Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Christianity/Noticeboard/Archive 1

Please comment: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Religion#interreligious --Striver 05:13, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

I don't see any activity here. In fact, the project itself was started by a Muslim! Is anyone interested in getting things going?

:Here. I am a noob, but my fields of study are theology and divinity. Devious Viper 12:06, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

For the moment, I have one comment. In my experience a good deal of contention has ocurred at Christianity-related pages between people holding one of two points of view: (1) Jesus is Christ and Divine, and the NT is literally and inerrantly true, and (2) Jesus never existed and the NT is a pack of lies. We will always have contributors who espouse these two views. However, there is a third view (or a range of related views) that believes that Jesus existed and that some but not all events in the NT ocurred, but that rejects the divinity of Jesus and any miracles. Currently I think this view is represented, but I have often seen edit-wars in which this view (or, as I said, group of related views) got squeezed out. I just think it is important to represent this view, and to acknowledge that there are other views besides the two extremes I mentioned in the second sentence, ant to actively seek them out.

A related comment. I think that the two extreme views I describe in the second sentence of the paragraph above reflect deeply personal experiences of editors. Indeed, religion-related articles are often articles about which people have knowledge from personal experience. I do not want to deny that. But there has also been a lot of research done on Chritianity and Christian-related topics that is based not on personal experience but on conventional methods of scholarship. We need to draw on that scholarship. this is a simple matter of avoiding original research and finding verifiable sources. BUT I think you (we) will all find that following these policies and seeking out such disinterested, impersonal scholarship, will also help us comply with NPOV A LOT. Just some advice, if I may presume to give advice. Slrubenstein | Talk 00:14, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

I've been meaning to edit our Christian articles for a while now, but have always felt a bit overwhelmed with the seriousness of the subject matter. - Ta bu shi da yu 01:46, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

I wish others (like user:Cheesedreams) felt the same... Sam Spade 08:36, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

:ooo... CheeseDreams... *shudders* Ta bu shi da yu 16:28, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

This project doesn't seem to be using the template / set up process outlined @ Wikipedia:WikiProject. Cheers, Sam Spade 08:34, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

:Somebody started the page without any plan to make it active (as best as I can tell, he was actually a Muslim who started the Islam project and decided for the sake of completeness that there should be a Christianity project). So the set up process was already a little out of whack. Other than that, what are your thoughts on the prospects? Would you yourself help? (Counting myself, there are three so far who say they will.) A.J.A. 03:46, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

::New template...Template:Christian theology...please help! Thanks...KHM03 13:19, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I added the footer. It is in the form of most of the other project footers out there. In doing so, I also modified the scope or goal. I added a statement about neutrality, and a statement about honor for Christ, the head of Christianity. I don't think this is in conflict with basic neutrality.  Image:Flag_of_Iceland.svg Guðsþegn – UTCE – 19:32, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

So far nobody's commented on the collaborative projects I've suggested. Either that means they're so great there's nothing that needs to be changed, or they're so bad there's no point trying to tweak them into something workable and everyone is too polite to point that out. A.J.A. 01:47, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

:*Perhaps I missed something, but what particular collaborative projects are you referring to? -- Guðsþegn 05:02, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

::Number 3 on the To Do list. A.J.A. 05:17, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

:Should we move the "General" discussion to this page? There seems to be two places to look to see what's going on. Endomion 21:36, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

:I would definetly be intrested in any collaboration. Coffeeboy 20:12, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

There are a number of Bible article centralised discussion which have been initiated by User:-Ril- (many repeats of ond wars). Anyone interested in this project might like to contribute. They are at Wikipedia:Centralized discussion/200 verses of Matthew Wikipedia:Centralized discussion/Verses of John 20 Wikipedia:Centralized discussion/Whole bible chapter text. --Doc ^ask? 18:09, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

There seems to have been some interest, so we'll see if actually implimenting the stuff I suggested gets things moving. I've started the destubbification campaign. I gave each category of stubs and initial population of five. Feel free to add more. A.J.A. 19:50, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Since there is really alot of debate about the validity of the Bible, how do we approach the articles. Are we to approach them from an assumption that since we are talking about articles of faith that any background being supplied is assumed true for the purposes of the article? For instance if using the Ressurection as a background point, do we just say that?Coffeeboy 20:12, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

I recommend that members of the project agree to use the same version of the Bible for consistancy. Coffeeboy 20:35, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

:If we do go with a common translation, then I recommend the English Standard Version.  Image:Flag_of_Iceland.svg Guðsþegn – UTCE – 20:34, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

::Works for me. Coffeeboy 13:08, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

:::Me too. However, where the translations diverge we should really discuss why that is. - Ta bu shi da yu 16:30, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Please come help out @ mysticism / Talk:Mysticism. Another editor and I have been butting heads over some minor issues, and the article could really use some outside input. Please come lend a hand! Sam Spade 19:08, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

One area of the Christian world that is under represented on Wiki is that of World Missions. The fact that we are able to have these discussions is that at some time or other, somebody took the Great Comission seriously enough to go! Though, where we start on this subject is anyones guess.Paulrach 22:05, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

I've noticed that many of our members are quite inactive: might I suggest we take it upon ourselves to begin improving certain books in the bible? There are complete articles (such as Matthew 1) which are quite detailed, while others such as Matthew 25 are incomplete, and need tons of work. Should we take it upon ourselves to improve such matters? --Nomader^Talk 02:42, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

:I have tried to get some stuff done, but I don't see alot of activity in the Project. Coffeeboy 19:22, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

I'll try and get some done soon Cakinman 18:11, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

I recently started a new wiki over at wikicities which is on the subject of christianity. [http://christianity.wikicities.com/ Christianity Knowledge Base] is the site.

The goal is to have a knowledgebase on christianity from a distinctly "C(hristian)POV" rather than the NPOV. This would go far beyond what is allowed on Wikipedia. Unfortunately, for example, there is a limit to how honorably and magnificently the Lord can be represented at WP.

Christianity Knowledge Base is not meant to be a mere Christian Encyclopedia, but to foster a real sense of community. I'd like to include things like current events, news, stories, and anything that would add to both an understanding of Christianity, but also its enjoyment. I'm looking for help to build a resource that could really enrich the lives of Christians.

I know you are busy but I am actively seeking new sysops/admins to help me build this site up, and I would be positively thrilled if you could contribute in any capacity whatsoever. nsandwich 05:51, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to suggest that anyone familiar with International Churches of Christ take a look at the article. The church is somewhat controversial and has some very harsh critics and the church itself seems to be a bit of shameless self-promoter. So there are competing strong viewpoints from both sides. The article is a real mess - much irrelevant information, disjointed history section, very non-NPOV statement, few references, and plenty of new anonymous editors trying to insert their point of view. If anyone is willing to wade into the mess, it could really use the assistance of an experienced and/or knowledgable editor. Thanks. Deli nk 14:21, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Can someone help review this article? -- Zanimum 13:44, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

I Just read the article and I don't know where to start cleaning up! Looks like the article was written by the church member and very brochure-ish. Unless someone write a NPOV of NTCC, I suggest we just delete it.Atticuslai 08:48, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Ive started a discussion at Wikipedia:WikiProject Bible#Content forking and the Bible about whether having articles about John 20, Matthew 27, Luke 23, and Mark 15, as well as articles about the Passion and the Death of Jesus, constitutes content forking, or is otherwise a bad idea.

I was hoping some people might join the discussion there and tell me whether you agree with my stance or not. Clinkophonist 13:55, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

A while ago, the WikiProject Saints set up an infobox template. The last part of that template included a space for a sample prayer.

Recently, there has been some commentary on the talk page about the inclusion of prayers on the articles about the Saints. Two editors in particular, Attilios and Ian Spackman, have been editing the articles pretty heavily. I think they both have an agenda and are pursuing it despite the consensus of the Wikiproject.

It is my belief that prayers in a literary or historic context are NPOV. I can understand that some may consider the inclusion of a prayer to be hagiographic, but freedom of religion is not freedom from religion.

There is a 3RR about to happen on a number of these articles. I am trying to be philosophical about this, but don’t want to yield the point when what is happening goes against the consensus and borders on vandalism. One editor is an Italian atheist who uses very poor English, didn't understand what are NPOV was and left nasty notes in the edit summaries and in the articles themselves.

• "WIKIPEDIA IS NOT THE PLACE FOR PRAYERS. GO IN THE CHURCHES TO LOSE YOUR TIME IF YOU HAVE” [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Saint_Peter&diff=50499008&oldid=49832963]
• There was an edit was on Philip Neri that accused the U.S. miltary of torture. [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Philip_Neri&diff=prev&oldid=50315963]
• One editor said he was editing [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Saints&diff=50569540&oldid=50550022 drunk].

This on the heals of the edit war on John Bosco and homosexuality. How do we reign this in before it gets out control?

Thanks!

--evrik 14:58, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

If anyone wants to weigh in on the discussion as to whether a section on Passover in the Christian tradition should be included in Passover may want to check out that article's talk page. Fishhead64 15:42, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Sorry to bother you with this remote subject, but I wasn't able to find a more specific WikiProject. The article Local churches quite clearly is neither honorable nor magnificent. Neither adherents nor critics seem to have anyone available who can write encyclopedic style. Any bold editor available, who has verfiable information and will replace the current article with a short but reasonable one? --Pjacobi 18:38, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

== Christianity Wikia ==

A follow up on Nsandwich's message above about the [http://christianity.wikicities.com/ Christianity Knowledge Base] at Wikia. The site has recently gone through a fork, and so is undergoing some changes. If there are any wiki editors interested in getting involved with a wiki from a Christian point of view, this is a great time to join. It's hosted by Wikia, the company set up by Jimbo Wales and Angela so it's another good place to contribute. Anyone who would like to join is welcome. -- sannse (talk) 18:56, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Someone seems to have added details about one Ray Comfort, and a Way of the Master group, highly prominently into the Open-air preaching article (which I have removed). I severely doubt that these are so prominent in Christianity, and I suspect someone is spamming wikipedia articles to make them appear more significant. Could someone take a look? Clinkophonist 17:24, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

:Um, I put it there, and I didn't think it was linkspamming. If it was, I would've rathered you came to me directly. I figured that he was becoming much more prominent in the field of OA and street evangelism recently, because of Kirk Cameron and WOTM. What specifically did you find wrong with it? MessengerAtLWU (talk | contribs) 04:07, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

:Well there is only one picture in that article, it looked to me like it was just being used as an example. Homestarmy 14:02, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

I don't understand how User:Jedi Hibbler's truncation of this project was an improvement and so I have reverted to the version prior to his edits.

--Richard 19:33, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

This article has a section, religious themes, that needs the attention of someone with more than average familiarity with Christian concepts in art. The page editors have consensus that the section belongs, but we also agree that it's underdeveloped, and none of us really feels confident about improving it. If anyone could help, it would be appreciated, even if you just drop a citation link into Talk. --Dhartung | Talk 21:23, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

I've been conceptualizing a Scripture Database website for several years now. I've finally gotten around to publishing a [http://zepfanman.com/scripturedb rough draft] of the site online. It is wiki-based and would make a good compliment to Wikipedia scripture pages. Please use my dedicated talk page to discuss. --J. J. 19:35, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

A new WikiProject focussing on Anglicanism and the Anglican Communion has just been initiated: WikiProject Anglicanism. Our goal is to improve and expand Anglican-reltaed articles. If anyone (Anglican or non-Anglican) is interested, read over the project page and consider signing up. Cheers! Fishhead64 06:15, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

"Categorized as a Christian Film debate"

I would very much deny that this could be called a "Christian film". What do others think. The fact that an author of a work believes something to be the case doesn't actually make it so. :: Kevinalewis : ^{(Talk Page)}/_(Desk) 11:05, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

:I would say that if the author claims it as a Christian film, then there is a good reason to let it be categorized that way. If any Christian groups (say, anything on the List of Christian denominations) do, it should certainly be in the category. Not everyone has the same idea of what is Christian or not. Let the article deal with what the theology of the film is, and why or why not certain groups might see it as Christian. If the category is going to be any good at all, it should lean towards the inclusive side. Sxeptomaniac 22:15, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Anyone want to take this on? Su-Laine Yeo 16:45, 7 July 2006 (UTC) - I've taken a stab at it. Su-Laine Yeo 03:55, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

There is no article on bible study. Bible study is just a disambig page, and the closest thing is Devotion (Christian). I have suggested moving that page to Bible study (Christianity) and then overhauling the article. Is this a good idea? Would any members of this project be interested in contributing to a bible study article? Thank you for your consideration.--Andrew c 01:15, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

:OK the move has been done to Bible study (Christian). I welcome and encourage contributors to this project to help expand this article. Good luck, and thanks!--Andrew c 13:59, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Hello! We at the Work via WikiProjects team for Wikipedia 1.0 would like you to identify the "key articles" from your project that should be included in a small CD release due to their importance, regardless of quality. We will use that information to assess which articles should be nominated for Version 0.5 and later versions. Hopefully it will help you identify which articles are the most important for the project to work on. As well, please add to the Christianity WikiProject article table any articles of high quality. If you are interested in developing a worklist such as this one for your WikiProject, or having a bot generate a worklist automatically for you, please contact us. Please feel free to post your suggestions right here. Thanks! Walkerma 06:08, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Do you think that at Wikipedia we should run a poll, about bible versions, and find out which version people would most like references to and only use that? Or use many references to many different Bibles throughout our articles? BrentonEccles 07:44, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

:Many to many. There are more complete resources at wikisource and sites like [http://wikible.org/en/Genesis_1:1 Wikible.org], not to mention [http://biblegateway.com BibleGateway.com]. Plus, we'd never agree "which version people would most like"! See also Wikipedia:Bible_verses. --J. J. 03:59, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

If someone knows much about Roman Catholic canon law, Patronage#Canon law is a cut-and-paste from the 1911 Catholic Encyclopedia at its over-erudite worst. Legal, because that's now public domain, but could someone with a clue about the topic please attempt to clean this up into something more our style? Thanks. - Jmabel | Talk 06:37, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Needs a lot of work. Arch O. La ^{Grigory Deepdelver} 16:23, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Please offer your opinion, vote, or whatever about your choice for the image to be used with the Islamic Barnstar Award at the Barnstar proposals page. Although there is consensus for the concept of an Islamic Barnstar Award, some editors would like to change the image for the award. I was just thinking you should be aware of this discussion because you have contributed to Islamic-related articles, received the Islamic Barnstar Award, or have contributed to the Islam-related Wikiprojects, etc.--JuanMuslim ^1m 17:14, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

You can now add the selected Bible chapter from Portal:Bible to your user page using {{Portal:Bible/Featured chapter/Template}}. Enjoy! BigDT 17:29, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

:This is great, adding to my user page tonight. Thanks to all who made this. --WillMak050389 02:29, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

I think the article on A Course in Miracles would benefit from more editors with knowledge of Christianity. Plese feel free to help out. Not a dog 13:20, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Is there a template for putting bible quotes onto pages? (Or a starndard way of presenting them?)

