Talk:Profession of faith

Merger proposal

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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I think this page should be merged with Act of Faith (Christianity) as the latter is a form of Profession of faith.--Epiphyllumlover (talk) 04:19, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

Hi User:Epiphyllumlover, thank you for your message on my talk page, as well as for starting this discussion. The term "profession of faith" usually has liturgical connotations, being made in front of a congregation while an "act of faith" is a prayer, not necessarily being made in a liturgical context. As such, I personally do not think the two should be merged. What are your thoughts? I look forward to hearing from you. With regards, Anupam^Talk 06:08, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

In your guesstimate, how much of the use of the Act of Faith is a personal ritual as opposed to liturgical? 50-50? 70-30? etc.--Epiphyllumlover (talk) 03:39, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

There is no set "Act of Faith" that one can make. It can take many forms. The "Profession of Faith", on the other hand, is a set liturgical form used in the context of Mass. I hope this helps. With regards, Anupam^Talk 09:41, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

How common is Act of Faith-ing compared to Profession of Faith-ing? I am of the impression that the Profession of Faith is much more commonly performed or referred to, to the tune of 90%-10% or more, but the ngram viewer results possibly contradict this. Possibly they support my estimate if you count only the ones with the uppercase "A" in act and assume that the ones with the lowercase a are just a generic reference of any work relating to faith and necessarily a devotional ritual. For example, compare only the capitalized versions and it seems to support my impression that the Profession is more common than the Act.--Epiphyllumlover (talk) 04:35, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

"Made a profession of faith" is used by conservative evangelicals not for a liturgical event but for a personal claim to have become a follower of Christ, e.g. https://www.gotquestions.org/profession-of-faith.html , https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/5-questions-child-professes-faith/ , http://resources.thegospelcoalition.org/library/the-inadequacy-of-profession . A profession might follow a sinner's prayer, or a moment of clarity for a person brought up as a Christian. The words are used where others might use "were converted", "became Christians" or "made a decision for Christ". The article should refer to this usage.

It appears that the intended merger is from Act of Faith into Profession of faith. I would have no objection to that. – Fayenatic London 09:40, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

If anything, this article could be merged with Profession of faith. At least in Catholicism, an act of faith is typically private, personal, and can take many different forms, whereas that is not at all the case with a profession of faith. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 18:47, 2 February 2020 (UTC)

Oppose merge, on the grounds that its important to distinguish between public declaration (usually litergical) as described in Profession of faith (Christianity) and a more (genuine) private declaration (Act of Faith (Christian)). Fayenatic refers to conservative evangelical use which differs from this, but my reading of those external links is that they all include an implicit or explicit warning that profession of faith, being public, may not be genuine, because of various social pressures. So, profession of faith there, too, is public. Epiphyllumlover seems to be concerned by use metrics, which don't seem relevant to the question of whether or not a merge should occur; only the direction of any agreed merge. Klbrain (talk) 20:13, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

Support The status quo leaves two relatively short yet rather ambiguously separate articles which don't really make any distinction as to their difference. A profession of faith appears to be a subset of an act of faith, and is used when an individual takes a role in a Christian institution as either part of the institution or as part of the church (even though that also describes an act of faith as the age of accountability is really the first instance in which someone makes a personal decision about their religious adherence and if they are indeed part of the Church). Not to mention the somewhat poor quality of the profession of faith article - it doesn't actually describe what it is. Is it a prayer? is it a written testimony? Where does it happen? Is it witnessed by an entire congregation? ItsPugle (please use {{ping|ItsPugle}} on reply) 14:04, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose: These are two different concepts. As stated by User:Andrew Sheedy, the term "profession of faith" usually has liturgical connotations, being made in front of a congregation, while an "act of faith" is a prayer, usually made in private. I hope this helps. With regards, Anupam^Talk 15:01, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.