Talk:Minister (Christianity)

message: Can we move this article frompoo Religious minister to Minister of religion?  The latter is usual, the former sounds awful!  --Doric Loon 21:46, 22 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that Minister of religion is probably better. The google test (as far as it's any indication) shows 109,000 hits for "minister of religion" and 17,200 for "religious minister" — of which the first bunch are wikipedia and it's mirrors. Let's give it a few days to see if no objections, then move it. ntennis 03:48, 23 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Move

message: Actually, Dave Souza's latest edit raises a question which had been worrying me.  The article said the word Domine (and related forms) were only used for clergy.  Dave adds that they were also used for schoolmasters.  To be honest, I wonder if it is not in fact the case that these words were only used for schoolmasters - I have no recollection of ever hearing a minister called a domine.  Does anyone have references?  --Doric Loon 09:05, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The word Dominee is a Dutch word and is frequently used in South Africa when referring to the clergy of the Dutch Reformed Church. Martinvl (talk) 09:06, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Domine

message: Why was this article moved to "Minister (Christianity)" without consultation on the talk page?  "Minister of religion" is a set phrase, and seems to me the better heading. Moving an article is a major disruption and should always be preceded by consultation - see above how this was done last time!  --Doric Loon 10:03, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Moved again

message: This article and those on Religious ministry (Christian) and on clergy are rather a mess. The clergy article isn't too bad, but it is closely linked to this article; and this article seems to be partly a discussion of offices and partly a discussion of clerical titles/forms of address. Ministers are, depending on where you are:
*The name for the clerics of the church (e.g. in Presbyterian churches)
*The rector/vicar of a parish (so used in the 1979 BCP)
*A synonym for Christian clerics in general
*Part of the title of people with official ministries (e.g. youth ministers)
*Anyone exercising a role in any kind of ministry (e.g. references to "ministers" in liturgies to signify all those with assigned roles, whether lay or cleric)
It seems to me that the titles need to go somewhere else, and that the ministerial offices/roles need to be categorized better, and that the various usages need to be spelled out more clearly. Mangoe 15:23, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ministers/Ministries/Clerics 

message: Since I haven't worked on this page for quite a while now, I probably shouldn't stick my oar in, but apart from the lack of courtesy in moving an article without consultation, I do think this is a backward step.  The edit summary suggests that narrowing the reference to Christianity is more precise since the term minister is also used by some Muslims.  I would have gone the opposite direction.  It would make this article so much more interesting if it also had a section talking about Muslims.  --Doric Loon 10:19, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Moved again, again

message: By the way, any opinions on redirecting Ordained Minister here? It's a stub with all its content mentioned in the roles section here and a bit in the beginning of the ordination article. Revelian 11:27, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Done.  Since no comments came for about a month, I thought it was quite all right.  Nyttend 02:51, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Ordained Minister

message: "a minister is someone--a man or a woman who is called of God (YHWH)--" 
(1) As far as I can tell based on Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#Religions.2C_deities.2C_philosophies.2C_doctrines_and_their_adherents and Names_of_God, normal Wikipedia style would recommend against including the name "YHWH" here.
(2) Wikipedia:Neutral point of view says that NPOV is absolute and non-negotiable. Saying that a minister is called by God represents the point of view of adherents of that minister's religion. Wikipedia is used by people of many different faiths as well as by atheists, who would not agree that it is factual that said minister iscalled by God. The previous version that I'm reverting to ("a minister is someone who is authorized by a church or religious organization") is NPOV and unquestionable.
Please discuss if desired. -- Writtenonsand (talk) 13:28, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reverting questionable statement 

message: Can anybody fix the problem?
A. A.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.139.27.126 (talk) 07:57, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  The bottom part of the page does not open... Why this happens? 

message: The GOA page cited for Orthodox clergy is in error regarding forms of address for monastics. Monks are always referred to as "Father", whether they are ordained or not.  Likewise, nuns are always referred to as "Mother".  "Brother" and "Sister" are only used for monastic novices (who have not been tonsured, and are thus not truly monastics yet).  Here is a better source:
http://www.orthodoxinfo.com/praxis/clergy_etiquette.aspx  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.11.6.56 (talk) 19:45, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Error regarding Orthodox monastics 

message: I noticed someone changed the picture from Olympia Brown to Charles Spurgeon. I think this is much better. I suspect Spurgeon is more recognisable than Brown, but also - it seems that having Brown there seemed to be making the point that women can be ministers too. And that's at least borderline POV. StAnselm (talk) 21:54, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Image

message: Pastor is essentially about the term, and Wikipedia is not a dictionary. The lede of that article does not make a distinction with the subject of this article. --JFHutson (talk) 01:41, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merge discussion 

message: Per WP:NATURAL, Christian minister seems a better name for this article. --JFH (talk) 19:34, 14 January 2013 (UTC)
replies: text:  I see no reason why we can't merge Pastor with Minister (Christianity)#Pastors. I don't think that we should change it to Christian minister because Minister already exists in various realms and the standing way to delineate a term when it is used in multiple ways is to add the disambiguate in parentheses, just as the current title does. ReformedArsenal (talk) 11:34, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Move to Christian minister 

message: In my honest opinion, I believe that since the positions are so similar (A leader of a Christian congregation), the various titles such as pastor and minister should probably have their own section under Clergy, maybe 'Types of Christian Clergy'.
2.123.62.58 (talk) 22:39, 30 September 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Not all ministers are clerics, for example in the Anglican church there are lay ministers, who are ordinary lay people who have ordinary every day jobs but who are licensed to carry out certain defined ministries.  I think the normal understanding of the word "clergy" refers to ordained people. Wayne Jayes (talk) 05:45, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

text: I am also opposed to the merger as many pastors in the United Methodist Church are not ordained clergy which makes the title distinctive. Also the role of a "minister" in the Christian faith is much broader than that of pastor, which is a role associated specifically with serving as the spiritual leader of a congregation, church, charge or parish. Ray Trygstad (talk) 23:01, 3 January 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  On the merge 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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thread_title:  External links modified (February 2018) 

message: It seems to me that this article has lost its way, and most of it is off-topic. There are other articles on priest, vicar, etc., so this article is not about clergy in general. If it is to have a purpose at all, it must be specifically about clergy in those traditions which use the WORD minister, which mainly is Presbyterian, Methodist and a few others. Everything on Catholicism and the Eastern Orthodox tradition should be deleted from this article, because they do not have a concept of "minister". --Doric Loon (talk) 20:56, 20 October 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Topic?