Talk:History of Christianity/Archive 2

message: I came to have a look, to see if this article could be a model for History of Islam, and my first impression was, "Omigosh, 2000 word paragraphs." Short paragraphs work much better on computer screens. Short paras and bullet points. Otherwise you get the phenomenon known as MEGO (My Eyes Glaze Over). Someone paragraph this poor suffering article, please! Zora 00:48, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Someone who just happened by ... 

message: I thought I would explain my removal of massive sections of text.  The additions were pov, or, and wrong, and the user who put them there has apperantly been banned forever from editing, so it really needs no justification.  He was self publishing rubbish. Lostcaesar 16:54, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removals 

message: I am no expert but the word followers in first paragraph links to Booty_Call_(Christianity).
Is it right link?--Webkami 13:52, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Correct Link 

message: "Popular legend holds that Constantine I was Christian; he was baptized on his deathbed.
 
His continued paganism is revealed by the laws he passed. For example, Constantine issued laws confirming the rights of flamens, priests and duumvirs.Theodosian Code 12.1.21, 12.5.2 Although Constantine passed legislation against magic and private divination, this was driven by fear that others might gain power through those means, as he himself had achieved power through the sound advice of Pagan soothsayers and this convinced him of the perspicacity of Pagan prophecy.Zosimus 2.29.1-2.29.4, Theodosian Code 16.10.1. Laws against the private practice of divination had been enacted ever since the time of the emperor Tiberius. The fear of a rival had led many emperors to be severe against those who attempted to divine their successor.   His belief in Pagan divination is confirmed by legislation calling for the consultation of augurs after an amphitheater had been struck by lightning in the year 320.Theodosian Code 16.10.1  Constantine explicitly allowed public divination as well as public Pagan practices to continue.Theodosian Code 9.16.1-9.16.3."
Phrases like "popular legend holds ..." and "his continued paganism is revealed ..." are clearly POV pushing born out of some serious ignorance of the issue involved. 
Whether C. was a Christian (and when) depends on what you require for being a Christian. We have to go by outwardly events as we cannot look into his heart. Any reference to laws he passed is nonsensical as he was supposed to fulfill his office as Emperor. Str1977 (smile back) 08:39, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Removal of argumentative text

message: I have proposed a History task force on Wikipedia:WikiProject Christianity/General. Please read the proposal, comment on it and consider joining. --Richard 17:26, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposal for a task force on the [[History of Christianity]] and related articles 

