Talk:Patriarch (Latter Day Saints)

Merge proposal

Proposal is to merge Evangelist (Latter Day Saints) with this article. It is apparent that this is a common office in many of the Latter Day Saint churches; some of the churches call the office "patriarch" and some call it "evangelist"; some have used both terms. It is confusing to have two separate articles. One article could easily deal with the office in all of the relevant denominations and discuss the different terminology. Rich Uncle Skeleton ^(talk) 05:42, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Agreed, the two articles should be one. Let's wait a few days before implementing so that other editors can contribute. Good work. --Storm Rider ^(talk) 13:17, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

My only concern is the name Patriarch as the page title if these two pages were merged. The Church of Jesus Christ has never had a Patriarch since their organization in 1862. I am not sure what the name should be, but I am opposed to a merge without a name change. In fact, the duties of a Patriarch in these organizations are completely different than an evangelist in TCOJC.

I would support a merge if TJOJC would have its own Evangelist page (like the expanded page which many other organizations have) that this could link to. I don't have time to do it now, but if the merge were made it could be a future project. Jcg5029 01:33, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

The article would make it clear what the office name is in TCOJC and what its duties are. A disambiguation link could still exist on Evangelist pointing to the article. I don't think the office of evangelist in TCOJC is notable enough to warrant a separate article—that's the reason all the Latter Day Saint denominations with similarly named offices or offices with a similar origin are grouped together. I would say the same for the Community of Christ evangelist—not notable enough by itself to warrant a separate page. This page could be merged to Evangelist (Latter Day Saints), but we would have to see what people think about that and which is the more recognizable term overall. Alternatively, we could use the old Community of Christ term Patriarch–Evangelist (Latter Day Saints), but I'm not too keen on that one since none of the denominations use it anymore. Rich Uncle Skeleton ^(talk) 01:49, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

I disagree, I feel the topic is notable enough to remain where it is with additional information on this page. 146.186.44.182 14:37, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Reasons?? Rich Uncle Skeleton ^(talk) 20:59, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

FYI, the laconic IP address above is our old friend of many IP edits at The Church of Jesus Christ and its talk page, where its edits have included, say, rewording "Bickerton joined associated with the LDS Church..." - and where a few edits at a time have also been made by four other IP addresses with the same first three octets. Any conclusions are left as an exercise for the student.

As for these two articles, it seems like an issue that in modern usage, the LDS Church today uses the term "patriarch" virtually exclusively, while the churches formerly known as RLDS and the TCOJC seem to use "evangelist" nearly if not wholly exclusively; while the two terms were historically used interchangeably in the Smith-era ur-church and to greater or lesser or no extent historically in the other organizations. As such, it doesn't seem quite right to have just an article titled "patriarch (Latter Day Saints)" to cover what the other two groups do not call a patriarch in modern usage. The overlapping content in the two articles certainly calls for some resolution, but maybe merge is not the right one. Nor is "evangelist (TCOJC)" by itself notable enough for its own article - but maybe we could have one article just for "Patriarch (Latter-day Saints)" and one for "Evangelist (Latter Day Saints)", have a brief note on the overlapping historical usage near the top of both articles, then move the post-1844 Latter-day Saint content all into the one article and the post-1844 other-LDS-movement content all into the other article - so the content matches the specific titles.

Haven't really made up my mind, just throwing that out there. - Reaverdrop _(talk/nl) 05:48, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

I think this is the best solution to the problem. I think there would be many associated with RLDS or TJOJC who may not search for this page under a title of Patriarch. They may have never even known of the historical context -- so I think the thought is good. One thing, the post 1844 movement could probably remain in Patriarch where that is the most commonly used term by the group we are including it for. For example, for the LDS Church it appears they use this term often, so why not include them on this page? Basically apply proper context to the most common usage for the organizations. That way an improper title is not the top of the page for any particular group. Jcg5029 21:15, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

The problem of searchers not being able to find an article they are looking for is a red-herring. Redirects are used, and categories can even be included on redirect pages. It's not an insoluble problem, and it's best to keep the number of articles limited when we're dealing with similar concepts that have simply been applied different names by different groups. Rich Uncle Skeleton ^(talk) 23:42, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