Sorry if this should be under Wikipedia:WikiProject Bible?

Zabdiel 20:34, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

:There is a template for citing the Bible reference called {{tl|Bibleverse}}. See the template talk page and Wikipedia:Citing sources/Bible for lengthy discussions. This template doesn't actually print the verse - it just provides a clickable link that a user can click on. For example, you might have this text in an article:

:The book of Genesis says that God made man in His image. {{bibleverse||Genesis|1:26}} (generated from {{bibleverse||Genesis|1:26}})

:Optionally, you can cite a particular version:

:The book of Genesis says that God made man in His image. {{bibleverse||Genesis|1:26|KJV}} (generated from {{bibleverse||Genesis|1:26|KJV}})

:Again, this just provides the citation - it doesn't transclude the verse. As far as I know, no such thing exists, nor, for practical reasons, could it. BigDT 01:37, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Im cleaning up Disciple (disambiguation) links and many times I stumble upon references to "Discipleship". For example Chronological Bible Storying. It goes on to say "For this reason CBS is often used for evangelization, discipleship, and church planting." As I said, several article reference "discipleship" in same context and I feel dictionary definition at the disambiguation page ("A disciple is a follower and learner of a mentor or other wise figure.") is not enough to explain this fenomenon in modern christianity. Could someone from here create an article on Discipleship because I dont know exactly what they are talking about. Also, if you think that this word might be better replaced with some other I could do that. And if possible something little more than "Discipleship is a process in which one person is taught christian principles and doctrines by the exampleship and teaching of another. See disciple." which is way too small for an article. (This is from Discipleship history). Thanks. Shinhan 21:28, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Should all bishops be accorded an entry in Wikipedia? I think they are the equivalent of a governor or congressman, and they are all considered notable, even they just get a stub entry. What do you think? --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 03:32, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

• Talk:Roman Catholic Church - should the article's name be changed to simply "Catholic Church". This debate has been going on for months now, and a vote/comment is underway. There are policy/guideline issues, and disambiguity and POV issues on both sides. Please, if you have the time, take a few minutes to review the past discussions and weigh in. Thanks for your consideration.--Andrew c 16:17, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

:There are other (small, schismatic) Catholic groups, such as Old Catholics and the Polish National Catholic Church, as well asConclavists such as the true Catholic Church and the Palmarian Catholic Church, that are out of communion with Rome. Therefore, I say nay. Arch O. La ^{Grigory Deepdelver} 06:33, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Check out Christianity_Personal_Award --JuanMuslim ^1m 23:46, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

So far as I can determine, there are at least six archived pages of talk relating to the proper name of the page for the Catholic Church headed by the Pope. It is hard to imagine that this so-far endless discussion has not resulted in bad feelings on all sides. Regretably, no final resolution seems to be likely anytime soon if the same tactics are taken.

I would like to make a proposal which I believe might finally solve the core dispute which has led to this argument. I also note that I myself am in no way qualified to seek to "impose" this possibility on anyone, and am thus requesting that the majority of the rest of you involved in this discussion at least consider lending your support to this way of very likely resolving the current discussion.

As most of you will know, there is currently an election to the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees ongoing. My proposal is that, come the end of this election, a special referendum regarding the name debate be held. Any and all editors who have taken part in the election, but only those individuals, would be eligible to vote to determine how this matter would be decided, including all those who claim no allegiance to any of the opposing sides. The decision reached would not be "final" in any real sense, but would resolve the question which has led to the current debate until some development which alters the current status quo takes place. Exactly how to determine what such developments would qualify could also be one of the issues involved in the vote.

I ask each of you to thoughtfully and, according to your own inclinations, prayerfully consider this proposal, and, if it is one agreeable to you, to help me in finding out exactly how to go about making this happen. (Hey, I'm kinda new here, OK?) Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 21:36, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure how many of you might have noticed, but we currently have the Christianity project here, as well as specific projects for Anglicanism, Catholicism, Charismatic Christianity, Church of the Nazarene, Dictionary of the Catholic Resistance, Eastern Orthodoxy, Jehovah's Witnesses, Jesus, Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), Saints, Seventh-day Adventist Church, and Syriac Christianity, all of which are universally regarded as being Christian. We also have a project for the Latter Day Saint movement. Please see :Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory/Culture#Philosophy and religion for the list. There has also recently been proposed a project on the organization Islesia ni Cristo. Instead of creating new projects to address each individual denomination within Christianity, would any of you be interested in perhaps creating task forces or work groups within WikiProject Christianity to address matters related to a specific denomination? It would end the multiplication of project banners on certain articles, possibly curtail edit wars and probably help more articles improve more quickly.

Any thoughts? Badbilltucker 14:43, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

The Biblical literalism article needs a lot of work, so I am asking editors of this project if they wouldn't mind contributing. I have butt heads with another editor and feel the page needs a number of fresh perspectives (my personal belief is that this article should be merged with biblical inerrancy, but that proposal was unsucessful). The article has sourcing issues, NPOV issues, unsubstaniated claims, and is written not exactly in encyclopedic prose (among other things). Any help on this article would be appreciated. Thanks for your consideration.--Andrew c 15:33, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

An interesting debate going on at Talk:Anti-Mormon which people might like to look in on. DJ Clayworth 01:37, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

In the article, Biblical literalism invented terms are being passed as established doctrine with no basis in scholarly refference (or any refference really). This article is being used as prooftext for other articles so it's kinda screwing up discussions on what really are differing doctrines.. I could use a little help from seasoned wikipedians who have some sweet skills. Thanks. Peace. --DjSamwise 01:15, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

:Give me a few days and I'll see what I can do. --Joe Sewell 16:39, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

I stumbled on to this article this evening. It could use a bit of work. It's a good start, but doesn't represent positions outside of classic Calvinism too well. --CTSWyneken^(talk) 00:36, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Please check out this AFD discussion and express your opinion if you have one. Thanx. --Richard 07:12, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Need some help here coming to a logical consensus on the article devoted to the Bible. --Home Computer 18:28, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

I have created a new merger template, per the request, to replace both the Christianity and Christian Theology templates. I would appreciate your comments. Please place comments on the template discussion page, so others can read them. Thanks.    GUÐSÞEGN   – UTEX – 05:27, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

End times is up for a featured article review. Detailed concerns may be found here. Please leave your comments and help us address and maintain this article's featured quality. Sandy (Talk) 16:23, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

I keep coming across pages that are written from the perspective of a single denomination or tradition. An example is altar candle, which is essentially a somewhat tidied version of the Catholic Encyclopedia article. Altar candles are of course used by many different groups.

We need a template to tag and categorize these articles, similar to {{globalize}}. Unlike the latter I think we can live with one template which says something like

::This article or section needs to be expanded to reflect other Christian traditions.

or maybe

::This article or section seems to be written from a (parameter) perspective, and needs to be expanded to reflect other Christian traditions.

It would put those articles into a single category, say, "Category:Articles needing expansion for multiple Christian traditions" (which I agree is a lousy name-- please someone come up with something more succinct!).

Discussion? Mangoe 13:43, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Hi everyone. I've taken the Revised Standard Version to Featured article review, which means it may lose Featured status if it is not brought up to standard. It can be found here. There's a lot of work to be done on it, but I'm hoping there will be interested editors. Marskell 11:23, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

I came across [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALinksearch&target=*.religioustolerance.org over 700 links] to this organization, Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance. The site has a ton of ads but on the other hand, it has content (and a Wikipedia article).

Normally, such an ad-intensive site with so many links gets attention at WikiProject Spam for further investigation. Even if it's not spam, many links may often get deleted as not meeting the external links guideline. I've left a note at WikiProject Spam asking others to look at some of these and see what they think.

Even some non-profit organizations will add dozens of links to Wikipedia since links in Wikipedia are heavily weighted in Google's page ranking systems. (If interested, see the article on Spamdexing for more on this).

You can see all the links by going to this [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALinksearch&target=*.religioustolerance.org this "Search web links"] page. I encourage you to look at Wikipedia's external links guideline then look at the links in the articles you normally watch. Also, if you don't mind, please also weigh in at WikiProject Spam with your opinions. If you see links to pages that you don't think add additional value beyond the content already in an article, feel free to delete them, but please don't go mindlessly deleting dozens of links. (Per WP:EL, links that don't add additional value should be deleted but that doesn't necessarily mean they're "spam").

Thanks for your help and for providing some second opinions. --A. B. 17:00, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

There is currently a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template_talk:Christianity#VOTING_on_aspects_of_this_template vote getting underway] regarding some aspects of the template. You are invited to weigh in.    GUÐSÞEGN   – UTEX – 17:01, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Mentioning it here because it'll get read more than the category talk page... This category is currently abit confusing about what it's intended purpose is. It currently seems to cover, among other things, types of local congregations, organizations of such within denominations, some denominations, and groupings of denomations. It also includes some titles of religious leaders, and a few religious movements. It also doesn't include many things one might expect (e.g. :Category:Christian denominations). I'm not sure what a good scope for it is, or a good way to divide it, but regardless it should be clearer in intended purpose and application. Mairi 02:31, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

The Spanish Translation of the Week project is translating an article on threshing-boards (the Spanish version of which is a featured article) into English. You are all invited to read and revise the section dealing with threshing boards in the Bible (or any other section). The section has been translated into English, but the English is rather confusing. The translation process has probably introduced errors that will be obvious to people familiar with the Bible. Your assistance will be very much appreciated. It's actually a very interesting article, despite the unusual topic.Fagles 23:52, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Please see the message I, and another contributor, have left on the Conversion to Christianity talk page, which needs cleanup. Thanks! Bhaveer 20:05, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

I have put a proposed merger on this into Ecumenism. They are not the same of course but Wikipedia is not a dictionary and I am not sure that Interdenominationalism really exists as a phenomenon, and some of it is probably better merged than deleted? Very happy to hear other views on this --BozMo talk 10:40, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

The current organization there is abit muddled, and needs some discussing how to deal with. A general proposal for cleaning it up is posted at Category talk:Religious leaders#Organization proposal, and more input would be great. It doesn't address the issue of Religious leaders/religious workers/religious figures, but that is another issue that exists. Badbilltucker 21:59, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Would someone else like to take a look at recent edits by User:NovumTestamentum? He has added to Hyles-Anderson College, Eucharist, and Independent Baptist ([http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hyles-Anderson_College&diff=prev&oldid=93599763] [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Eucharist&diff=prev&oldid=93599466] [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Independent_Baptist&diff=prev&oldid=93597758]) a theological viewpoint claiming that communion/Eucharist is a sexual act and that when a man and wife engage in sex, she is "receiving Christ". WP:NPOV#Undue weight says that an extreme minority viewpoint should not be given undue weight. Does anyone other than this single nutjob minister teach these views? If not, they should not be included anywhere other than Jack Schaap - the person who allegedly advocates these views. I have already removed these edits once, but User:NovumTestamentum has added them back. Could someone else look at this dispute with another pair of eyes? Thanks. BigDT 16:46, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

::wasn't trying to have a revert war, just thought that someone was ashamed of what Jack Schaap teaches and was trying to hide it. I find this doctrine heretical and repugnant and wanted him accountable. I realize now from what BigDT said that this is not encyclopediac (sp?) in content for everywhere.

Indeed. This is certainly outside the mainstream of IFB opinion. --Midnite Critic 21:07, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Shakers has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are Wikipedia:Featured_article_review/{{#if:{{{2.

Sandy (Talk) 18:53, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Someone please give some attention to the Immanuel article. It is very badly written, with a whole off-topic subject debating the appearance of the term virgin in Isaiah. Someone with a good sense of the academics of this as well as writing in NPOV please fix this. I don't want it to become biased, as that would only cause great controversy, but I believe the term Immanuel is mainly Messianic, therefore a Christian concept. Someone please take this article at hand and give it the cleanup it deserves. Garnet avi 09:52, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

I did a major re-write on this stub page, hoping to clean it up and make it accessible to non-specialists. There was also a great deal of redundant info on the page, which I tried to write out and point people to the info in other articles. Check it out, make improvements, have a blast. Pastordavid 23:02, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

The statement of purpose for this Wikiproject reads:

The goal of WikiProject Christianity is to improve the quality and quantity of information about Christianity available on Wikipedia. WP Christianity as a group does not prefer any particular tradition or denominination of Christianity, but prefers that all major contemporary Christian traditions are fairly and accurately represented. Moreover, WP Christianity desires that the Lord Jesus Christ is represented honorably and magnificently.

