Talk:Thandeka (minister)

Request for editing review

In Love Beyond Belief: Finding the Access Point to Spiritual Awareness (2018), Thandeka affirms a critique of the compromised legacy of Protestantism by Reinhold Niebuhr and John B. Cobb Jr., and reaffirms what she sees as the original Pauline foundation of love for faithfulness to Christ.

The ideas proposed in the book are as follows:

1. Christian theology lost its original emotional foundation of love through a linguistic error created by the first-century Apostle Paul, when he introduced a new word "conscience" [Greek, 'syneidesis'] to discourse on Christ;
3. This discourse became an emotional foundation for handling gentile pain and suffering that generated almost 2000 years of anti-Jewish and anti-Judaic sentiment and activity within Christianity;
5. Paul's error was initially justified, explained and compounded by Augustine and then Martin Luther;
7. Schleiermacher tried but failed to correct the error by reaffirming love as the affective foundation of Christian faith;
9. This false foundation for Christian faith accidentally created by Paul, rooted in pain and suffering, was reaffirmed by the nineteenth-century American Enlightenment of Common Sense moral values;
11. Liberal Protestants abandoned the errant emotional foundations without retrieving the original emotional foundation of love for Gentile faithfulness to Christ in the letters of Paul.

--Heartfilled (talk) 05:20, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

 Not done for now: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format. Encoded  Talk 💬 08:58, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

The invisible note preceding the provided content was intended to specify the requested change. I restate as follows:

Change the final paragraph of the article, beginning with "In Love Beyond Belief" and ending with "faithfulness to Christ." to the provided content.

--Heartfilled (talk) 17:44, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

Note to other reviewers - advice given on my talk page :) [1] Encoded  Talk 💬 21:35, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

Note: Request contains invisible message below Edit COI banner: I propose the following replacement text for the final paragraph of this article, to conform with Wikipedia standards for writing with a neutral point of view Encoded  Talk 💬 21:32, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

 Not Done. It would be highly unusual to include in a Wikipedia article a description of the opinions expressed by the subject in their own book. In the case above the material would clearly fall foul of WP:NOTADVOCACY and WP:NOTSOAPBOX. If the subject wishes to transmit their opinions via the internet, the correct avenue to do so would be via their own website or social media. Axad12 (talk) 10:03, 15 November 2024 (UTC)

Conflict of Interest Editor "Heartfilled"

Yesterday (10/22/2024) I removed the closing section on Personal Life, on request of Thandeka. Thandeka is no longer the partner of Naomi King. I received a message from Tacyarg today requesting that I disclose my conflict of interest, which I strive to accomplish with this entry.

I am a friend of Thandeka and a volunteer. I receive no compensation for my editing assistance.

As a new Editor, I seek advice from the Editing community:

(1) Can the removal of the Personal Life section stand?

(2) How do I best assist in editing to remove "promotional content?" By requesting edits from non-COI Editors? By doing the edits myself with proper disclosure in the Edit Summary?

References to appropriate Help articles are welcome — I already have ten articles open in my browser, and appreciate in advance any assistance that filters chaff.

Hi [please remember to sign your edits using four tildes (~)]. Speaking for myself, I am fine with the removal of the personal life section, because: it's not what makes Thandeka notable; it names a non-notable person, which strictly speaking should not happen (see WP:BLPNAME); and it was poorly sourced. The reference looks like it is to a church site, which is unlikely to be a reliable source, and that specific URL no longer works and there is no archive that I can find. (There is an archive of the main site here.) But I am only one editor, and others may disagree. You have done the right thing by posting here. You could ask at the tearoom if you want views from a larger number of editors.

Regarding the promotional tag, this was added in 2022, and you could ask the editor who added it whether they still think the article needs it. Looking at the version of the article they tagged, I might have done the same because of the sentences She helps contemporary Protestantism and liberal religion and theology rediscover and affirm its experiential roots creating experiences of love and true community and working with individuals in a small group setting to create direct experiences of care, support, and love that prompt acts of lovingkindness and help people develop a deeper sense of who we are and what we can do together. Both of these sentences imply that Thandeka is successful, rather than that that is what she sets out to do, and without good sourcing, I can see this could cross over into promotion. Both have been removed from the article now, however.

The final paragraph of the current version does read rather promotional to me, as it appears to repeat Thandeka's research and views uncritically, ending with the successful reaffirmation by Thandeka of the original Pauline foundation (my emphasis). It is also unsourced. But this theological worldview is not something I know much about, so I'd want a more expert editor to take a view. There is a WP:WikiProject Theology, but it's not active, so again the Tearoom might be a good place to start if you want more eyes on this. Tacyarg (talk) 20:39, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

Just a note to say that agree 100% with the comments above by Tacyarg. Axad12 (talk) 06:15, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

--Heartfilled (talk) 16:52, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

First paragraph / Summary

The following revisions are proposed by Thandeka for the first paragraph of the article about her.

Thandeka (born Sue Booker on March 25, 1946)[1][2] is a Unitarian Universalist minister, congregation consultant and small group organizer, American liberal theologian,[3] and the creator of a contemporary form of affect theology. Thandeka's affect theology grounds religious knowing awareness and spiritual experience in the human feeling of unconditional love and acceptance, compassion and care,[4] combining concepts from nineteenth-century theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher with insights from affective neuroscience.[5] Thandeka advances American discourse on race beyond its conflicting claims by re-affirming the inherent worth and dignity of every person and creating small groups that network together to heal and transform the world. Her Love Beyond Belief™ Inc. programs help achieve this end because, as she puts it, “Human salvation is not a solo act. We were not broken alone and we cannot be healed along. Together we can transform our hearts and our world.”

Thank you for your prompt attention.

 Partly done I only included the sourced information. Everything after source [5] was not included because no reliable souces were provided, and the style of the content does not align with WP:NPOV. Please submit a new edit request for additional changes. Thanks, Heartmusic678 (talk) 15:53, 26 January 2022 (UTC)