Talk:Trinity United Church of Christ

message: In this column, conservative commentator Rich Lowry (who's obviously not a reliable source for questions of fact) claims that "The national United Church of Christ denomination considered distancing itself from the Wright-led church."  Is this true?  Can anyone find an actual reliable source discussing this, and/or giving more details of what he's talking about?  This could represent the grumblings of a few conservative Congregationalists, or an actual concern expressed by the denomination at some point.  If it's the former, it's not noteworthy, but if it's the latter (and we can find a reliable source discussing it) it should probably be mentioned in the article. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 08:00, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: He is twisting his history to fits his agenda (surprised?).  Speller is the authoritative written history on Trinity.  What this NY Post Screed is referring to is what is mentioned in the section Trinity_United_Church_of_Christ%2C_Chicago#Change.  Ewenss (talk) 13:53, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Not surprised at all, but Lowry makes it sound like there was some organizational resistance to the changes at Trinity at the denominational level, rather than just a few dissatisfied parishioners.  Does Speller mention anything like that? —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 20:01, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Perhaps initially, I'll check into histories of Congregationalism (or feel free!), but in either case, Lowry is making a dead, even racist point, because he would be arguing that blacks in the 70s should have rejected cultural identity and merely held on to the notion of assimilating with whites and engaged in self-directed black cultural genocide as the path to full civil rights.  The United Church of Christ brought in W. Sterling Cary, quoted in this article, to revamp and lead the denomination's efforts among blacks. It might be interesting to include Lowry's radical view, if this is what he is really saying.  Ewenss (talk) 07:02, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think that's what Lowry is intending to say — or, at least, his criticism isn't coherent enough to draw that conclusion. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 07:48, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

text: Kurtz outlines the direct tension between TUCC and the mainstream United Church of Christ leadership in 1978. Trilemma (talk) 01:14, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tensions with UCC? 

message: Several points of NPOV language that I am noticing continuing to pop up:
* "His critics" makes it sound like only partisan republicans or Hillary Clinton supporters pressed Obama. This is a misrepresentation of the scale and nature of the questions and questioners surrounding the issue.
* "Origins of AIDS" gives legitimacy to an AIDS conspiracy theory. It would be akin to having an article mention "debate about the truth of the Holocaust." Wikipedia does not exist to legitimize conspiracy theories.
* Several times, people place interpretations of history and motivation as facts. This is not acceptable. Interpretations and suggestions need to be represented as such. Trilemma (talk) 22:33, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Further semantic bias':
*In addressing Martin E. Marty's claims, the term "explains." This infers an irrefutable factual backing of his statements, which is incorrect. A neutral term should be used. Trilemma (talk) 04:10, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: All sources are not equal, and all statements about a matter are not equal.  You don't treat Joe Smoe journalist who heard about all this stuff for the first time a few months ago with a "says" and a Marty with an equal "says".  That implies that Joe Smoe and Marty are equal in their authority to speak to the matter, which is obviously false on its face.  As a professor emeritus of religion at the Univ of Chicago, and as someone who has studied Trinity extensively and many related matters, and overseen scores of doctoral students from Trinity (including Julia Speller), Marty by nature of that literal lifetime of study of this subject can speak more authoritatively to it than perhaps any other.  "Explains" implies that he is, from that lifetime of study and experience on this topic, explicating to people (nearly all to whom these concepts about black culture are concepts they are not studied in in depth) what Trinity itself means by the motto.  That's his purpose in writing here.  You certainly don't say that this is his "posit", which implies a newby's initial theory about something!  The use of "says" or "states" or "asserts" or "explains" or "argues" or "replies" or "counters" or "foresees" or "reminds" or "stipulates" or "decries" or "chides", etc., should be determined by determining the Purpose and Tone of the author in the source, and not by some editorial decision to falsely remove all that and "equalize" all sources.  All this is simply sound information literacy (warning: that article is a mess) and high-level reading skills that anyone should have learned in college. What's Kurtz's purpose in writing his piece?  It is clearly told you here--it is political through and through.   That simply is not scholarship in the discipline of history but political commentary from an avowedly politically partisan stance. We thus treat it exactly as such, lest the entire article turn into what I described here.  Ewenss (talk) 05:38, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: NPOV language

message: Daimerej, I'm guessing that you're Ewness on a different computer. You can not continue to expect to edit out those opinions who you disagree with. The purpose is to give balance. We have already established that there is nothing preventing non-academic sources from being used. If you persist in disruptive edits, particularly with this new lack of communication, then I will seek mediation. Trilemma (talk) 12:46, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The problem is that it is NOT political commentary. It is an account of history. If you find a critique of Kurtz's article, then you could post a summary of its points. If it's from Mother Jones, so be it. Trilemma (talk) 22:26, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: It is incontrovertibly political commentary.  All of this has been argued at length above.  You have only denied the arguments, not addressed them.  74.233.86.145 (talk) 23:05, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: It states historical facts that you are attempting to remove. This is unacceptable. Trilemma (talk) 03:08, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I did an earlier edit from IP 64.66.192.62.  I have to say this is an extremely well done article; I wish wiki had more like this.  From what I can see, it is you that is the one attempting to remove historical facts example here.  There has been an attempt here to keep the sources from scholarly history yet you keep wanting to add from stuff that no one doubts is a very POV politics source and that is not a history source.  In your contribs I see you trying to "win" by removing dissent to what you're trying to do, which smells like politics POV pushing.  My two cents.  Tucu (talk) 07:31, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: History section and Daimerej