This statement seems problematic to me. It expresses that the group does not discriminate in its efforts between different traditions or denominations within Christianity, but it does not state that the group will not discriminate in favor of Christianity in general. Indeed, the final sentence betrays a creedal POV in favor of representing Jesus in a certain light. And if someone does not recognize Jesus as Lord, are they not welcome to join Wikiproject Christianity? The final sentence certainly implies this quite strongly.

Finally, why limit yourselves to major contemporary Christian traditions? Do minority traditions, or historical but extinct traditions not deserve to be fairly and accurately represented, and to have the quality and quantity of their information improved? Nick Graves 15:06, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

:I stronly agree. But for one, most (if not all) Christian religions believe Jesus is still alive in spirit, and (in my view) should be put under the same treatment of WP:LIVING. I see in the statement how it prefers "major contemporary" religions. Goal 11 of the project is that minor, non-mainstream Christian religions such as Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormonism and Iglesia ni Cristo to name a few should have more particular care that most others, because those subjects are (wrongfully) targeted to being called a cult/sect, etc. I suggest changing the statement to the following:

{{quote|The goal of WikiProject Christianity is to improve the quality and quantity of information about Christianity available on Wikipedia. WP Christianity as a group does not prefer any particular tradition or denominination of Christianity, but prefers that all Christian beliefs and traditions are fairly and accurately represented.}} --LBMixPro ^<SpeUser talk:Lbmixpro^oUser talk:Lbmixpro 19:12, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

First of all, I'd just like to notify people that this issue has come up at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)‎ under the section regarding NPOV issues and Wikiprojects. Second of all, I have to strongly agree with Nick. The stated purpose of the Wikiproject does violate Wikipedia NPOV issues and needs to be changed. It currently is exclusive as it implies that those who are not Christians are not welcome to participate. Finally, in reply to Lbmixpro; Wikipedia is objective and therefore typically takes on things in a secular manner. My point is that WP:Living can't be applied to Jesus because it would constitute an endorsement of Christianity over other religions, in fact I assume many Christians would disagree with it as well. --The Way 10:07, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

::Maybe it's just me, but I'm not coming across any such large scale (systematic or systemic would certainly be the wrong word here) problem. I find articles here and there which are problematic; for instance, for a long time the article on episcopal polity was written entirely from a Roman Catholic view. But these are best treated as the come along, because they are going to have to be so treated no matter what highfalutin principles we put out there. Trying to write those principles is just something time wasting to fight over, and then something to waste more time over when the wikilawyers try to invoke them as a basis.

::I struck the last line already because it is obviously unwelcome in an encyclopedia. Mangoe 11:50, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

:::What a coincidence. I just stumbled across someone's userpage which had the bit about 'portraying Jesus honourably and magnificently', and decided to come here to complain only to find that it has recently been brought up by others, as well!

:::Does WikiProject Christianity encourage a biased POV, then? Because if its statement of purpose assumes that Jesus is the Christ (which hence rules out non-Christian contributors), it certainly doesn't seem to be. And, more worrying, is the desire to portrary Jesus in a certain way ('magnificently'). This seems to be encouraging a type of bias: Jesus should be portrayed neutrally, not 'magnificently'. I couldn't, surely, start a 'WikiProject Hitler' to ensure that Hitler is portrayed 'magnificently', could I? So explain the difference. The Crying Orc 06:24, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

:::Just read the above discussion properly. Applying WP:LIVING to Jesus is one of the silliest things I have heard. It requires an institutional endorsement of Christian beliefs...or else every religion (or other similar type of belief) can surely claim WP:LIVING to 'protect' its idols from the truth, which would then severely compromise the quality of religious articles. No, all religious articles should be written in NPOV with reliable, verifiable references: it's that simple, I think. The Crying Orc 06:28, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

::::What it means is that someone took it upon themselves to stick the line in. It's gone now and that could be the end of it. Mangoe 11:38, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

:::::Thou. Shalt. Not. Lie. The Crying Orc 12:55, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

::::::I believe it actually says "You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor." Mangoe 13:44, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

I changed the goal statement to ...

The goal of WikiProject Christianity is to improve the quality and quantity of information about Christianity available on Wikipedia. WP Christianity as a group does not prefer any particular tradition or denominination of Christianity, but prefers that all Christian traditions are fairly and accurately represented, without minor or defunct traditions being given undue weight in general topic articles.

:*I changed it back. The word "fairly" could be seen to include the proportionality I was talking about.    GUÐSÞEGN   – UTEX – 04:08, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

A vandal who has damaged Wikipedia's Catholicism, Christianity, cross-dressing, and homosexuality articles for over two years has been identified and community banned. This person will probably attempt to continue disruption on sockpuppet accounts. Please be alert for suspicious activity. Due to the complexity of this unusual case, the best place to report additional suspicious activity is probably to my user talk page because I was the primary investigating administrator. Durova^Charge! 16:56, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

I have noted that this project does not yet engage in assessment. I am a member of WikiProject Religion, which does engage in assessments. I was wondering if this project would have any objections to the Religion project setting up its banner in a way similar to WikiProject Australia, WikiProject Military history, and others, which have the "parent" banner on top with the assessment criteria and a section below indicating which particular projects have specific interest in the article. I could set up the Religion banner in a way to accomplish this. However, given the complexity involved, I would not want to do so and have things changed back later. Please inform me if this arrangement would be to your satisfaction or not, so I can know how to proceed. Thank you. Badbilltucker 14:56, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

:I tried to add assessment criteria to the project banner, and somehow it isn't working right. I have no idea why. Maybe someone else can give it a shot. Badbilltucker 23:16, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Please feel free to edit, correct, etc. articles related to :Category:Roman Catholicism in Norway. I'm writing them rather slowly, and since I'm not all that familiar with Catholic terminology, I'm sure the articles could benefit from help. --Leifern 19:04, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 18:22, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

I am not a member of this project, but I would like to bring your attention to the article entitled Christian views on witchcraft. I came across it at random a few weeks ago, and found it in serious need of improvement. It was horribly POV in a number of places, and it completely lacked citations from secondary sources. In fact, it was almost deleted a week ago on the grounds that it was original research. There was no consensus reached on the afd, but the editor warned that the issue would likely come up again soon if the article wasn't fixed. I've done what I can to improve the article in a number of ways, but I lack the knowledge and references to go much further with it at this point. And, it doesn't appear that anyone else is actively working on it at this point. So, if anyone would like to help out, please do. Nimrand 04:54, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

:Is there some process for officially adding an article to WikiProject Christianity? Can I just add the ChristianityWikiProject tag to the discussion page? Is it OK to add the article to the list of articles needing cleanup on the WikiProject Christianity page?Nimrand 18:29, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

I am not a member of this project, but I would like to bring your attention to the article entitled Christian views on witchcraft. I came across it at random a few weeks ago, and found it in serious need of improvement. It was horribly POV in a number of places, and it completely lacked citations from secondary sources. In fact, it was almost deleted a week ago on the grounds that it was original research. There was no consensus reached on the afd, but the editor warned that the issue would likely come up again soon if the article wasn't fixed. I've done what I can to improve the article in a number of ways, but I lack the knowledge and references to go much further with it at this point. And, it doesn't appear that anyone else is actively working on it at this point. So, if anyone would like to help out, please do. Nimrand 04:54, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

:Is there some process for officially adding an article to WikiProject Christianity? Can I just add the ChristianityWikiProject tag to the discussion page? Is it OK to add the article to the list of articles needing cleanup on the WikiProject Christianity page?Nimrand 18:29, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

The group indicated above was recently revitalized for, among other things, the purpose of working on those articles whose content is such that the article does not fall within the scope of any particular denomination. To most effectively do this, however, we would benefit greatly if there were at least one member from this Project working on those articles. On that basis, I would encourage and welcome any member of this Project willing to work on those articles to join the Religion WikiProject. Thank you. Badbilltucker 22:42, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

I have seen comments elsewhere that this project is perhaps dormant. In fact, there is one such comment shortly above on this page. If that is true, perhaps here are a few suggestions to perhaps revitalize it. There are a large number of other projects whose scope contains a fraction of this projects' scope, such as Catholicism, Anglicanism, Charismatic Christianity, Church of the Nazarene, Eastern Orthodox, Syrian Orthodox, and so on. Many of the adherents of this project may have even left it to focus more narrowly on articles directly relating to their own faiths. There's nothing that can really be done about that, except perhaps to focus a bit more narrowly on articles which do not fall within the scope of any of these other projects. Also, I think that many of these other projects may be successes, to the degree they are, because their members have a stronger tie to that subject, specifically, that the project clearly reflects their own personal beliefs. This project, by its nature, cannot take such denominational positions. On that basis, I think maybe it might help to try to create task forces or work groups, like the Military History and Biography projects have already done, for those denominations which do not currently have groups focused on content related to their individual denominations. I'm thinking specifically about the Baptists, Lutherans, and Methodists, among others. Maybe a specific task force on the Reformation itself might be possible. If there were focused groups, even groups within this larger project, whose concentration was on articles related to those specific denominations, that might work. Personally, I think that it is all but imperative that something like this be done, because many of the existing smaller projects may eventually die out, leaving those articles without any sort of supervision. If anyone would have any interest in seeing such subprojects created, please let me know and I'll see what I can do. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 14:18, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

I recently found that our article on Jesus is the first page that appears when anyone does a Google search of the subject. It is currently, regrettably, only at GA status. On that basis, I would request any individuals who might be interested in helping to bring this article up to FA status to indicate their support for the article being chosen as the AID article at Wikipedia:Article Creation and Improvement Drive#Jesus. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 17:59, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

:I whole-heartedly agree. Scifiintel 18:35, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

I hope this project is alive, since I don't see any ongoing discussion. I would like to request for infoboxes to be created. 1. Diocese 2. Archbishop etc. Thanks, =Nichalp «Talk»= 15:07, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

:I guess my first question is, infoboxes for what again? If we're talking about Catholic dioceses, etc., I would think that Wikipedia:WikiProject Catholicism would be the group to contact. If some other Christian denomination, who doesn't already have a project and separate infoboxes, this might be the right one. Which denominations in particular are we talking about infoboxes for? Badbilltucker 17:41, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

:Thanks. Needed it for Catholic dioceses. Regards, =Nichalp «Talk»= 11:13, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

There is now a new proposed project at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals#Oriental Orthodoxy for a group which would focus on articles relating to the Oriental Orthodox Church. Any individuals interested in working with such a group should indicate as much there, to allow us to know if there is enough support to actually begin such a project. Thank you. Badbilltucker 14:22, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Several articles have been tagged as requiring expert attention from experts in Christianity. These articles are in the :Category:Pages needing expert attention from Christianity experts. Any such assistance in improving these articles would be greatly appreciated. Thank you. Badbilltucker 02:00, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Does this project have a COTM? If not maybe it would be good to have one. God bless whoever reads this. --Sir James Paul, La gloria è a dio 23:03, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

I just wanted to bring WikiProject Christianity members' attention to a new article called Image of Muhammad in the West, as this article deals primarily with Christians' views of Muhammad through history (in a way that is analogous to Islamic view of Jesus, which happens to be within the scope of WikiProject Islam). The article at present is heavily biased toward Muslim opinions on this issue, and I think it could benefit from the inclusion of more diverse views, for the sake of neutrality and more complete coverage. I ask members to please take a look at the article and see if they can improve it with more diverse sources. Thank you. Nick Graves 03:34, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

I concur with you on this matter as I have read the article and posted a complaint on the Talk page about the pure bias of this article. Later, I may fix it so that it will be a true image of Muhammad in the West.

Captain panda Mussolini ha sempre tarche Quis ut Dues 03:52, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Please wiki-link the first occurance of potentially unclear terms such as evangelicalism (as opposed to evangelism), dominionism, Christian fundamentalism (as opposed to fundamental and fundamentalism generally), and born again when writing or editing articles. Remember that those reading the articles may not be as familiar with certain specialized terminology as you are. --Tim4christ17 ^talk 02:52, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

There is currently a discussion about what the proper name of the above article should be on its talk page. Any interested parties are welcome to express their opinions. Thank you. Badbilltucker 19:51, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps a hoax, comment at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Christian Essenes

There are alot of references to scripture throughout wikipedia and more than one version of the Bible at wikisource. I think it would be a good idea if we could link these references there. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Elatanatari (talk • contribs) 23:51, Jul 7, 2006 (UTC).

I added this to the project (surprised it isn't already). At the moment it appears to have a very Jewish Bias (although Jewish and Christian history do overlap), I think it needs adding to from a Christian perspective.

I noticed a lot of interest in promoting christianity, in addition to documenting it. Do you think it would make sense to add a link to the project on wikia at http://christianity.wikia.com?