message: Well, it was a bit unnerving to see text disappearing again but let us all assume good faith and work together to improve the article.  I think the article is in better shape now than it was a couple of days ago and so we are moving forward.
I am a bit concerned about the loss of the Historicity of Jesus section but I figure we can discuss this issue and maybe, over time, find a way to restore the pooint in a way that is acceptable to Lostcaesar.  While I think it is important to say something about this topic, this is not my major concern about the first two sections of this article.
I've not been happy with the "Jesus" and "Early Christianity" sections since I started editing this article but I wasn't sure what was missing which is why I worked on the rest of the article first.  I'm starting to wrap my arms around the issue and I'd like to throw out some ideas for your consideration.
I feel like this is a history of Christianity without a history of Christ.  While we cannot provide a detailed explanation of the life of Christ, I feel that we need to provide a thumbnail sketch of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus as well as the history of the early church.
Given that we don't have space to retell the entire life of Christ or the entire history of the early Church, I've been struggling with what we should say in this article.  I think I've figured out at least one principle that will help guide this decision. 
At a minimum, the "Jesus" and "Early Christianity" sections should give the reader enough information to help him understand some of the events and trends that happen later in the history of Christianity.
I think we also need to say something about the resurrection and its role in salvation here.  Without this, there can be no understanding of Christianity or its history.  One sentence will do but there needs to be at least one sentence.
For example, in order to understand early Christian heresies, you have to know that the central Christian belief is that Christ is both God and Man.  This, in the Christian view, makes Jesus very different from Buddha or Mohammed.
In order to understand apostolic succession, you need to know that there were Twelve Apostles.  We wouldn't mention their names but we need to establish why apostolic succession is important.
In order to understand the filioque controversy, you have to understand that Christians are Trinitarian.  
In order to understand the Reformation, you have to understand the concepts of salvation through grace, sola scriptura vs. church tradition, Christ alone vs. the communion of saints etc.
I don't propose to explain each of these concepts in detail.  I do think we need to mention them in the appropriate places and then provide a link to the articles which explain them in detail.
I worry that we write as if the reader knows what Christianity is.  I worry that the Christianity article is too detailed and technical.  Someone commented on one of Christianity-related Talk Pages that the articles were too technical.  I do think this is a failing of the Christianity articles.  The other is that we assume too much knowledge on the part of the reader.
I don't propose to explain all of Christianity to the reader but we need to hit the highlights and provide links for further reading.
What do you think?
--Richard 01:10, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Richard I think you are dead on here and now I see what you were trying to do, but I still think there is a better way to go about it. As you pointed out, we simply cannot have a full discussion of the historicity of events in Jesus' life. Now I am beginning to see, though, why you wanted to talk of Christian views &c., and why you wanted to mention historicity, since you want to talk about the resurrection and yet feel the need to hedge such claims (if I interpret your concerns). But we cannot blow up the section on Jesus or go into Christian views in order to accomplish this because what we will have is another Jesus article or another Christianity article. Let me propse a different path, and see what you think. We can talk about the issues are they arise in necessity historically. Thus the papacy gets its first mention in late antiquity, even though we have to backtrack a little go do this. We could talk about apostolic succession in the section on the post apostolic church (indeed we do a little). That helps us sidestep the historicity issue. So we could say "the bishops authority derrived from the doctrine of apostolic sucession, which holds that they are the spiritual sucessors of the apostles whom Jesus appointed to govern the Church." That expresses the belief as soon as it is relevant without fussing with the historicity (for example one editor above found it necessary to cut even the mention that Jesus had apostles). Lets take the resurrection. Now this is tricky because, on the one hand, belief in the resurrection is the oldest doctine in the book (and we basically say this in the "worship of Jesus" section). But the theological articulartion of salvation developed. So we ought to be careful not to apply later theological articulation (say that of Luther) upon the apostolic age. But you are right that we need to talk about it right off the bat and perhaps in more depth than we do. This is something we can work towards, but we can do so in a way that avoids a long discussion about (current) Christian views or the historicity of the resurrection. And thus with the filioque we can mention what is needed when the controversy arises. And on it goes. Now if I were writting this as a self-published text I would have the very first sentence say "Jesus is the Word of God Incarnate", but as is the nature of such colloborative work we do not have such luxuries and must work carefully; to just speak frankly, if we go down the road you are wanted to go what will happen (as my experience tells) is that the article will become either a confused mess of conflicting sentences or a muddle of meangless statments full of qualifiers and ammendments, or perhaps become a shrine to scepticism. Lostcaesar 01:25, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lostcaesar's recent edits 

message: I'm concerned about this sentence:
:According to these, his execution was done at the instigation of the Jewish authorities who considered his teachings blasphemous: "This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God." (John 5:18)
This seems like the old "blood libel" that blames Jesus' crucifixion on the Jews.  I fully understand that this is based on Scripture and that this linkage is more or less accepted by Christians.  However, my concern here is what value does this statement add to the section?  Why focus on this?  And why provide scriptural support for this statement and not any of the others in this section?
We state why the Jews were seeking the death of Christ but we don't mention why Pilate sentenced Him.  (because of the charge of sedition against the Roman Empire)
--Richard 01:22, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Because this way we mention the belief that Jesus taught he was God, explaining his execution and subsequent Christian conflict with Jewish authorities.  Lostcaesar 01:27, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why Jesus was crucified 

message: Answering my own question, the sections that need the most prose are:
* Early Medieval Church (476-800)
* Age of Exploration
* Age of Reason
The "Age of Exploration" section would be a great place to add something about missionaries.
--Richard 04:46, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The high middle ages needs some too.  We talk of the crusades and schism, but not the investiture contest or the rise of the papal monarchy.  When we leave the papacy in antiquity it is the prime see but still a servant of the emperor (thats oversimplification but you get the idea).  We need to get to Innocent III and all the European kings sworn in fealty to him.  Lostcaesar 09:11, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Check out History of the Papacy.  I will try to work on this topic since I am responsible for almost all of the text that is in that article.  However, feel free to copy over stuff if you are so motivated.  I may not have much time for this in the next couple of days.  --Richard 06:35, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

