Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Christianity/Noticeboard/Archive 1

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Wikipedia:WikiProject Religion

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

Anyone here?

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)

My two cents

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'm game!

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)

Template

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)

Added Footer and modified Scope

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.   Guðsþegn – UTCE – 19:32, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Collaboration

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)

Bible articles

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)

Okay

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)

Article Approach

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)

Bible Version

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.   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)

Calling all mystics!

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)

Just a thought...

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)

Inactivity?

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 would love your help.

I recently started a new wiki over at wikicities which is on the subject of christianity. 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)

International Churches of Christ

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)

NTCC

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)

Content forking with chapters

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)

Preventing an edit war over the Saints

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” [1]
• There was an edit was on Philip Neri that accused the U.S. miltary of torture. [2]
• One editor said he was editing 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)

Passover in the Christian tradition

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)

Local churches

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 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)

Ray Comfort

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)

Reverted truncation by User:Jedi Hibbler

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)

Sufjan Stevens assistance

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)

Help develop Scripture Database website

I've been conceptualizing a Scripture Database website for several years now. I've finally gotten around to publishing a 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)

WikiProject Anglicanism

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)

The Last Temptation of Christ

"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)

Chinese in Singapore needs cleanup

This article could really use some attention from someone who knows how to discuss religion in neutral terms, and who has a grasp of Christian practices and modern history. It's currently full of judgemental commentary. A sample:

"Protestants in Singapore consists of Anglican, Methodist, Presbyterian as well as evangelist Baptist. Pentecostals, Charismatics as well as the City Harvest, who are being viewed as unorthodox by many Christians, have made large numbers of converts in the recent years, notably among youths. Other denominations such as Jehovah's Witnesses and Unification Church are being banned by the government as deviationist cults.

Christians are known for their taboos towards other religions among non-Christians. Catholic taboos are more accentuated towards human rights, notably abortion and IVF. Protestants, on the other hand, holds taboos against other religions, notably ancestor worship, worship in all Chinese temples, be it ancestral, Confucian, Buddhist and Taoist. Such practices are deemed as Pagan among Protestants. Catholicism, on the other hand, only prohibited worship of Taoist deities and Buddhism."

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)

Bible study?

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)

Key articles for Wikipedia 1.0

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)

Version Choice

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 Wikible.org, not to mention 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)

Canon law

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)

Restorationism

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

Islamic Barnstar Award

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)

{{Portal:Bible/Featured chapter/Template}}

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)

ACIM

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)

Bible Quotes

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 {{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. 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. Genesis 1:26 (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)

Discipleship

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)

Bishops

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)

RCC vs. CC

• 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)

Christianity Personal Award

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

Proposal to resolve the Catholic/Roman Catholic debate

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)

Task Forces as Opposed to Ever Increasing number of projects?

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)

Biblical literalism

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)

Anti-Mormonism

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)

Wikipedians, Seminarians and Theologians please help

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)

Imputed Righteousness

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)

AFD discussion that you may be interested in

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

Bible

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

New Christianity Template

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

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)

Template needed

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)

Revised Standard Version

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)

religioustolerance dot org

I came across 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 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)

Christianity template

There is currently a vote getting underway regarding some aspects of the template. You are invited to weigh in.    GUÐSÞEGN   – UTEX – 17:01, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Category:Christian group structuring

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)

Invitation to help with the Threshing-board article

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)

Conversion to Christianity

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)

Interdenominationalism

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)

Category:Religious leaders

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)

Jack Schaap view of communion and sex

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 ([3] [4] [5]) 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 FAR

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

Article for Cleanup

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)

Hypostatic union

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)

POV in the Wikiproject Christianity statement of purpose

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:

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 ^{<Speak|on|it!>} 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.

... to regain the purpose behind the former "major contemporary traditions" language.    GUÐSÞEGN   – UTEX – 04:32, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

• 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)

Community ban of the Joan of Arc vandal

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)

Assessment

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)

Catholicism in Norway

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)

Wikipedia Day Awards

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)

Article Needs Attention

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)

Article Needs Attention

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)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Religion

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)

Revitalization of project

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)

Jesus nominated for Article Improvement Drive

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)

Infobox

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)

Proposed Oriental Orthodoxy project

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)

Articles tagged as needing expert attention

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)

COTM

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)

Image of Muhammad in the West/Christian view of Muhammad

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)

Wiki-link potentially unclear terms

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)

Book of Concord article name

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)

Christian Essense

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

The Bible

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).