Thanks

Penchina

There is now currently a proposed project or work group for articles relating to Lutheranism at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals#Lutheranism. Any individuals who would be interested should add their names there so that we can know if there is enough interest to actually start such a group. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 16:56, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm just curious, why did the Jesus WikiProject get scrapped? Scifiintel 03:59, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

:Honestly, I'm not at all sure, as I think that it happened before I was paying attention to the religion articles. That is unfortunate, I think, because I believe that he, among several other religious leaders, like Martin Luther, Mohammed, and others who came out of one religious tradition to found another, would likely benefit from being seen from "all sides", as it were. I know that the WikiProject Biography is considering setting up a work group dealing with religious figures, and it might be possible that WikiProject Religion might be willing to do so as well. As there does seem to me to be a call for such a focused group, I am now proposing it at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals#Religious leaders. Any interested parties should indicate their opinions there. Badbilltucker 14:58, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

::I agree and will post likewise. Scifiintel 23:07, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

There is currently a proposed project at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals#Iglesia ni Cristo for a project on that church. It has five members, which is sufficient for a work group, but perhaps not enough for a separate project. I was wondering if this project would be willing to take on that group as a work group or task force of itself. It would use perhaps the same banner (with a modification or two) and perhaps other templates, but otherwise be any entirely separate group. Would this be acceptable to the membership here? Badbilltucker 01:08, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

:I would add it as either a subproject or task force (which in essence are the same). Before I was thinking of converting it into a task force for non-mainstream Christianity, but the other major ones (mormonism and Jehovah's Witnesses) both have seprate operational WikiProjects. The problem with coverage with INC are that members are either prohibited or strongly encouraged from writing information about the church online, and most who write on the Internet about it are very activistic in how they present their church, so the article and related ones can easily slip into POV in either direction. I'd really like to see what you can make of this WikiProject. --w^{L<speak·check·chill>} 17:38, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Believe it or not, rather then linking here or to a separate article about the participants of the Crusades, this un-ambiguated titled actually goes to an article about a Rugby team. Now unfortunately this means that many of the 200+ links that are actually meant to go to the Crusades article are linking there. Now there is a page move request to move the Rugby team article to one that actually makes a link of sense and to have the Crusaders redirect here but assuming that doesn't go through, it might be helpful to have some folks take a look at these misdirected links so we can get them pointing to a more appropriate article. 205.157.110.11 15:13, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Can someone please have a look at the kiss of Judas? I made some edits to improve it, but as the article stands now, it seems pretty questionable whether it should have its own article. − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 11:14, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

There seems to be some bizarre edit warring going on on this article, which I've been mostly unsuccessful at putting an end to, so some more eyes would be nice. It appears to be between people who support and oppose the person, who is a pastor at some church in Los Angeles. However, both sides are trying to insert hugely non-neutral, unsourced information into the article, and keep reverting my attempts to at least place NPOV and unreferenced tags at the top. --Delirium 01:01, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Someone has recently a section on Martin Luther and witchcraft to the above page. The content was later removed by another editor, and reinserted by the content's creator. The disagreement seems to be about whether the content is "extraneous" to the article. There is now a discussion on the article's talk page regarding the subject, Any comments regarding the inclusion of this material in this article, and how much article space to give it, would be more than welcome. John Carter 18:19, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

There is no Category specific to any type of theology. I am assuming most Christian theology books are placed under Christian studies books, whihc is a sub-cat of Religious studies books. However, it appears to me (not an expert on theology) that is not always appropriate. Please let me know if I am wrong. And if my thought is correct, that it is often different, or not that good a fit, would it be beneficial to Wikipedia to have a new category? I am thinking Christian theology books, as a sub-cat of Religious studies books, at the same level as Christian studies books. Again, not an expert here hence my request for input. Thanks in advance! KillerChihuahua^?!? 22:01, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

:Theology clearly distinct from "Christian studies" - what theology shd be sub-cat of I leave to more expert Wikipedians than I. NBeale 04:53, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Anybody home? Hello? Asking for input (again) here. KillerChihuahua^?!? 16:19, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

::This is a rather difficult question to answer, unfortunately. Generally, theology is seen as a subsection of philosophy, as the category is here. Also, there is no clear line of demarkation between general religious writings and theological writings. Thérèse de Lisieux's works are among those which are rather hard to define in this regard. Personally, because the definition of "theology" is rather hard to pin down, I would personally probably favor keeping the books in the larger "studies" categories, as they are less likely to create prolonged disagreements there. John Carter 16:35, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Some input from members of WikiProject Christianity is requested in regards to a peer review for the Jerusalem article:

{{Wikipedia:Peer review/Jerusalem/archive1}}

The fundermental difference between sientific and theological methods of understanding falls into different groups of study. I think evolution in regards to human change and adaptation is in a different catergory to theology.

Jerusalem is currently undergoing a featured article candidacy. The FAC page is transcluded below (feel free to remove it from this page if the FAC gets too long):

{{Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Jerusalem/archive1}}

An RFC has been filed to determine whether or not the position of the Jesus Seminar should be included in Lazarus and Dives. Your comments would be most welcome. --Joopercoopers 23:03, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

:Thanks. I'll check it out. Steve Dufour 14:07, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

The premise of this article seems to be a little weak. Pretty much anyone who grew up in a Christian environment and later joined some other religion or became an outspoken atheist or humanist gets put on the list. Most of them have no evidence of being personally Christian at any time in their lives. It amounts to a mixed group: anyone from Karl Marx to Tom Cruise to George Harrison. I have expressed some objections on the talk page and have removed a few names. Steve Dufour 01:18, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

:I have finished with the article. I still have problems with the whole concept which I expressed on the talk page. Steve Dufour 21:11, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Presuppositional apologetics has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are Wikipedia:Featured_article_review/{{#if:{{{2.

SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:56, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Commentaries on the Bible: Christian. Don't know what to do with that one so I'm passing it on here. — coelacan — 13:16, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Any assistance in expanding the mainstream Christianity article would be greatly appreciated. Vassyana 14:03, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

:Sorry to have to tell you this but I tagged it for deletion as Unencyclopedic. Steve Dufour 15:12, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

:I think it should stay (112,000 GHits!) but needs work NBeale 17:35, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

I think it is a nice article, just not for WP. Please see Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not a dictionary. Thanks. Steve Dufour 04:45, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

I pasted the entire text of the article, one paragraph, into Christianity. Steve Dufour 16:35, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

If I knew how to do this in the wikisource, I would simply go ahead and try it, but since I don't... I'm thinking it would be a nice idea to add the article's importance rating to the project template, in addition to the quality rating--like they have done with the WikiProject Catholicism template. Perhaps it might encourage more articles to have their importance perameter filled out. Anyone with better knowledge of how to do this want to try? Emerymat 05:28, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

:The banner already has the importance parameter included; it just isn't displayed in the banner itself. Check the :Category:Top-importance Christianity articles for evidence of this. The question as I see it is who would determine the importance of the articles? Some projects like Wikipedia:WikiProject Novels do it by consensus. My main project Wikipedia:WikiProject Saints, has one of our more generally informed members doing most of it. Which method would be tried here? John Carter 14:50, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps I should have been more clear. I knew that there was already the importance attribute, but I think it should be displayed (again, like the Catholicism and Anglican projects). The question of who determines is a good one, and not one I have an answer to. I would think that it would be like anything else on Wikipedia--someone makes an edit / assessment, and if it's disagreed with, then someone else changes it. It might be nice if someone who is "more knowledgable" went through and did a bunch of importance assessing (which I have just megerly begun myself), but perhaps not essential. I just think that currently with the importance not in the display, the vast majority of the articles in the project currently are unassessed as to their importance. It seems like it would be better to have some disagreements over the importance assessment, rather than to have so many articles with unknown importance. (Also, the so-called "worklist" page of the project sorts the articles within each quality assessment by the importance rank. Thus we would be aided in making sure that articles that are currently poor quality but of high importance are improved first.) Emerymat 01:01, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

This article shows a bias towards christianity and puts down other religions. This is refered to as a "religion" rather than "mythology" while the Greek religion, among several others, is referred to as "mythology." Why is this done? Christianity and the judeo-christian god are not any more probable than the Greek religion and Zeus, nor any of the other countless religions and infinite number of gods out there. This article isn't neutra. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Urlacher rules (talk • contribs) 20:28, 14 February 2007 (UTC).

:#This is not an article.

:#Christianity in this day in age is still being used as a way of living for some. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by WikiLeon (talk • contribs) 21:47, 14 February 2007 (UTC).

The Greek religion is still be used in this day and age as a way of living for some. Just a few weeks ago they were honoring Zeus and Hera at a ceremony in Greece at a temple built for him long, long, long ago. Here's the proof: http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/europe/01/21/ancient.gods.ap/

:What a silly trope. There are no serious thinkers who actively believe in the religions of Ancient Greece and Rome: significant numbers of the world's leading scholars are Christian. NBeale 04:51, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

::Not just silly, but badly uninformed. Greek mythology has long been a subject of study in Western society, as have Roman and Egyptian mythology. It is called myth because the source material meets the literary and scientific standards for mythology and folklore. In other words, the plaintiff is barking up the wrong tree. JCSeer 04:21, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

:::True, but several other faiths, including Wicca, worship the gods of old Greece and Rome, Diana (mythology) in particular. And, in response to the originator, every other WikiProject page is basically non-neutral too, as only people interested in a subject will join the related Project. That's why this is in Wikipedia: space, not mainspace. That is to be expected. What matters primarily is the lack of POV of the content in mainspace, secondarily that of a other-space page like this. John Carter 16:15, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

There is currently a discussion about whether or not to rename/move Paul of Tarsus. -- Pastordavid 01:34, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

== Article in sore need of more watchers ==

The article De Viris Illustribus (Jerome) was created by a user who likes to include fairly questionable content, like a reference to "Peter, considered to be the first divine person by church of Rome." Moreover, the user in question believes that the New Testament was written by Petrarch in the 14th century AD, and that various books contain "very special meanings" in need of being decoded. (See further the deletion discussion for 62 of his articles that were deleted this morning.) I am burning out trying to single-handedly steer De Viris Illustribus (Jerome) towards being a sound and encyclopedic article, and I hope someone else can start watching the page. I have no agenda and would welcome editors with very different views from mine; the page just needs honest and experienced participants, period. (It might also be worthwhile to explore Doug Coldwell's other contributions.) Wareh 17:02, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

copied from Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Catholicism by John Carter 18:46, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

A new project, WikiProject Lutheranism, has been formed to handle articles and information relating to Lutheranism. All interested editors are invited to sign up. -- Pastordavid 22:44, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

I started a page for Passion Conferences. I've put some links in the talk page but the article needs a lot of help.Akubhai 15:07, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Please comment here on a proposed merger or restructuring of these two articles. They currently contain a large amount of common content. Best, --Shirahadasha 21:41, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

This article's name isn't the best (replacement suggestions are welcome), but the concept of ascension into heaven is important in a number of religions, none more so than Christianity, so I'm trying to improve the article and save it from deletion. In the deletion discussion, some editors seem to be calling the belief in ascension without death a "joke". It seems to me that the best response to that is to improve the article and show the concept is not treated as a joke by those who take religious questions seriously. Please take a look at the article and the deletion discussion and consider contributing to both.

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of people who went to heaven alive

Noroton 19:33, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Calvinism has been created too :).

-- TimNelson 13:43, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

List of Jesus-related articles has been tagged "This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards" since November 2005. "The oldest cleanup requests are the highest priority, to prevent embarrassing problems from going unfixed for an indefinite length of time." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Cleanup_by_month]. Anybody care to take a look at this and fix anything that needs fixing? Thanks. -- Writtenonsand 05:40, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Abbot Ryan St. Anne Scott has, in an email to OTRS, issued a statement concerning various statements in this article which he considers untrue and potentially libellous (important per WP:BLP). As the OTRS agents are unable to check his (quite detailed) email, he has given explicit permission to re-post in on a public page, so that experts in BLPs and religion issues can have a closer look at it. His statement is now at Talk:Ryan_St._Anne_Scott/Statement. I'd appreciate any help on this matter, if somebody could check the article versus his statement and maybe also check the source (a printed newspaper article) which is the primary source and to which I do not have access. Thank you. --Mbimmler 19:03, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Please have a look at Talk:The Long Revelation. Is this a real belief? Is it notable? Is it sourcable? Is the article original research? Should it go to AFD? I'd like to get input from this wikiproject. — coelacan — 21:52, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

I have created {{tl|LORD}}, which results in {{LORD}}.

In User:Kevinkor2/LORD, I've given a list of articles that use LORD. May I go through these articles and replace LORD with {{tl|LORD}}?

--Kevinkor2 11:17, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

:It does not seem to be an appropriate use of templates. Additionally, it would add to the server load (apparently without necessity). What is the necessity for this change? Why is a template needed for the task? Vassyana 11:52, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

::I have started this in response to {{ql|Christian views on magic|qs=diff=119814947&oldid=119812899|an edit in Christian views on magic}}. {{User|Fuzzypeg}} changed "LORD" to use smallcaps using the code,

LORD.

::I believe the code in the template is simpler:

{{smallcaps|1=Lord}}

::I suggest WikiProject Christianity follow one of three courses of action:

::* caps. Make a guideline that the Tetragramaton be rendered as LORD. This is the least amount of work.

::* subst. Make a guideline that the Tetragramaton be typed as {{smallcaps|1=Lord}}. This could be achieved using {{tls|LORD}} as a the typing helper.

::* transclude. Make a guideline that the Tetragramaton be typed as {{tl|LORD}}. This adds future flexibility. For example, we could change the formatting of LORD, provide a tooltip that explains its meaning, or add a wikilink to Tetragramaton.

:: --Kevinkor2 12:54, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

My plan is this:

1. Change LORD to {{tl|LORD}} in a few select articles that are guaranteed to be on watchlists:
2. * Genesis
3. * Monotheism
4. * Messiah
5. * List of Jewish prayers and blessings
6. Wait to see if changes are reverted, and what comments I get.
7. If all is OK, change other articles in small batches.