I think that Reaverdrop's suggestion above is a great one and would support creating a page for Patriarch (LDS) and Evangelist (LDS). I think the main issue that you are coming across is although you have a term with a similar/common history it's modern usage is completely different. You can't name the article Patriarch (LDS) and include sections because, at least in terms of TCOJC, there has been no usage of patriarch since 1862. It would be completely incorrect to do so because you would have no references and ultimately you need sourced information to have an article. JRN 01:03, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

I think you've hit the nub of the problem. By the way, the two separate articles do already exist—this was just a discussion re: a proposal to merge them. Rich Uncle Skeleton ^(talk) 01:09, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes so my suggestion would be to keep the articles as existing and two add a paragraph at the beginning to clarify the common historical usage pre-1844 so that readers aren't confused. JRN 11:56, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't have any strong opinions on this, but I have no problem with keeping separate articles. The concepts of patriarch and evangelist are not inextricably intertwined. Until 1838, the idea of an evangelist was no different from that in Protestant religions. Then Smith connected the two ideas in 1838, but then later, I understand that churches like TCOJC went back to the more Protestant-like definition of evangelist. Plus, the idea of the Patriarch has connections (in some denominations) to the Patriarchal priesthood, whereas in the New Testament Philip was ordained by the apostles to proseletyze, but I don't think anybody has suggested he held anything other than the Melchizedek priesthood. In fact, I think some Mormon leaders said Philip was one of the seven presidents of the Seventy. So there's probably room for two articles. They can just reference each other. COGDEN 20:45, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

These proposals sound reasonable to me. If we could write some sort of paragraph to link the two concepts that could be included in both articles, I'd be more than happy to delete my merge proposal. As the articles stand now, I think the opportunity for confusion is there, and I think that just needs to be cleaned up if they are not to be merged. Rich Uncle Skeleton ^(talk) 13:13, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Is this merge proposal still active? If so I oppose. If not, can someone remove the merge tag? KomandorskiMaru —Preceding unsigned comment added by KomandorskiMaru (talk • contribs) 22:58, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Different Merge proposal

I don't see a need for two articles "Patriarch (Latter Day Saints)" and "Patriarch emeritus". In a since, the Patriarch emeritus is just a retired Patriarch. We don't include a separate article for "emeritus Seventies".

If you put the entire Patriarch emeritus article as a subsection in this page it will improve the Patriarch (Latter Day Saints)]] article and remove a LDS stub.--ARTEST4ECHO (^talk/_contribs) 15:28, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Go for it; the Patriarch emeritus article is unlikely to get any bigger than it already is, and you're right that it's useful material in Patriarch (Latter Day Saints). -- 208.81.184.4 (talk) 16:13, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

• Support. No need for both. Patriarch emeritus can just redirect to the section about the topic. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 23:38, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

• I think it seems clear that this is a good merge. I went ahead and did it.--ARTEST4ECHO (^talk/_contribs) 14:28, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

I think this page's focus is wrong

I think this page's focus is all wrong. When reading it, both the LDS Church and Community of Christ Sections focus almost exclusively on the office of Presiding Patriarch and Presiding Evangelist respectively. These are distinctly different, albeit related, position from "Patriarch" and "Evangelist" in both sects. After reading this page, it almost seems like a re-hash of Presiding Patriarch.

In the LDS Church Patriarch considered to be an office of the Melchizedek priesthood. These Patriarch are married high priest who are normally at least 55 years old. There are normally one or two in every Stake. They are responsible for patriarchal blessings.

An evangelist in the Community of Christ ordained office of the ministry. The primary duty of an evangelist is the giving of sacramental "evangelist's blessings"; it is for this reason that evangelists are often referred to as "ministers of blessing". These blessings were considered one of the eight sacraments in the RLDS Church. While I do not understand what that exatly mean, it sounds alot like a patriarchal blessing

Additionally, and to add to the confusion, other sects, such as the Bickertonites have Evangelists/Patriarchs also, and since this page seems to focus on the Presiding Patriarchs/Evangelist, it fails to make mention on any other sects such as this.

I think that page need to be refocused away from the Presiding Patriarch's and to the General office of Patriarch.--- ARTEST4ECHO ^(talk) 18:56, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

I was WP:Bold and just did it. However, if anyone object, I'm more than happy to change it back.--- ARTEST4ECHO ^(talk) 20:16, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

Problem of date in the paragraph "Patriarch in the Community of Christ"

The RLDS is mentioned with a beginning date 1872, and "Patriarch/Evangelist" in that same community from 1835. How would that be possible? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.91.216.198 (talk) 17:01, 13 February 2022 (UTC)