Jerusalem

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.

christianity wiki

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

Proposed Lutheranism project/work group

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)

Jesus

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)

Iglesia ni Cristo group

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)

Page links to Crusaders

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)

The kiss of Judas

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)

Erwin Raphael McManus

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)

Witchcraft section in Martin Luther

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)

Request for input (new cat?)

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)

Peer review for Jerusalem

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

Jerusalem

I have been working on this article for the past three months and I'm hoping to put this up for featured article status sometime in the near future. Essentially, I'm looking for a critique of the article and suggestions for things that might need to be rectified prior to submitting it for a featured article candidacy.

• I was a bit worried about the length of the article, but I personally feel it is okay since much of the kilobyte-age comes from the large number of sources rather than from over-the-top text. However, if you disagree, please do offer up suggestions for shortening the article.
• Because I know the Jerusalem article is (somewhat) controversial, I want to make sure any issues with neutrality (especially in regards to the capital issue) are squared away before making a final submittal. I believe I did a good job, but perhaps something is subtly biased that I did not notice.
• A good look at the prose would be great. I just finished writing the last section, so I haven't gotten the chance to do a thorough proofread; I'll proceed to do that this week while this peer review takes place, but by all means chip in.
• I want to ensure the facts are correct. I have never been to Jerusalem, so my writing comes exclusively from extensive research. If something looks factually incorrect, please fix it or make a note of it (although please use caution if the change will conflict with a source). If a source was misinterpreted, please please fix it or make a note of it.
• I want to ensure foreign-language words are used and/or translated properly, since I'm not knowledgeable in Hebrew or Arabic.
• I'm not sure what to say about local, city, or municipal government in Jerusalem. I may have to keep it short, but if anyone can think of any ideas, that would be great.

You are, of course, welcome to assist in other areas as well. Thanks in advance for any help you may provide. -- tariqabjotu 16:06, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Any chance of more citations from the Holy Scriptures? WikiNew 16:12, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Where do you believe additional citations from religious texts would be useful? -- tariqabjotu 17:47, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

• Looks great overall; I have a few POV issues, but I'm sure these are just oversights, and I certainly do not make any accusations as to your opinions or anything like that; we must work together to make these sorts of things as objective as possible, and it's a tough business. I just have a few minor stylistic questions. Rather than go in and mess with your wording myself, I thought I should let you work on your own project.
  1. "and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre among different sects of Christians." -- different from what? would this be better as "some sects" or "various sects"?
  2. "while majority Palestinian areas dominate the north, east and south of the Old City" I think I get what you mean - "areas where there is a Palestinian majority" rather than "the majority of areas which are Palestinian/ majority of Palestinian areas" - but this is a bit ambiguous as it reads now.
  3. The section on The Temple Periods ends by saying that for over 18 centuries Jerusalem was not the capital of any independent state; I like this. It's accurate, it's dramatic, and it's an interesting historical fact. But I think that as this could be taken as a political (i.e. POV biased) statement, it should perhaps be balanced by a brief description of the fact that no independent state called Palestine has ever existed and/or of the Greco-Roman origins of the word.
  4. The last few sentences of the State of Israel section in the history also seems to be a bit tilted. Perhaps a slight expansion would be pertinent on the problems with the city being split, and the causes of the Six-Day War. As it stands right now, I feel it reads as though Israel's capture of East Jerusalem was entirely selfish and vicious, and that its rule/sovereignty over the united city is somehow unfair or unjust.
  5. A more explicit mention of the Three Hills (Mount of Olives, Mount Zion, and Temple Mount) and Three Valleys might be good in the geography section.
  6. In the Capital section, "only two members of the United Nations — Costa Rica and El Salvador — have their embassies located within the city limits of Jerusalem...and several consulates within the city itself." Are these consulates of Costa Rica and Ecuador, or consulates of other nations? Seems unclear from the wording.