--Kevinkor2 08:00, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

:I agree with Vassyana above; there doesn't seem to be a good reason for this template; it's changes are aesthetic, and can also, rightly or wrongly seen as POV to give the religious title a special font. Regards, -- Jeff3000 02:08, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

:Not in favour: Whats's the point of template which results in the exact same word you'd get if you typed it in anyway? Plus, I think you'll strike well-founded opposition from people who feel that the word Lord is not the one and only equivalent of YHWH. PiCo 06:10, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

:: LORD could apply to anyone, BAAL is LORD. I move we replace LORD where the tetragrammaton was with Jehovah. Jehovah is an actual name and though many people will fight on the pronunciation of the Divine name, Jehovah is a lot closer than LORD. Kljenni 14:28, 10 April 2007 (UTC) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Kljenni (talk • contribs) 14:26, 10 April 2007 (UTC).

Thank you for your comments, Vassyana, Jeff3000, PiCo, and Kljenni.

I have finished the test of the transclude option. In one sense, the test was successful--editors on the changed articles did not revert my edit. On the other hand, I did only get negative comments here.

I agree with you, Vassyana and Jeff3000, that using a template will add load on the servers.

Jeff3000, I do not know whether it would be considered POV to give the name of God a special font. I do know it is a common typographic convention for the Bibles I've used. As Kljenni pointed out, Lord can apply to anyone. A person who owns a field is lord of all the workers in the field. Baal is the lord of the gods of Canaan.

I agree with you, Kljenni, that "Jehovah" is derived from the original pronounciation of the Tetragrammaton and that "Lord" has no connection to the Tetragrammaton's pronounciation.

As I read your comments, PiCo and Kljenni, I am warned that {{tl|LORD}} itself could become the subject of edit wars and need to be protected. Jews and Jehovah's Witnesses have strongly held views on the Name of God:

; From Tetragrammaton#YHWH

: In Judaism, the Tetragrammaton is the ineffable Name of God, and is therefore not to be spoken, except by the High Priest within the Holy of Holies in the Tabernacle and Temple in Jerusalem on Yom Kippur(Day of Atonement). In the reading aloud of the scripture or in prayer, it is replaced with Adonai ("My Lords", commonly rendered as "The LORD" in most modern English translations), though occasionally replaced with "Elohim" (GOD).

; From Jehovah's Witnesses#Beliefs and practices

: [Jehovah's Witnesses] believe that God's name is Jehovah (a derivative of the Tetragrammaton) and that its use is a requirement for true worship.

Here is a new plan:

1. Change {{tl|LORD}} to {{smallcaps|1=Lord}} in a few articles:
2. * Genesis
3. * Monotheism
4. * Messiah
5. * List of Jewish prayers and blessings
6. * Christian views on magic
7. * Names of God
8. Wait to see if changes are reverted, and what comments I get.
9. If all is OK, change other articles in small batches.

--Kevinkor2 12:19, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Hi guys, I've got 2 quick things:

1. I assessed all of the unassessed articles over the weekend. Ugh. I'll try and keep up on them from now on and never let them get to +300 again.
2. Could someone help me/us all out and improve the header template we're using at this point?

ie.

{{tl|ChristianityWikiProject}} at this point displays the class of the article, but not it's importance to the project.

{{tl|WikiProject Texas}} on the other hand shows both the quality and the importance rating of the article to the project.

I think it would be helpful to upgrade our template. What do you guys/gals think? Nswinton 20:49, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

:Fine by me, and GREAT WORK! I can try to change the template to show the importance parameter if we get other agreement for it. John Carter 13:41, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm not entirely sure how we go about doing things, but it seems that we need to improve the consistency of the "importance" rankings for various denominations. Obviously, there are differences in the importance within Christianity of various denominations, but I did just notice that United Church of Christ was recently assessed as "High" class whereas Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) was assessed as "Top" class. Based on the size of these two denominations and the historical importance and influence in American Christianity (and American culture more generally) of these two denominations and their antecedents, it seems that these importance assessments are reversed. However, within the scope of the Christianity WikiProject, I'm not sure that either of them would qualify as "Top" (as much as I might wish the United Church of Christ did, as a UCC clergyperson)--in all actuality, they should probably both be ranked either "High" or "Mid". Anyway, given the rather subjective nature of judging a particular denomination's importance within Christianity, I'm not sure exactly how we would reach a completely consistent system--but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't perhaps have some discussion on how we might attempt to. Emerymat 01:56, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

:I just posted comments about some importance assessments at Wikipedia:WikiProject Christianity/Assessment#Comments on importance assessments. --SLi 03:05, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

:One other thing we could do is have importance assessment determined by consensus. I note some other projects have a page where the various members of the project nominate articles for Top or High importance, and only those which get a consensus of the members finally get such recognition. I think that might work particularly well here, as the field is so broad. What do the rest of you think? John Carter 13:43, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

::I think that could work for the High-Top range, and would probably be advisable, because you bring up a good point. I'm probably the guilty party for the inaccurate assessment rating on those articles. I mistakenly understood Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) to be The Church (anyone who believes in Jesus Christ), and United Church of Christ to be a denomination worthy of recognition. Wrong assumptions, though, apparently. I think there are alot of articles that are obviously Low-Mid importance (some pastor in some small town, versus The Book of Corinthians etc.). What if we just had to build consensus on the very notable, but debatably "High" or "Top" articles? Otherwise some articles could get stuck in the horrible backlog of assessment when really, someone could just go put a "|importance=Low" in their header, because it's a no-brainer. Does that make sense? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Nswinton (talk • contribs) 15:41, 13 April 2007 (UTC).

::If we can work out specific qualifications for how one generally qualifies for Mid or Low importance, that would be wonderful. Then we would only have to discuss the Top and High. I think it would be possible to indicate that, for instance, a Pope, Patriarch, Mar, or whatever who didn't do anything particularly notable, or the majority of lesser officials, and probably most laymen, would probably qualify in one or the other lower category. If we could devise such criteria, then that would make things a not easier. So, there now is a page at Wikipedia:WikiProject Christianity/Importance assessment where the members can hash these details out. I do think it would probably take too much space to continue on this page, though. John Carter 16:24, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

There is an extant project proposal Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals#Iglesia ni Cristo which has enough members to potentially function as a task force of another project, perhaps this one. There is another proposal on the page regarding Methodism, and the possibility of another one regarding the Baptist churches. Would the members of the project be willing to help in setting up such smaller projects, using either the name task force or work group, within this project. It could potentially help both the subgroup and the larger parent project as well. John Carter 20:54, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

If any of you ever look at the List of Christian denominations, you'll see just how large the scope of this project is. Would any of you object to the short term creation of a second separate box to the banner page, actively recruiting potential members/involvement in the project for the purposes of trying to assign some degree of importance level to the project for each of the denominations listed? We would then have to place the banner on the pages of each of the denominations listed, but I don't think that would necessarily be too much work. Also, it might help encourage more involvement with the project and activity in editing at least some of the articles. John Carter 16:18, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Quite a few problems have been identified so far, and while I think i've fixed several of them, many of the problems have to do with scholarly stuff that i'm not so good with, and I thought y'all ought to know about it in case anyone wants to help. Homestarmy 17:20, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

I have now created a page for a Iglesia ni Cristo work group at Wikipedia:WikiProject Christianity/Iglesia ni Cristo work group. With the various other subpages of the project, both extant and proposed, it seems to me that it might be a good idea to create a sidebar for the project pages, like this one. Does anyone here know how to do that? John Carter 18:54, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

:That's a great idea. I'll see if I can whip something up! Nswinton 19:22, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

::Got it here. It's basic, but easy to work with and improve. Any thoughts? Nswinton 19:59, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

::: :Category:Christianity articles needing attention should be added to the sidebar or maybe that will eventually need to be split into more specific categories (copy-edit, npov, etc) Akubhai 17:28, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Along those lines (Germany Sidebar -> we should make one too), the project:germany folks have a subpage for membership, which seems like a good idea since our list is getting quite large. Would anyone be opposed to moving it? I'd be fine with doing the move myself, just wanted to check and see if there was a good reason not to. Nswinton 19:29, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

:I have no problem with it.Akubhai 17:27, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Hi everybody,

While I was working on the sidebar today and yesterday, I added a "task" section. I looked around at a bunch of other projects and realized that ours is barely off the ground in many ways. I wanted to run some revamps and improvements by everyone before I went ahead and did them, though:

• Create Subpages
• Tasks
• Article Requests
• Membership
• Templates
• Add Categories
• Unreferenced Christianity articles
• Christianity articles needing copyediting
• Christianity articles needing cleanup
• Christianity articles needing expansion
• NPOV Christianity articles

I think these proposed ideas would first improve the project page, which is starting to sprawl (esp. the membership section), and would help us stay organized and be able to find tasks quickly if we're looking for something to do. What do you think? Nswinton 15:13, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

:The only thing I can add is that while we do have a :Category:Christianity articles needing attention, we don't really have any of the other types included in the banner, which would probably be the best way to populate the pages. John Carter 15:22, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

::I agree, that would be the best way to do it. I just looked at the code on the banner, and I'm not going to be able to whip up some cool new stuff like I did with the sidebar there. Someone that knows how to do that will have to do it. Any takers? Also, I'm gonna do some more changes to the project page to make it more of a hub and less of an info-dump - just to stream-line it some. Lemme know if you like or don't like it. I'm not deleting anything, just moving it around some. Nswinton 19:57, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

{{Infobox church | name = Hillsong Church

| image=

| founded date =August 1983

| denomination=Assemblies of God, Australia

| location = Castle Hills, Sydney, Australia

| membership = 19,900

| website = http://www.hillsong.com/

}}

I'd like to create/have created an infobox for churches. The only one that exists at present (orthodox -- for Eastern Orthodox) is too specific and thus does not suit many other churches (I'm looking in particular at Protestant churches of various denominations and independents).

More fields are probably required, I welcome some commentary?

thanks! :-) Natebailey 23:54, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

:It looks like that is very building specific. There are some fields that may apply to Protestant churches that wouldn't Catholic or others such as: Denomination, Head Pastor, Membership, Weekly attendance —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Akubhai (talk • contribs) 20:44, 9 April 2007 (UTC).

:: Actually, I think all of these could be applied to a Catholic church. Denomination is Catholic (duh). Head Pastor probably needs to be made more generic, but the information is supposed to be the person in charge of whatever administrative division the current page represents. Membership and Weekly attendance could also be filled in. But see my comments below about optional fields.

:: -- TimNelson 12:11, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

: I think Church is a bad name for this one. The question is, what are we referring to? My immediate thought was that it was the denomination, but after looking more carefully, I see that it's being used to refer to:

:* A congregation of people

:* A parish of people

:* A building

: In the case of Hillsong, these appear to be identical. However, I'm aware of at least one situation where a parish (ie. group of people under one leadership team -- this example being Presbyterian, it's one minister and two elders) contains two congregations who meet in separate buildings 40 minutes apart.

: Also, the churches in which I worship, while they have a pulpit, they have no alter, and the font is a bowl we keep in the cupboard. Anyway, I think the point is, all of these fields need to be optional.

: You will no doubt also be interested in the Denomination template which I have made further down the page.

: As for the best name for the template, I'd think about Template:Infobox Congregation (or possibly Template:Infobox Parish). But before doing any moving, see if there's further discussion here.

: Also, if you have a crosslink to the Eastern Orthodox one, that would be useful.

: -- TimNelson 12:11, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

I'd also like to see an infobox created for denominations. There is an ad-hoc one in its early stages of development in the Seventh-day Adventist Church article. Colin MacLaurin 13:07, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Hi,

I've been thinking about some ways to make the pages on Christianity sound more neutral. There's a lot in the common language used by us Christians that includes POV and that could be expressed differently in an encyclopedia. I suggest skimming Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Islam-related articles), it's an IMO quite well developed guideline on neutrality on Islam articles. (Forgive me if there's such a guideline for Christianity articles, I didn't find it). I think a lot of principles from there could healthily be applied to, and benefit, Wikiproject Christianity. Quick brainstorming with not too much thinking, some examples (none of this of course should be applied to quotes):

• In Islam: Change "The Prophet" or "(The) Holy Prophet" to "Muhammad" (recommended) or "the Muslim prophet Muhammad" -> I think this should apply to e.g. "Holy Father [in Rome]" (depends on meaning, either leave as is or simplify to "Father" (when meaning God) or "Pope"). (sorry if I make a mess of something with Catholic terms, I'm not too familiar with them)
• "His Holiness" (when referring to Pope) -> change to "Pope"
• "[Supreme] Pontiff" -> "Pope"
• "Holy See" -> could perhaps be changed to "see of Rome" (as in the article Pope currently)?
• "Holy Land" -> often appropriate; though I would consider "promised land" or "Israel"
• "Blessed Sacrament" -> could this just be "sacrament"?
• Generally, avoid the word "martyr" (when talking about martyred Christians; I think the word "martyr" is somewhat positively loaded, even in Christianity)
• "Holy Mass" -> "Catholic [mM]ass"?
• "Holy Communion" -> probably do something about this too
• "Holy " -> think if it could be changed to simply
• "People of God" -> change to "Israel" or "Christians" or something
• "Saint Paul", "Saint Peter" etc. -> change to "Paul", "Peter"
• "Lord" -> consider using "Jesus" or "God"
• "Holy Spirit" -> I think nothing can be done about this :)
• In Islam: Change " Quran" (that's how it's _always_ used in religious contexts) to "Quran" --> "Holy Bible" -> change to Bible

Anything else? Comments? Ideas? Angry reactions? --SLi 00:13, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

::Considering that there are more than one sacraments in Christianity (depending on denomination), I think it would be a mistake to change "Blessed Sacrament" to "sacrament". Maybe Eucharist could be substituted in, though. Holy Land already has an article, so I'm fine with that staying the phrase, as long as that article remains. The rest of your proposals I can basically agree to. And, in the Saints project, we're already trying to drop "Saint" from article names wherever possible. Unless you want angry responses, of course. If that's the case, then I think you're a *%#* @*!$ for saying we could ever do anything wrong. (Joke :)) John Carter 15:37, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

::Those seem valid, however most seem limited to Catholic articles. A term I saw yesterday was "the lost", I changed it to "unbelievers" but thinking back "non-Christians" would probably be the best term. There are a lot of loaded Christianese terms that don't belong in wikipedia that we should try to avoid.Akubhai 15:42, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

:::I agree with non-Christians or unbelievers. Yes, most were limited to Catholicism, because I came here after reading some article on some Catholic issues :) And because it's probably easier to identify the Christianese in the kind of language you don't yourself use regularly. (Or else it is that Catholics use more such language than others, but I'm not convinced it's so.) --SLi 16:07, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

::::I agree with most of these and would like to see them uniformly applied and further agree that religious articles in general tend to be subtly POV. I do, however, take exception with Holy See, which is an actual official, proper name so should remain as is. --The Way 19:41, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

:::: And, honestly, the Catholics are the ones with the most specific terms, the rest of us have them, but Catholics have about twice as many Cakinman 22:34, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Greetings,

I'm working on an article called Christian Perspectives on Human Sexuality. (It used to be called Christian Perspectives on Sex.) I've discussed some ideas for the article on its talk page. Any help would be welcome. Fixer1234 09:36, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

• I started to work on this article because I came across it by chance early in my pediatric days. I'm not really interested in continuing with it. At the WikiProject Christianity or WikiProject Sexuality is interested in working with it, I will slate it for deletion. Fixer1234 04:18, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

: Why delete it? Why not leave it for everyone to read?

