statistics with the general demographic trends within the U.S. and within U.S. churches. The statement that thhe numbers are flat is adequate. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast 19:54, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: "However, substantial declines in both membership [8] and average Sunday attendance [9] since 2002 have been reported in the official statistics of the Episcopal Church."129.74.165.15 15:27, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: What? -1.59% between 2004 and 2003 is a "substantial" decline. I think not. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast 19:55, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Attempts to eliminate accurate reporting of membership statistics 

message: I'm removing the following statement as it has been tagged as needing a source since April:
:Every Eucharist or Holy Communion service must use real wine, not water or grape juice, for the sacrament to be valid. Those wishing for whatever reason to avoid alcohol are free to decline the cup.
If anyone can find a source for this, feel free to re-add it. —Angr 17:06, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removing unsourced statement