Talk:List of the largest Protestant denominations

Split

I think we should split the list into two: international denominational fellowships (such as the Anglican Communion) listing denominational families, and national denominations (such as the Church of England), because the present character of this list is confusing and misleading, by mixing two different datas.--Leonardo Alves 16:20, 13 August 2007

You're probably right. Also, unless there is a good citation, the hashes (#) should be replaced with asterixs (*), because it currently assumes that number 15, say, is actually the 15th largest which is very unlikely true. Colin MacLaurin 11:36, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Regarding the merger with List of Christian denominations by number of members - I think the topic is broad and deserves its own article.Ernio48 (talk) 22:50, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

There is a also a proposal of rather merging it with List of Christian denominations by number of members Chicbyaccident (talk) 10:57, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

Rename

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was no consensus. JPG-GR (talk) 02:52, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

For example, neither...

• List of the largest churches in Australia
• List of largest churches in the world

...are about national churches or denominations —Preceding unsigned comment added by Carlaude (talk • contribs)

• Oppose. List of the largest churches in Australia is actually about the congregations, not the buildings. List of largest churches in the world should probably be renamed. While I notice that church currently redirects to Church (disambiguation), indicating that there is no primary meaning for church or Church, the proposed new title (List of largest Protestant church bodies of the world) is needlessly awkward. Andrewa (talk) 15:17, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree that List of largest churches in the world should probably be renamed-- and that church has no apparent primary meaning-- none the less this article would still be improved by the renaming to be more clear.

List of the largest churches in Australia is about congregations not what List of the largest Protestant churches of the world is about.

More examples not about national churches or denominations:

• List of tallest churches in the world
• List of highest church naves
• List of churches (redirect) --Carlaude (talk) 17:49, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

In the first two of those, the context of the word in the title makes it clear that a building is meant, unlike in the case of the article we're currently considering. List of churches currently redirects to list of tallest churches in the world, which is certainly wrong, don't you think? Andrewa (talk) 01:23, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes-- I agree-- which is why this article needs words in the title to makes what is meant. As you point out, this article title does not make the meaning clear. --Carlaude (talk) 07:52, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Disagree... I think while church may be ambiguous, if I were asked what is the largest church in Australia I'd know that they meant in terms of numbers of people, not of the building, without further context being required. Andrewa (talk) 01:48, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

So Andrewa, we agree "church" by itself is ambiguous, and agree that "church" is used in at least three different ways in Wikipedia lists, but you think that the name "List of the largest Protestant churches of the world" for largest denomanations is somehow not-ambiguous... or is it ambiguous to you??--Carlaude (talk) 14:52, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Agree that church is ambiguous, and has these different context-dependent meanings (at least). Disagree that List of the largest Protestant churches of the world is ambiguous in terms of WP:NC. Andrewa (talk) 16:05, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

• Wikipedia:Naming conventions (precision):

Article titles give the reader an idea of what they can expect within an article. A reader may have found your article with a search, with Recent Changes or accidentally, or in some other way that robs him of the context, so do him a favor and name your articles precisely.

If a word or phrase is ambiguous, and an article concerns only one of the meanings of that word or phrase, it should usually be titled with something more precise than just that word or phrase (unless it is unlikely that the related usages deserve their own article). For example, use Apollo program, Nirvana (band), Smoking pipe; rather than simply Apollo, Nirvana, Pipe.

This article requires precision. Articles should be List of the largest Protestant church bodies in the world and List of the largest Protestant church buildings in the world --Carlaude (talk) 00:45, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

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Requested move 24 April 2017

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Not Moved.(non-admin closure) Winged Blades ^Godric 09:36, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

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List of the largest Protestant denominations → List of Protestant denominations – There were in fact no such article previously - if it would, it should most neutrally be ordered after size; thus this move makes sense from both sides. Conclusion: size is the least problematic way of sorting and should thus be employed per default. Compare also equivalent articles in Category:Lists of Christian denominations. Chicbyaccident (talk) 10:44, 24 April 2017 (UTC)--Relisting. Primefac (talk) 14:26, 3 May 2017 (UTC) --Likely a no consensus, but give it another loop — Andy W. (talk) 05:41, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