message: The third paragraph that Ewness/Cyberanth/Daimerej/Tucu keeps adding in is full of NPOV. Some specific points: 1) "Scholarship" misleads people into thinking that there is an overwhelming body of scholarship on the subject, when in fact you are drawing on essentially one person, Speller, a member of the church. If you want to keep that quote, you ought to rephrase it to something like, "Julia Speller, (credentials) and church member, contends that the church...." Furthermore, that bit of 'corresponds to their leanings" is nonsense NPOV; I'll be editing that out once I'm out of 3RR territory. You need to refrain from such edits if you expect to be a successful editor. Trilemma (talk) 13:05, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Whatever the hell you are talking about - I am trying to bring some peace here and all you seem intent on is troublemaking. Tucu (talk) 13:17, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: If it is not just Speller then list all of the scholars and their works that directly attest to what you are talking about. You're also not addressing the other blatantly NPOV edits you are attempting to insist on maintaining. Trilemma (talk) 16:10, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

text: If you wish to quote/reference a different scholar then simply provide the material. The stuff about 'not understanding' is a matter of opinion; you're entitled to yours but the talk pages aren't designed to be message boards. Trilemma (talk) 03:49, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Opening

message: The continued adding of scholar and changing of argued to states or points out, gives undue weight to Speller's dissertation. It is enough to state that she wrote a dissertation. Intelligent readers will be able to decide if she is a scholar or not based on this . It is not up to us to connect the dots and spoon feed them and make a student's arguments, which is exactly what a dissertation is, into something more that his opinion. As far as editing this for two moths, I know exactly when this range of IP's started editing, and I am still collecting data thats shows who the likely author is.Die4Dixie (talk) 16:09, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. The IP editor is making a fundamental mistake of attempting to pass off everything written in an academic context as unquestionable fact. That would be akin to if I would edit the Rwandan Genocide page to reflect Christopher C. Taylor's interpretation of specific elements of violence as symbolic representation of flow/blockage dynamics of Rwandan culture as unquestionable fact. It's his interpretation and his argument, as is Speller's in this instance. It warrants mentioning but in an NPOV context which illustrates that it is her theory, not fact. Trilemma (talk) 16:41, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Wow.  Comparing the history of a church to the Rawandan genocide.  Now I've heard it all.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.114.85.195 (talk) 19:50, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

text: The disputed section does seem to give too much weight to the changes under Wright for the article on Trinity itself, but does seem to be something that may be worthwhile as a separate article discussing the changes of the church. This would allow readers who want more depth and context into what assimilation model, etc. is, but not distort the overall balance of the main article itself. Thoughts? Lestatdelc (talk) 18:30, 23 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Scholar

message: :I'm removing them. seems that the article is stable not with no edits and the construction template can be added when someone really wants to do something. Nothing to see here, folks.Die4Dixie (talk) 05:20, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removal of dispute and contruction tags 

message: Will start removing uncited material when I recover from my binge. If you want it, cite it.--Die4Dixie (talk) 06:00, 5 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Cite tags

message: The introductory paragraph mentions that TUCC was countering Radical Black Muslim groups in Chicago but the detailed history indicated that it was countering both Nation of Islam and the Black Hebrews.  As the Black Hebrews are not a Muslim group, radical or otherwise, maybe the language in the introductory paragraph can be changed to radical groups as opposed to radical Muslim groups.  What do you guys think? Inf fg (talk) 13:53, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: "Radical" Black Muslim groups

message: I remember this began as a fantastic, scholarly article...that has now degraded in the hands of clear idiots.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.114.80.183 (talk) 22:24, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Classic Wikipedia article

message: Howdy.  I've moved the text below to here from the main namespace as it's about the article itself rather than the subject of it. - TB (talk) 20:47, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Content moved from article to here

message: :See my statement here. Stephen Ewen (talk) 05:28, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi Stephen.  I've had a brief look over the article history and see that of the several dozen authors who have contributed to this page over its history, at least 8 people (other than your own good self) seem to have made significant contributions to it.  As it stands, the notice above implies that the whole thing is based on your work.  If you want to incorporate material that belongs to you into the article, a credit in the page edit history is perhaps more appropriate than one within the article itself.  See http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Terms_of_Use for guidance and examples. - TB (talk) 11:16, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: The whole thing IS based upon my work. I've used pseudonyms before.  — SE  07:39, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: They are called socks. And you are banned from editing here as a puppet master. --Die4Dixie (talk) 02:30, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

text: Glad someone else can see. The desire for acknowledgement trips another frail man.--Die4Dixie (talk) 18:19, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Copyright claim

message: Much if the commentary in this article is from Speller's dissertation and book.  We don't usually allow one source to predominate to this extent. Nor do we generally use dissertations (though sometimes they are appropriate).  Speller says (in her book) "Pastor Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. has from the beginning affirmed and acknowledged my call as a layperson, respecting it on the same level as those who are “officially” ordained. He has never failed to be my teacher, mentor, brother, and friend throughout the past thirty-two years, and I extend my heartfelt thanks."   Speller can hardly be called neutral.
I wonder if we should severely cut back the contextualisation, which dominates the church history, and remove the section that deals with matters outside the scope of an article about a specific church?
All the best: Rich Farmbrough 12:18, 19 May 2024 (UTC)
thread_title: Undue and Npov