: -- TimNelson 11:12, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

The proposed Baptist work group at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals#Baptist has enough interested parties to function as a work group of a larger project. Would the members of this project be willing to take it on as a work group? Also, does anyone here know how to add task force/work group "tabs" to the project banner, possibly for the Iglesia ni Cristo and possible Baptist work groups? Thank you for your attention and responses in advance, positive or negative. John Carter 19:38, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

• Support - As a member of this wikiproject, and, (in the spirit of full disclosure), as a member of this proposed work group, I support creating a "Baptist" work group. - NDCompuGeek 06:02, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

:::Update: The proposed project now has ten members, more than enough to make a functional full project, let alone a work group. However, as it was proposed as a work group, I am now adding it to the work groups in the project sidebar. John Carter 21:51, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

There has been an ongoing discussion on the talk pages of both articles referenced above about whether the sources cited for the subject's conversion to Christianity are sufficient to describe and/or categorize him as a Christian convert. The discussions are at Talk:Bob Dylan#Request for comment and Talk:List of converts to Christianity#Request for comment. Thank you for your attention in this matter. John Carter 00:34, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Hi everybody. I've set the structure in place for our little project here to really get moving. You'll notice if you look at the main project page that the following things have happened in the last two weeks:

• I've created our own project sidebar.
• I've reorganized the mainpage.
• I've split off several sections of the original mainpage to function as their own subprojects, making the mainpage a hub.
• I've added a "how to create a great article" section under "Resources" - borrowed from the WP Biography project and edited for our use.
• I've put some space for three new task forces that could be a huge asset to this project:
• Peer Review, Assessment, and Maintenaince
• I created a "Projects" section on the page, with links to the following subprojects:
• Destubbification Campaign, Adopted Topics, Articles needing cleanup, Assessment Department, Peer Review, and General Tasks

Here's what's probably going to need to happen next:

• I've got pages in place for the new sub-projects, but they're generic and basic. They need some life and some regular contributors.
• The banner that we put on the talk pages of articles needs some updates and improvements (see comments on "Revamp/Update project page?" section above)
• Task forces need members.
• Peer Review and Adopted Topics need some assignments and workers.
• We need a welcoming committee for new members (see my comments on the General Tasks page).

Questions, comments, feedback?

Nswinton 13:08, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

::Thanks for stepping up to clean up stuff. The only downside I see is that stuff seems to be spread out everywhere. But that may be okay once it starts getting filled out. One quick question, is there a difference between collaboration as mentioned on the Tasks page versus Adopted topic? Akubhai 14:30, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

::Another question, what is the point of the "General" page (near the top of the sidebar)? It looks like it doesn't get much traffic and is basically the same as this talk page. Any reason to have that as a duplicate? Also, maybe the subprojects you listed above should show up in the sidebar (I know a couple already do). Akubhai 14:35, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

:::Good points. We're still definately lacking polish here, that's why I invited folks to come look around. The General Forum predates my involvement in the project, and I'm not sure of it's importance. I'd be fine with abandoning it and sticking with this talk page. I think as this project expands the subpages will be fine. I moved them off the main project page anticipating eventual expansions, hoping to make the main page a basic hub, and subpages specified. I think Collaborations and Adopted Topic are basically the same thing, so of them is redundant. Feel free to be bold and fix anything you see that needs it. I don't think I've set things up great thus far, I'm just hoping to have my changes be a catalyst for greatness. Nswinton 15:39, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

sounds good. banner neeeds improvment Fbc215 18:04, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

I dropped by the Destubbification project this evening, hoping to clean up some articles, and I noticed something. Some articles just can't be expanded a whole lot more. For example, Ananias and Sapphira pretty much covers everything. I could see possibly one more image added, the actual text of the story in quotation form (overkill?), and maybe some expansion on the theology, but this article is specific and limited in it's available content. So I have two questions:

• Should we be more careful in our selection of candidates for Destubbification, and only select ones that have a ton of room for expansion and improvement (ie. Conversion to Christianity could be dramatically improved) - while holding off at this point on articles that just don't have the scope to be improved much?
• What can an article that is necessarily short do to become "A-class" (which is kinda the goal of all articles, right?) - Like can an article on a chapter of a book of the Bible ever have it's "Stub" or "Start" tag changed to "A"?

Nswinton 03:42, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

:Assessments can and do change over time, particularly quality assessments. Also, wherever possible, I think that all articles that have room for additional informative text should receive it. On that basis, pretty much every stub should be expanded with the other relevant informtion, or, where that is not possible, it might be a good idea to merge the stub into some other article. Regarding the article Ananias and Sapphira in particular, it might be possible (I don't know) that additional relevant information regarding them, at least allegations, might be found in the books which were not accepted into the canonical Bible. If it is out there, that could certainly be included.

:In general, I think what would be the best way to approach which "stubs" and other articles should receive primary attention from this project is their individual importance rating. The article for an individual Catholic church building in Bozeman, Montana, is, I think, a subject of less concern to this project than, say, Jesus is. Therefore, I think it might work best if (1) we were to try to tag all the articles which are relevant to this project and then, hopefully, we will know better which are of higher and lesser importance to the project. Some articles clearly can be immediately found to be of importance, Christianity among them, and they could be tagged for importance immediately.

:Regarding expansion and achieving "A"-class or better, wikipedia has permitted articles which are demonstrably as complete as they can be to even be recognized as Featured articles, our highest honor. Maximus the Confessor is one such article. However, it would be useful to have such a short article under Wikipedia:Peer review or some other process before nominating it for FA. Generally, we can submit any article for peer review, and if it is clearly about as detailed as it can reasonably be, whatever it's length, that's all anyone can ask.

:I hope that helps a little. John Carter 16:44, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Hi all. We at WikiProject Calvinism have developed a few templates and infoboxes which we thought might be more generally useful. Without further ado, I present them here; my thought is that we could have some further discussion as to what else would be useful, and how far they are from being generally useful. Obviously they'd have to be renamed, but is it reasonable to suppose that we could come up with some common way of doing these?

• Template:Calvinist Denomination
• Template:Infobox Calvinist Denomination (It seems like someone else had a similar idea since I originally wrote this; I'm currently talking about merging Template:Infobox Calvinist Denomination with Template:Infobox Christian denomination; any further discussion on this particular template should be at Template talk:Infobox Christian denomination).

• Template:Infobox Calvinist Theologian

::Nice work. Nswinton\^talk 13:00, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Hi all. I'd like to propose two task forces.

I'd recommend discussing with the inactive Wikipedia:WikiProject Jesus whether they might like to become a task force of WP:X; there's still some occasional activity there, in spite of the "Inactive" tag.

I'd like to propose that there be a "core topics" task force, which would include the articles that *every* branch of Christendom has an interest in; this would include things such as Salvation, Bible, and the like, but not things such as Icons or Exclusive Psalmody.

Not only that, but I'd like to recommend that this be a joint task force between all the descendant WikiProjects as well.

The reason I suggest this task force is because I find that often, for WikiProject Calvinism, I'm tagging an article because it needs attention from us, even though it's a much more general topic. I'm hoping that this task force will allow us a way around this.

-- TimNelson 05:22, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

:In that case, I suggest that you contact the various extant projects out there and inform them of the proposals. I shall put them on the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals page as well. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Warlordjohncarter (talk • contribs) 21:12, 5 May 2007 (UTC).

It has been proposed that the now dormant Wikipedia:WikiProject Jesus be merged into the main Christianity project, to facilitate members of all groups with articles relating to Jesus being able to work together to improve those articles. Also, bluntly, it could potentially result in having a lot fewer banners placed on the talk pages of those articles. Any comments, positive or negative, are welcomed. John Carter 21:19, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

1. Personally, I think this is a good idea with an excellent chance of being productive, if there is sufficient interest in it. John Carter 21:19, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
2. I would support such a merger. I also believe dormant WikiProjects should be marked historical or folded into a parent or related project. Vassyana 21:30, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
3. Support as per Vassyana. -- Nswinton\^talk 22:29, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
4. {{agree|Pro}} -- TimNelson 00:07, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
5. Support - merge away. Pastor David ^†18:22, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Ok, all done. Note that it's still inactive; if anyone wants to be active in it, go ahead and activate it. -- TimNelson 10:11, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

The following proposals for work groups or Projects relating to Christianity can be found at the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals page. Any parties interested in working in these groups should indicate as much there.

• Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals#Christian Liturgy - A group whose specific scope would be to deal with articles relating to Christian liturgical practices, including rites, liturgical calendars and holidays, vestments and paraments, and other aspects of the Christian liturgy.
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals#Christianity core topics - A group whose function would be to focus the attention of interested parties from all denominations and groups in Christianity, and possibly elsewhere, on topics of great importance to Christian practioners of several denominations.
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals#Methodism - a proposed group to concentrate on articles relating to Methodism.
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals#Religious leaders - a groups whose stated purpose would be to focus attention on articles relating to religious leaders in general, including Christian leaders and leaders of other faiths. (Note: This group may well function as a subproject of Wikipedia:WikiProject Religion and/or Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography.

Anyone interested in perhaps participating in any of these groups should indicate as much on that page. Thank you. John Carter 21:30, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

: I've created the core topics one. Everything seems to be working except the assessment; I think I know what I did wrong, and at 3-4am Wikipedia time I will find out (yes, I know I could run the bot earlier, but I don't think it's that crucial yet) -- TimNelson 10:13, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Full Preterists do believe that all Biblical prophecy has been fulfilled including Jesus' second coming. With all the talk we here these days about Jesus is coming, full preterists stand alone and say nonsense, because Jesus told His disciples and followers that some of them would witness His return (see Matthew 24:34 and related verses). Full preterists let scripture interpret scripture, always keeping the context of scripture and audience relevence (i.e. the audience that Jesus was talking to in Matthew 24:34 was His disciples and followers) in mind. Full preterism naturally believes in church unity, but how can there be unity when there are so many divisions within the church. It's either or. Either you believe that Jesus is yet to come, thereby inferring that Biblical prophecy has not yet been fulfilled and that the destruction of the temple and Jerusalem and the events and things (Revelation 1:1} that occured in AD 70 was not His second coming, or you believe, like full preterists, that Jesus did indeed return in AD 70 to judge apostate Israel and establish His kingdom on earth.---- —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Jim salata (talk • contribs) 17:12, 8 May 2007 (UTC).