What do you mean by "previous article"? StAnselm (talk) 11:30, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

List of Protestant denominations. Chicbyaccident (talk) 11:57, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose: There should be a minimum size cutoff for a list with this level of detail - otherwise we would just have a simple, exhaustive, listing as in List of Christian denominations - and the target would be redundant to that list. StAnselm (talk) 12:15, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

I guess you will have to provide way more attractive arguments than that in order to propose Wikipedia having to maintain two different Lists of Protestant denominations - one sorted by size, the other by... your personal choice? It is equally hard to grasp why the minimum size limit applied to the two lists should be different. Chicbyaccident (talk) 15:18, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

First of all, a denomination is the Church of England, or the Church of God (Anderson, Indiana). In this list, we have international bodies and worldwide organizations, that in no way are denominations. The title is wrong. I'm in favor of restoring the original title, that was "List of the largest Protestant bodies".Ernio48 (talk) 17:16, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

I think List of the largest Protestant bodies is probably the best title, but that is not the original title, as you yourself know - you moved it there last year, and the move was reverted. The original title had "churches" but that isn't as good since there is potential confusion with church buildings. StAnselm (talk) 21:25, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

As you will notice in Category:Lists of Christian denominations, "denomination" is the term in concensus for what is expressed here. The term "body" doesn't make anything less vague here. Chicbyaccident (talk) 14:43, 3 May 2017 (UTC)

• Support. Sortable tables. By size in but one option. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:42, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose. Brought here by a comment at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Christianity/Noticeboard‎‎. There are more than 20,000 protestant denominations alone, and some claims it's as many as 33,000. Many are no larger than a single congregation (see [1] and [2]). I agree that organizations should not be listed here, but the criteria should be something like: denominations that have more than 100,000 members and that have congregations in more than one nation. List of Protestant denominations suffers from lack of references and no indication of size. Walter Görlitz (talk) 14:23, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

That is a legitimate discussion, although I am not sure it is relevant here. A minimum size for listing is a fair aim. That is partly what the move proposal implicates and thus brings a solution to - in addition to the other problematic issue of how to sort. Conclusion: size is the least problematic way of sorting and should thus be employed per default. Chicbyaccident (talk) 14:37, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

---

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Article incomplete?

How? Is anybody aware of any church outside this list that falls in the very same size range?Ernio48 (talk) 12:28, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

Fake numbers from unreliable sources

The number of members reported for the listed Chinese house church networks are fake. I hope someome will realize that Christianity Today and the website biblereadingproject.com are non-neutral and non-reliable sources which literally invent numbers. Most of those church networks in China have from few thousands to few million adherents.--5.89.223.246 (talk) 05:01, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

Ecumenism and NPOV

I just want to note that different people prefer to draw boundaries in particular places for various ideological reasons. It seems odd to have the World Evangelical Alliance mentioned here but not the World Council of Churches. The scope of this article is Protestant, but it feels arbitrary and raises WP:POVFORK questions for me. I'm not sure the best resolution, but wanted to at least note the issue. Daask (talk) 14:50, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

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Emblems

Is there really a need to show the emblems here? Seems to be scraping the surface of WP:NFCC8. --Min☠︎rax^«¦talk¦» 06:47, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

I too have been wondering if they are proper. I thought that such logos/emblems could be used only in the subject's main article. Indyguy (talk) 14:30, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

Fair use files can be used in multiple articles provided that there is a valid rationale for its use. According to WP:NFLISTS, it is better to redirect the reader to the article instead of repeating the use of the file. @Dirkwillems: Please remove the files and their respective FUR. --Min☠︎rax^«¦talk¦» 01:04, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

@Minorax I wouldn't mind if the emblem columns were deleted. I didn't put them there, I just didn't like how sparse they were so I filled in what I could. Dirkwillems (talk) 01:19, 30 March 2024 (UTC)