text: Also, we need to fix the biblical canon section.  Right now it doesn't get the point across that the canon was basically set in antiquity.  Lostcaesar 09:24, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed.  Once again, if you're motivated to do this, go for it.  Otherwise, I'll try to get to it later this week.  --Richard 06:35, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sections that need more prose 

message: Have y'all considered splitting this article up just temporally? -- Kendrick7talk 16:43, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It might be a good idea; I think when we get all the information on the page we can determine legnth, whether things should be purged, or whether we should make the article into multile parts or whatnot.  Lostcaesar 16:48, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Along the same lines as Lostcaesar's comment, I have mixed feelings.  I would prefer that we get to a point where we feel comfortable that we have got a stable outline with all major topics dealt with before splitting it up.  The major reason for this is that we want to be sure that new material won't make us feel like we should change the basic top-level section outline.  I think we're in pretty good shape up to the Reformation but after the Reformation, things are a little fuzzy right now.  (see my comment on "Organization of this article" below.  We're getting close so let's keep plugging away and revisit this question in a week or two.  --Richard 17:34, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  History of the World, Part I 

message: Up to the Reformation, the section structure seems pretty good.  After the Reformation, we move away from non-overlapping, consecutive time periods to something that describes important facets of Christian history.  This is my doing but I think we should revisit it and ask if this is appropriate.  --Richard 17:36, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I have attempted to work through some of the material and make it more concise, for length issues and to remove redunancies - so far this is all pre renaissance material.Lostcaesar 09:24, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

text: I don't think it is overly confusing but I wanted to surface the question for us to consider. --Richard 17:36, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It is the sort of thing that is not confusing if one already knows the basic history, but is really confusing if one does not.  We cannot wholly avoid this but I think we should really try to, and stick with a very chronological approach.  We will have to do some overlap and backtracking, but just keep the novice reader in mind.  Wiki is for school kids and adults who want an overview of something they don't know anything about.Lostcaesar 09:24, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

text: I have mixed feelings here.  Topics like the Papacy, monasticism, the Byzantine empire and the Crusades span several of the time periods in the current sections so they could have their own sections.  However, I don't think we need to do that just yet.  In particular, since the History of the Papacy is tightly related to the History of the Church prior to the Reformation, I think it would be redundant and confusing to split it out as a separate section. --Richard 17:36, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I say we discuss things when they come up.  I think it is ok to talk of an antique, medieval, and post-reformation papacy in three seperate sections.  Monasticism can be mentioned in antiquity then left until we talk of the cluniac or benedictine or cistercian(sp?) reforms in the middle ages and the dissolution of the monasteries in england in the reformation, &c.Lostcaesar 09:24, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

text: I think we have some good sections like Revivalism but the division into sections on the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries seems a bit arbitrary to me.  --Richard 17:36, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah I agree; revivalism is good, modernism-liberalism and fundamentalism would be their own sections; we should talk about the anticlericalism of the spanish civil war, the french revolution, and the hostility of the communist regime. Lostcaesar 09:24, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Organization of this article 

message: A previous version of the article stated that:
:The four most important traditions to emerge directly from the Reformation were the Lutheran tradition, the Reformed/Calvinist/Presbyterian tradition, the Anabaptist tradition, and the Anglican tradition. Subsequent Protestant traditions generally trace their roots back to these initial four schools of the Reformation.
The current version after Lostcaesar's recent edits states that:
:The three most important traditions to emerge directly from the Protestant Reformation were the Lutheran, Reformed (Calvinist, Presbyterian, etc.), and Anglican traditions, though the latter group identifies as both "Reformed" and "Catholic", and some subgroups reject the classification as "Protestant".
Lostcaesar, can you explain why you dropped the Anabaptists from the sentence?
--Richard 04:52, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Because its not clear that modern baptists or any other major group are descended from anabaptists.  Lostcaesar 07:14, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: OK, I've done some reading (on Wikipedia) about Anabaptists and Baptists and I see your point.  Thanks for the explanation.  --Richard 23:15, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Most important traditions to emerge from the Reformation 