:Interesting, but I wonder about it's relevance to the subject at hand. John Carter 17:19, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

I personally find the omnipresent use of the "This article is a part of a series on (whatever)" more than a bit intrusive. Do the rest of you think it would be acceptable to remove these templates from pages which are not specifically mentioned on the template? Any responses, positive or negative, are welcome. John Carter 19:02, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

:I think for the most part the templates are useful in finding similar articles or more articles on the topic. Did you have any specific articles in mind? Akubhai 19:33, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

::Personally, I don't necesssarily have any objections to seeing a greater variety of templates which actually do link to other directly relevant articles. However, I note that the template {{tl|Christianity}} in particular seems to be transcluded into more than 300 pages, most of which are not directly relevant to the template and several of which, such as Christian Wicca, perhaps at best only marginally related to any of the items mentioned. This is not saying that perhaps templates more directly relevant to the article at hand could not be developed and used, but that spreading around this one basic template on a number of articles which are not themselves included in the template looks rather a bit bizarre. John Carter 19:44, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

:::Looking through the pages that include the template, I agree with you. Many of those articles are pretty specific and don't seem to benefit from the template (like abbey). Akubhai 20:43, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

::::As a matter of fact, the Christianity template is called for. List of converts to Christianity is a Christian article, and labeling it as such detracts from it in no way. Bus stop 12:52, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

::It should be noted that the above editor comes from what is apparently a prouncedly Jewish background and is basically arguing for the reinsertion of the template in question to, as it were, further his own arguments. As he has rarely if ever constructively edited content related to Christianity, and is in fact in a heated (and, in his case, completely unsupported by any relevant citations and verification of his own position) discussion on the page in question, I believe that it's inclusion was being done for reasons which would not necessarily be supported by the members of this project. On that basis, I have once again removed the template. It is my hope that other templates, including one directly linking all the "convert" pages, will be developed soon by a new group which is being specifically created to deal with such content. Such a new template, which would explicitly link to directly related articles, would be more appropriate to the page. John Carter 14:24, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

I have altered the Roman Catholic Church article to reflect neutral language and proper English usage.[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Roman_Catholic_Church&diff=129396268&oldid=129359589] I have changed "Church" to "church", where appropriate. I have not altered quotations. I have not removed capitalization from church names, as it is proper usage. The lower case usage is recommended by the Chicago Manual of Style and prevents any appearance of endorsing the Catholic Church as The Church. Be well!! Vassyana 01:01, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Assistance for cleaning up, sourcing and expanding Universal reconciliation would be greatly appreciated. Thanks! Vassyana 05:32, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Please discuss this in a discussion [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Religion#Creating_a_guideline_that_applies_to_all_religous_articles here]--Sefringle 03:21, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Bluntly put, this article is a mess. It looks as if it's been abandoned to cranks who have added some truly bizarre & tangential information there. This article was brought to my attention by an edit war between two parties neither of whom (IMHO) look to rescue this article from its current sad state. I am very tempted to just delete this article & put in its place a couple of paragraphs to see if this drastic act would allow it to get back on track -- but I'd rather entrust it first to some well-meaning folks who will nurse it back to health. -- llywrch 02:36, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

:*I'm adding this to the peer review page. I visited the article, and I can vouch for many of the above complaints. I archived the talk page (104k) and added the WP Christianity banner to the top. Nswinton\^talk 03:00, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Hello. Nswinton has approached me about making a welcome template for new users to the project. The template is under construction and I am asking for help. If you would like to, drop me a line at my talk page. Thanks! T_{Talk to me} 23:51, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

There is a new WikiProject task force proposal at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals#Inter-religious content that is being proposed to deal specifically with articles whose content relates to several religious traditions. Any editors interested in joining such a group would be more than welcome to indicate their interest there. John Carter 15:07, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

According to Wikipedia:Version_1.0_Editorial_Team/Using_the_bot#Setting up for the bot, admins and people with AWB have special powers to create all the desired categories. I've already created the appropriate categories for the Core Topics work group. Could someone create the appropriate categories for the other work groups? Examples of the categories that articles are added to by the banner can be seen at Jesus (for the Jesus work group), Anabaptist (for the Baptist workgroup), and Iglesia ni Cristo (for that work group).

Anyone?

-- TimNelson 01:27, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

:::Category:Iglesia ni Cristo, although quite small at this point, already exists. So do :Category:Anabaptism and :Category:Jesus. The latter category needs substantial pruning, however. John Carter 14:50, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

::: I'm talking about the categories required for assessment (see that link to the bot above for details), which I think are not set up yet. -- TimNelson 09:50, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

The number and variety of articles in the :Category:Jesus is at best somewhat random. As it stands, :Category:Mahatma Gandhi, and :Category:Jainism, and several others are all second or third-degree descendants of :Category:Jesus. A discussion has been started at Category talk:Jesus#Structure of category for how to deal with this matter. All comments are welcome. John Carter 16:06, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

I recently merged these two articles. There was an objection that was raised and a request was made to seek feedback here. Please offer commentary on the talk page, for or against.

--Mcorazao 03:11, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

I recently visited this page and was surprised by the condition that it's in. A large number of edits by an IP seem to have added some very questionable material. I lack the expertise to improve this article myself, but I hope that by mentioning it here, other editors will give it some of the attention that it so desperately needs. Doc Tropics 00:54, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

:I just checked out the article. The IP edits in question ignore Manual of Style almost completely, are not in prose, are debatably verifiable, and, in my opinion, ought to just be completely reverted. I'd suggest trying to talk it out on the Talk page, and if the editor isn't willing to work within wikipedian guidelines, just reverting his work and asking an admin to moderate/referee. Nswinton\^talk 03:27, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

For what it might be worth, there is now a template which can be added to Lists of Christians, in place of the overused {{tl|Christianity}}. It is modeled on the {{tl|Jew list}}, and can be seen at {{tl|Christian list}}. Any effort to improve it or to apply it where appropriate would be more than welcome. Thank you. John Carter 01:17, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Victory outreach needs some care and attention and people to watch over it. --Fredrick day 16:19, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

I think it would really help this project if the various other projects which relate to Christianity were to all at least tag those articles which fall within their scope. That way, this project would have a better idea which articles do not fall within the specific scope of any of the other related projects. I think this project would be the "default" project whose tag would be used on such articles. Anyway, anyone who is involved in any of the related Christianity projects would be more than welcome to tag all the articles that they think fall within their specific scope, and maybe categorize them accordingly. John Carter 17:47, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Revealed religion finds itself on the delete page of project Judaism. It is not the place that it belongs. Can some of the philosophers, theologians, or Thomists give an opinion or help fix up the article? --Jayrav 18:54, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Deletion_sorting/Judaism#Revealed_religion

I've had this peer review up for a while on the main peer review page. But it doesn't seem to be getting any attention. I was wondering if someone here might take a look since it technically falls under this projects scope. Thanks. CJ 15:41, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Hi. I've been keeping an eye on this article, that's been written by a newbie and, seemingly, single-purpose account. I'm trying to remove the worst excesses of POV and defamatory comments about Ward's opponents, but I'm way out of my depth on the religious content. Some help from this WikiProject would be good. Thanks. --Dweller 09:49, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

:I have to say, I'm a bit disappointed by the lack of help here. Is this WikiProject defunct? It seems that most of the messages being posted on this page are (like me) from non-members looking for help... --Dweller 11:15, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

::Sorry about the lack of responses lately. The project has a lot of active members, but not necessarily a lot of members active with the project. There are only a few people working directly through WP:X. Hopefully more people will get excited and get on board soon. Nswinton\^talk 11:21, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

:::Thanks. I guess I'm used to WP:CRIC which I know is one of (THE?) the most active projects on WP. I'm probably spoiled. Sorry about the whinge. I'm just at my wit's end with this article. --Dweller 11:34, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

== Inter-Religion task force ==

Please see Wikipedia:WikiProject Religion/Inter-religious content task force. Do people who actually edit religion articles want such a task force? If so or if not, speak out. --Shirahadasha 16:59, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Hi, regarding the "Cross" chapter, "INRI" issue, the initial information was incomplete and misleading. Of course it does not matter the language, but to remove the whole phrase, Phiddipus, I think that's juvenile behaviour.

Since I'm not registered, my name is Andrei, and yes, I'm Romanian.

is this notable? Prophetic worship --Fredrick day 22:38, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

:I think this topic would be best addressed as a paragraph in either Christian worship, Charismatic movement, or Prophecy. I think Christian worship would be a better fit, especially if "Charismatic worship" section were added to that article. Spontaneous worship should also probably be merged into the same place (different but similar topics). Timotheos 15:50, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Please be gentle, as I am still fairly new to Wikipedia, but I have proposed that I, or another, merge Evangelical Catholic into Evangelicalism. To have two different articles seems to imply that they could be mutually exclusive, but any evangelical Catholics are, by definition, adherents of evangelicalism. Evangelicalism encompasses more than Protestant Christian denominations, and anyone interested in learning more about either should see them in the same article on the same evangelical topic. I've added proposed merger tags to both. Aepoutre 19:34, 8 June 2007 (EST)

The article {{lx|1=|2={{ucfirst:Sign of the cross}}|3=Talk|4=talk}} underwent a complete rewrite over the last few weeks that left it quite heavily biased. I have tried to merge older material back into it, but it now needs to be put back together. If anyone on this project has the time, could they, please, take a look at the article and improve it. — Gareth Hughes 15:17, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

[cross posted to Talk:Christianity]

I just came across :Category:Christian holy days, :Category:Christian festivals and :Category:Liturgical calendar. For an article like Advent , All Souls' Day or All Saints (that's just the A's), you will find all 3 categories on the article. So what is the difference between these three categories? What is the difference between a festival and a holy day? There is a lot of overlap and redundancy. It seems to me that, assuming there is a difference between a festival and a holy day, that they both should be subcats of liturgical calendar, and that all the articles should go into either one or the other (and the few articles that are neither holy days nor festivals could be thrown in the parent cat of liturgical calendar.) If there isn't a difference, then perhaps all 3 categories should be merged together. Anyway, does anyone understand the current categorization scheme? Could someone please explain it to me? If not, what do others think about categorizing things of this sort? Thanks for your input.-Andrew c 19:59, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

:The difference between a festival and a holy day is probably the difference between Wikipedia:WikiProject Festivals and Wikipedia:WikiProject Holidays. Regarding making them both subcats of the liturgical calendar category, I would probably favor that, but would want some input from others first. John Carter 20:52, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

:I would agree with making Holy Days and Festivals subcategories of the liturgical calendar category. In my mind (not a verified fact, but just the way I think about it), "Feasts" or festivals are certain high holy days like Easter day, Ascension day, Pentecost day, Trinity Sunday, etc., the days many liturgical churches use "white" for their altar colors. In contrast, there are "holy days" like Ash Wednesday, Good Friday, etc. which are not regarded as "feasts" but are nevertheless very special. This is how I differentiate the two, but I'd be happy to be corrected by someone who knows better. Timotheos 21:44, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

There is an AfD discussing Creatianism (note spelling, not the debate about the origins of life) which could probably use some informed comments. It's over at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Creatianism WLU 14:29, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

We would appreciate any input you have at Talk:Christianity_by_country#RFC. The Evil Spartan 18:18, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

We are discussing if Philippians 4:13 should have its own page. We would appreciate your input on the tall page. Tiggerjay 00:31, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Some people may have noticed that most categories previously using "Old Testament" have been converted to "Tanakh" by a user, without I think much discussion. There is a discussion here which proposes converting them to use "Hebrew Bible" Johnbod 22:07, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

I have been working on fixing the citations in Two witnesses by using the {{tl|Cite web}} template to display the author, title and publisher of the sources cited. However, I do not have the expertise in this subject to evaluate the reliability of the sources cited. I would appreciate it if anyone else would look at the article to see if they can help improve it. --Metropolitan90 04:08, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

All of the July content on Portal:Christianity is redlinked ... is there someone who maintains it? I'd be happy to put something in there (I've already done three portals today), but this is a featured portal and an active WikiProject so I don't want to step on anyone's toes. --BigΔT 19:43, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Based on what I can see, there aren't really a lot of articles specifically relevant to Christianity in the Version 1.0 releases. Many biographies, particularly of philosophers, but not many articles about Christianity per se. If the members of this project were to nominate a few articles for inclusion in the 1.0 Team selections, it would be very helpful to maybe get some more articles related to Christianity in that selection. Roughly 30,000 articles are figured to be included in the 0.7 release, so I believe there is substantial space for several more articles relating to Christianity. Any articles members think deserve consideration can be listed below, and I'll add them to the nominees page. John Carter 17:21, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

:To start things off, three potential nominees: Assyrian Church of the East(B-class), Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria (B-class), and Council of Chalcedon (B-class).

Help with further cleanup, revision and referencing would be greatly appreciated at early Christianity and universal reconciliation. Thanks!! Vassyana 20:17, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

For some months there have been extensive sections on these pages that duplicate each other. I have made the Eschatology page an entry on the subject of eschatology, and moved all the specific beliefs of religions and faith traditions to End Times. The End Times page now needs a lot of work. Neither page is limited to Christianity, and both might seriously be considered for deletion from this project. Christian eschatology already has several entries.--Cberlet 23:02, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

:I agree with the changes you've made. I would suggest merging Eschatology into End Times, and taking them both out of the Christianity project (whether merged or still separate). Christian Eschatology should remain in the Christianity project. Timotheos 02:29, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

::However, the two terms are not synonymous. The merger idea failed to attract any support.--Cberlet 02:37, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Intelligent design has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are Wikipedia:Featured_article_review/{{#if:{{{2. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:44, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

I've been putting up stubs of early documentation of Christianity (mainly 2nd to 4th century papyri). It'd be great if someone could expand the stub at Libellus. I'll do my best to get text and translations of particular instances. Alastair Haines 05:42, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Vote at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Moses so as too get Moses into a featured article

--Java7837 22:58, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Category:Darwinian mythology the category fits the definition perfectly--Radiocar 15:42, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

• I think Radiocar is assuming that anyone involved with WikiProject Christianity agrees with his idea that all evolution-related articles should be put in a category called "Darwinian mythology". I hope Radiocar is wrong. NawlinWiki 15:48, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

For your information, an infobox has been created for use on biographical articles of clergy. It can be found at {{tl|Infobox clergy}}. Pastordavid 15:26, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Could anyone au fait with current US theological debate have a glance at the following: The Grace Evangelical Society, Free Grace Theology, Lordship salvation and Zane C. Hodges? I have doubts about their neutrality, sourcing and weighting of topics, but am not really into this field. Gordonofcartoon 12:57, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

There has recently been some discussion regarding which "stories" or portions of the Bible merit having their own articles. For the purposes of centralized discussion, please make any comments at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Bible#What should have separate articles?. Thank you. John Carter 13:36, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

User:Jacob Haller has created and written this article which looks like it has significant content over and above what can be found in Arianism. However, I can't see the rationale for having both Arianism and Arian controversy. Looks like a content fork to me. I'm inclined to propose merging the two articles. However, I figured I'd post a notice here and see if anybody more knowledgeable than me on this topic feels the same way.

--Richard 05:47, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

:I outlined my reasons on Talk:Arianism. I think that Arianism should cover Arian Christianity and its doctrines, while Arian controversy should cover the controversy, particularly the history of it. I think we should have one article which at least points to the critics of Arianism as well as the supporters of Arianism, and also points to Anomoeanism, Semi-Arianism, Macedonianism, Marcellus and Photinus, etc. Jacob Haller 12:03, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

::Not having had any reply, should I add the page to this project? Jacob Haller 17:37, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

I have some serious concerns regarding the neutrality of the article above. Please see my comments justifying that statement at Talk:Athanasius of Alexandria#POV, and contribute any comments you think appropriate. Thank you. John Carter 19:08, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

I am requesting assistance with the article Two Witnesses. While the article has numerous cites, many of the citations appear to refer to personal essays about the Book of Revelation with no clear indication of whether those essays are reliable sources. I would appreciate if if someone would take a look and help evaluate the sources for this article. --Metropolitan90 07:50, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Ebionites has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are Wikipedia:Featured_article_review/{{#if:{{{2. -- Avi 18:44, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

A lot of local churches are adding their own pages on Wikipedia, which then come up for deletion as non-notable. The (pretty sensible) draft guideline Wikipedia:Notability (local churches and other religious congregations) was rejected, mainly (if I understand the discussion properly) because churches don't need their own guideline.

Could this project give a brief statement or links to the overarching policy that covers whether individual churches are sufficiently notable to have their own articles, e.g. WP:N and WP:LOCAL? A lot of people are putting in a lot of effort which gets deleted, perhaps leading to disappointment or worse. A constructive statement up-front might be helpful. Maybe create a section on this project page, or a brief sub-page, and then redirect WP:CHURCH to it? Fayenatic (talk) 09:18, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Can you help with this article? It is currently used as an advertisement for a book causing it to be become a Afd candidate. However, the Seven Spirits of God is found in the Bible but I am not a Bible expert so I leave it to you to improve or delete the article in question.--Lenticel ^(talk) 23:07, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

:"After all that has been written on this very difficult expression, it is still impossible to determine with certainty its meaning." For the principal opinions, see [http://www.ccel.org/ccel/barnes/ntnotes.xxx.i.iv.html?highlight=sevenfold,spirit#highlight Barnes' New Testament Notes]; it's most widely taken as a poetic reference to the Holy Spirit. The phrase probably doesn't deserve an article at all. If there is to be one, let the current page and its history be deleted first. Fayenatic (talk) 18:07, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the response for the Seven Spirits of God. I came back here again to warn you of another Afd. This one is more controversial and has resulted in edit wars and personal attacks. Hope you could help. --Lenticel ^(talk) 23:10, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

We are in desperate need of editors - monitors with a npov to "police" this article particularly on an edit by edit basis. The parties involved are very "polarized" as to their positions on the subject. --A B Pepper 14:21, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

I see there are serious POV issues with the article as it currently stands. I'll add it to my watchlist and see what I can do to help. Sχeptomaniac^{χαιρετε} 17:15, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

This list was recently deleted for failing to have proper inclusion criteria and sources. I have started a new list, with the intent to avoid these problems with the old list. Naturally, this is an undertaking with which I will need help from many other editors. Would members of this Wikiproject be able to help add some sourced names to this list? Thank you. Nick Graves 03:47, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

The purgatory page has been POV for the better part of a year. POV fights have turned the lead into hash (again). Could someone please step in and help? Jonathan Tweet 01:31, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

A proposal has been made on Talk:Bible to split the current Bible article into two separate articles, Hebrew Bible and Christian Bible, with Bible becoming a redirect to Bible (disambiguation). Best, --Shirahadasha 05:02, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Discussion has proceeded and proposals have been made to restructure and rewrite the Bible article. Please provide input into this discussion at Talk:Bible. Best, --Shirahadasha 20:51, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Death and resurrection of Jesus please look over my recent edits and remove the 'fiction tag' if suitable? Thanks. User:Pedant 19:52, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Biblical or biblical? Should Wikipedia adopt a style guideline favoring one over the other when used as an adjective referring to the Bible (e.g., Biblical scholar, biblical exegesis, Biblical foundation, biblical support, etc.)?

Please comment on the RFC at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Bible#RFC: "biblical" or "Biblical". Thanks — DIEGO ^talk 18:20, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

I thought you would like to know that I have added some new Stub types at Wikipedia:WikiProject Christianity/Templates all of which are listed at Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Stub types Kathleen.wright5 12:18, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Hi, the Jews for Jesus article is lookking for some editors from this project to come over and give their opinion and help out a little. If anyone is interested, please drop on by. Thanks. Basejumper2 16:29, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

There is a conflict going on at Talk:Iglesia ni Cristo which has risen to an RfC about whether or not to refer to INC as a Christian religion, or a sect. Your input is strongly appreciated. --w^{L<speak·check>} 18:56, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Have a look at the recent events at the article Iaso. The additions are manifestly unencyclopedic, and an original synthesis of the editor's own collection of "evidence" for a crackpot view, but unless a greater number of good-faith editors visit this obscure article, revert changes they feel are inappropriate, and add to my warning at User talk:72.186.213.96, the unencyclopedic material and OR is going to stay in the encyclopedia. (There is no question that this kind of material would never fly in a higher-visibility article like Jesus, where it would be more appropriate if it were valid.) Wareh 21:59, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

:Bad scholarship is usually easy to expose, and bad editing even more so.

:I always check references. Typically, people misquote even their biased sources to further reinforce the point they want to make.

:The Catholic Encyclopedia does not say Iesous is from iasthai. What it does say is that the Greek name Jason is from this root, and that Eusebius is representative of other Greek Fathers who "allied" the name Iesous with this root. The CE is quite responsible at this point, as it normally is.

:To make further deductions, I would require Eusebius in Greek (or a fair translation). There's a real chance this is actually available on the web somewhere.

:As for one theosophist's opinion. I think that's fine at the Iaso article, the opinion is notable in the context of Iaso.

:However, if you're really concerned. Reading the theosophist's case and seeing what sources are claimed there is the next step. There are published writers who do not treat their sources fairly, again reference checks are needed. Following that, I'd be looking for the flaws in that argument, then for reliable sources that address those flaws.

:As a general rule, anyone proposing arguments that the New Testament is dependent on obscure ancient texts is not familiar with the New Testament. They are not taking seriously a very reliable textual history, with a continuous history of commentary on that text. They are bound to be exposed, but we've got to do the hard yards to prove it.

:You are quite right that readers at Wiki should not be exposed to WP:UNDUE speculative deconstructions of Christianity and the Bible. However, rather than taking the easy way of deleting such material, and claiming people should believe us cause we say so, the way forward is to collect the sources that expose such arguments for what they are.

:If you ask me, the more we have these arguments at Wiki the better. Neutral readers will eventually wonder why it is that people come up with such crazy ideas, and work out for themselves that there are people with irrational hatred of Christianity.

:Alastair's principal: "the more the arguments published against you, the greater the opportunity to make your own case."

:Muah ha ha and God bless. ;) Alastair Haines 23:00, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

::Well, the problem here is that the view about a connection to Iaso is so absurd that there is no reason reliable sources would even bother to engage or refute it. I'm all for pointers to scholarly debate, when scholarly debate has occurred. Perhaps an obscure article like Iaso seems like anything anyone ever said about it would be notable, but I'm not sure "the opinion is notable in the context of Iaso." The danger is that someone like this anonymous editor could trawl through all of Madame Blavatsky's works and put her "notable" cockamamie theories in the articles on every obscure ancient topic she names. As a scholar of Greek antiquity, I am sad when I contemplate the idea of such a trail of junk through the encyclopedia. In any case, the user has now sunk to pointless slurs at Talk:Iaso, which may help bring some action. Wareh 01:40, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't know if anyone has the time but bringing Nativity of Jesus up to GA status for Christmas would be a good thing. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast 01:52, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

I am nominating the newly created article Jewish-Christian Gospels: Patristic Citations for deletion, as I don't think it meets the criteria for wikipedia articles. I would however welcome input from any interests parties in the discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jewish-Christian Gospels: Patristic Citations. Thank you. John Carter 00:20, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

I though this project would be interested in the current AfDs related to churches that are underway for List of churches in Omaha, Nebraska, List of churches in Fort Wayne, Indiana and List of churches in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Following the logic of these AfDs, I am positive that the articles List of churches in Hampshire, List of Ottawa churches, List of churches in Florence, List of churches in Kent, List of churches in Oxford, List of churches in Venice, List of churches in Philadelphia and List of churches in Greater Manchester are next. • Freechild'sup? 18:52, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

:Thanks. I've added 4 AFDs to Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Christianity (and, against my usual approach, changed your text above to display the page names instead of the "here"s which you had pasted from an AFD). Various Wikiprojects have similar "Deletion sorting" pages, usually accessed from a "Deletions" link on the project page. - Fayenatic (talk) 23:31, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Celtic Orthodox Church needs references and sources. It has been tagged as lacking them since January 2007. -- 201.37.229.117 21:10, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Why are LaGrange County, Indiana & Shipshewana, Indiana Christianity pages, complete with project banner?? Seems a little strange to me. Yes, most of the folks in those locales are professed Christians, I suppose, but . . . . MrHarman (talk) 04:34, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

:Basically, because they're both in the :Category:Amish, and that category is clearly within the scope of the Baptist work group, which is what those articles were specifically tagged for. Personally, it makes sense to me, personally, to tag articles for the categorization, because, if nothing else, it helps remove unusual or strange categorization, and I've run into several articles that are even more strangely categorized than that. So, if you think that the Amish category is valid, then it makes sense that that group might devote a bit of attention down the line to it. If you don't think it is valid, feel free to remove it and the banner. I don't know enough about either to say that the content in that article can or should be particularly relevant to that work group, so I'll trust your judgement on this one. My compliments for having caught the tagging as quickly as you did, though. John Carter 15:55, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

::Certainly LaGrange County Indiana has a sizeable Amish population, and Shipshewana has made quite a name for itself as an Amish type of town. The banners still seem to me to built on a too-tenous link, but no harm, no foul. Thanks, MrHarman 03:59, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

I tried to put WP:Christianity Banner on the above page but could not because of the Spam filter. There is a blacklisted External Link:Biblewalks.com. I cannot remove it because it is in a comment by Biblewalks made on the 1st of February 2007. What do I do about this? Kathleen.wright5 —Preceding comment was added at 08:20, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

:This seems to have been fixed. -- SECisek (talk) 20:15, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Why does Aleister Crowley get into Project Christianity? Whilst I realize that there are some "very esoteric Christians" who see Eclesia Gnostica Catholica as Christian, and Crowley talks about proto-Christianity, there is very little, if any, overlap between him and Christianity, despite articles discussing the influence of John Calvin and John Wesley on the theology of Thelema.jonathon (talk) 19:20, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

:That seems to have been John Carter's call...John, would you like to take this one? -- SECisek (talk) 19:26, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

There seems to be a word missing from this sentence in the lead: "As a group, we do not prefer any particular tradition or denominination of Christianity, but seek to it that all Christian traditions are fairly and accurately represented." Abtract (talk) 08:51, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Looks like a typo: see. -- SECisek (talk) 11:32, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Is "guide" a suitably encyclopedic word to use in the project template? Abtract (talk) 08:51, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

:It is on the talk page, not in the articles themselves. I think it reflects common usage here, as well. That said, I couldn't care less what it says. -- SECisek (talk) 15:51, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Please take a look at this article deletion discussion:

• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/J. Alan Groves

... and the suggestion that an article on Groves' Groves-Wheeler Morphology might be justified, either as a replacement for the Groves article or as a separate article. We heathen and earnest laypeople could use some additional input from knowledgeable editors here with both the Groves article discussion and the idea for a Groves Wheeler Morphology article. Part of our challenge is the lack of enough readily accessible good sources; "sorta seems notable" is insufficient. The most likely sources are scholarly papers found with this Google Scholar [http://scholar.google.com/scholar?num=100&hl=en&lr=&safe=off&client=safari&q=Groves+Wheeler+Westminster+OR+Morphology+-DNA&btnG=Search search] but they probably require some interpretation.

A somewhat related article about Bible software is also under discussion at:

• ''Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Accordance

Thanks, --A. B. ^(talk) 14:55, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

There are two proposals to merge Holy anointing oil, one to merge it with Shemen Afarsimon and one to merge it with Chrism. Please see Holy anointing oil for discussion locations. Best, --Shirahadasha (talk) 04:54, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

I have been working on Two Witnesses on and off for a while now, to fix the formatting of the citations since the sources were not being displayed in the footnotes. Now that I have seen what the sources are, it looks like many of the sources are just personal opinions. However, I don't know who or what would be considered a reliable source for interpretation of the Book of Revelation, or even how to go about deciding what a reliable source for such interpretations would be. Would anyone else be willing to take a look at the article and comment on its talk page? --Metropolitan90 (talk) 08:14, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

I just wanted to make someone aware that all the H's, G's, and S's in He, God, and Son were removed from this article by another editor. It is my understanding that these words should be capitalized but as I am not a member of your project, I do not feel qualified to make the revisions. IrishLass (talk) 15:16, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

There is a discussion about changing the image at Template talk:Christianity#New picture. The imput from members of this wikiproject would be appreciated. Thanks!-Andrew c ^[talk] 19:40, 31 December 2007 (UTC)