message: It would be useful to know when or during which epochs Christianity is the world's largest religion. I suspect this has been continuously true since ~500AD, though the current lead makes it sound like this didn't become the case until recently, or at least after the start of the Age of exploration. My last version tried to make this lest temporal and ambiguous. -- Kendrick7talk 23:11, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thats a good points I hadn't thought of.  I don't know when it became the world's largest religion.  I would have thought at the age of exploration.  I suppose it partially depends on the population and religious constitution of China, perhaps the only competator to Christendom in this regard. Lostcaesar 08:19, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  World's largest religion 

message: I've been musing on a concern about the scope of this article for some time.  The recent insertion of the "Private penitence" section has helped to sharpen my thinking.  It seems out of place in this article because it is the only discussion of actual Christian practice.  And yet, it seems reasonable that the "History of Christianity" could cover the history of Christian rites, liturgy and practice.  The problem is that doing so would lengthen an already long article and would almost certainly cause the article to lose focus.
From a more general perspective, it seems to me that when we say "History of Christianity", we can mean many things.  I have identified a few different subtopics that might be better treated in separate articles.
First, I think this article should focus on the geographical and political evolution of the various Christian churches and denominations as well aa their interaction with external entities, most notably governments and rulers but also other religions.  This is primarily an institutional view of Christianity.  If we agree on this definition of scope, we might consider changing the article title to "History of the Christian church", emphasizing "church" as the institutional aspect of the Christian religion.
I think there could be a separate article titled "History of Christian theology" which would discuss the historical development of various doctrines such as the dual nature of Christ, the Trinity, various heresies, etc.  This article would be a theological view of Christianity.
There could also be an article on "History of Christian rites and practices" that could discuss the historical development of Christian worship liturgy, sacraments and religious practice.  This article would be the place for the "Private penitence" section.
Being bold, I'm going to remove "Private penitence" from this article but I won't create History of Christian rites and practices yet as it would look like a very silly stub if it only had "Private penitence" in it.  
--Richard 16:47, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Ok, I might try and work a sentence in about it under Irish missionaries, though, if that's ok.  Lostcaesar 16:50, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, if you must, I suppose I can tolerate it but I wouldn't think it to be the most important thing to mention even there.  I'm more interested in the assertion that Thomas Cahill makes that the Irish, especially the Irish monks, "saved" Western civilization in the "Dark Ages".  What do you think of his theory?  Seems to me that this would be a much more important concept to present in this article.  --Richard 17:11, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: My opinion of Cahill's theory is that he is wrong becuase he ignores the scholarship in Visigothic Spain (Isidore of Seville), Italy (Cassiodorus), Anglo-Saxon England (Theodore's School, also Monkwearmouth-Jarrow), Theodoric's Langobard Northern Italy, and southern Gaul (Gregory of Tours).  I think it is based on a dated treatment of scholarship among the barbarians.  Hey, now that I think of it, maybe we should put some of this in the article under the sections about barbarian conversion.  Lostcaesar 17:42, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Private penitence" section seems out of place in this article 

message: I am not sure why would anyone add "their God" instead of "God".  I dispute such addition. This is an article about Christianity and Christianity is one of God's religions.  Their no need to isolate Christians by implying that they have "their God".  Please discuss here and let consensus be reached. Lcnj 22:39, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't understand how the current text presupposes the existence of the Christian God or how the new text does not.  Lostcaesar 23:02, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You need to clarify that this is talking about a particular god. You could also say "divinely inspired". -- Kendrick7talk 23:06, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: So you would be ok with it saying "regarded as divinely inspired" instead of "regarded as inspired by God"?  Lostcaesar 23:37, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

text: For the record, the problem with "holy books" is that Christians have lots of holy books besides the bible (e.g. hagiography = lit. holy writings). Lostcaesar 23:38, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Divinely inspired is ok. -- Kendrick7talk 00:01, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: ok sounds good. Lostcaesar 00:15, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Disputing the addition of "their God" instead of "God"

message: Revivalism links (under 'See also') to this page as "History of Christianity#20th Century and Beyond" but there doesn't appear to be anything here along those lines? Natebailey 13:06, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There has been a lot of restructuring, and the revivalism material is its own category (Revivalism 1720-1906). Lostcaesar 17:14, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: 20th C section gone?

message: In regard to the main article: 
Under External links the # Church History in the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica link does not lead to the EB article.
Under See Also there should be a link to the A History of Christianity article about Paul Johnson's book, which may be an orphan.
Great job on this article guys.  Thanks. 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_History_of_Christianity
rumjal 20:13, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Two minor problems