Thanks for your hard work. I truly do apologize for introducing POV issues into this, but I think a few minor changes here and there would be good to ensure the objectivity of the article's message. LordAmeth 19:54, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

• I'll get back to you on a couple of these points, but it may be best for you to address a few yourself because I don't see the ambiguity with some of them, particularly with your second point. I added the number of consulates in regards to your second point, but I didn't specifically mention that those consulates did not include Costa Rica and El Salvador (since it wouldn't make sense for a country to have an embassy and a consulate in the same city). I fixed the first point, but take issue with doing something about the third point (because mentioning Palestine rather superfluously might sound like a subtle desire for a nation-state by the name of Palestine). -- tariqabjotu 15:30, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I've eliminated the ambiguity I had perceived in the "majority areas" phrase. As for the thing about Jerusalem not being the capital for 18 centuries, all I'm saying is that inclusion of this fact could be interpreted as an argument against the legitimacy of Jewish/Israeli claims on it as their capital. By explaining that there has never been an independent state called Palestine, you discount their claims on it as well, balancing the POV. That's my thought. LordAmeth 12:40, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I would shorten the religious significance section. The sub pages should be sufficient for most of what is there. That would help with the length issue. I might also link to category: neighborhoods of Jerusalem somewhere. --יהושועEric 03:17, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I'd have to disagree on the point regarding shortening the Religious Significance section. In comparison to the five articles on the religious significance of Jerusalem, the section is quite short, only touching upon the most basic facts about the significance of the city in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. I'm thinking that perhaps the History section could be cut down, but Jerusalem does indeed have a very long history; the summary in the Jerusalem article is much shorter than the full piece at History of Jerusalem. However, I encourage you to make whatever changes you feel are necessary to cut down on the length. At some later date, I'll calculate how much readable prose is in the article (so we can compare the article with WP:LENGTH), but I'm rather confident there won't be a tremendous issues since there are a heck of a lot of sources that do not count toward the readable prose total. For comparison, this is 63kB of prose. As long as this article is less than 50-55kB of prose (WP:LENGTH actually says less than 60kB), any objection based on length alone would not be warranted. -- tariqabjotu 15:37, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I determined that the article in its current state is 34 kB of readable prose, well within the limits of WP:LENGTH. See User:Tariqabjotu/Jerusalem. -- tariqabjotu 04:26, 31 March 2007 (UTC)\

It is important to distingush between the Old City and the New or West and East Jerusalem. Fbc215 18:08, 1 May 2007 (UTC) 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 on WP:FAC

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):

Jerusalem

Peer review SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:13, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

You may be looking for Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Jerusalem/archive2 which was originally at this page.

Self-nomination The Jerusalem article is comprehensive and very well-referenced, fulfilling all of the featured article criteria. Although there has been some controversy in the past about the idea of Jerusalem being the capital of Israel, the article has remained relatively quiet and stable, with objections being very rare. The article presents the city of Jerusalem in a neutral light with "brilliant" prose. The article does not use any fair-use images and it does not appear to violate any standards set forth by WikiProjects and Wikipedia in general. Before anyone gawks at the length shown when hitting the edit this page link, I would like to note that there are only about thirty-four kilobytes of readable prose; that is well within the "rule of thumb" established by Wikipedia:Article size. -- tariqabjotu 04:12, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Tariq, per the FAC instructions, you forgot to identify this as a self-nomination; you're the top contributor to the article according to page history stats. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:17, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Without going into great detail about the unnecessary nature of the red text... I thought that instruction had been removed (and it really ought to be; it's not like it's my article and it shouldn't make a difference whether the nominator has worked on an FAC). -- tariqabjotu 02:55, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

• Comment. The reference for it being the largest city seems very strange indeed. Don't they have a census?--Pharos 08:52, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Yes, I know; I agree there are too many sources for that one fact (there is a census) and for the fact regarding Jerusalem being a Jewish center since the 10th century BCE. Take a look at #Sources (January 2007) from the talk page. -- tariqabjotu 11:52, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
  • I have shortened the references in question accordingly. -- tariqabjotu 13:43, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
    • I've re-lengthened them. Unfortunately, this claim was the subject of a lengthy debate and edit war that lasted almost two months, until sufficient high-quality sources were provided so that it was indisputable. Sadly, certain topics are going to be disputed ad nauseam until they are proven to death, and the coffin nailed and chained shut with a giant padlock. This happens to be one of them. Jayjg ^(talk) 17:17, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
      • A response to Jayjg has been provided on the talk page of the article. -- tariqabjotu 20:42, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
• Support, after tariqabjotu's extensive efforts (disclosure - I've been a very minor contributer to the article, mainly on the talk page). okedem 08:43, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Just a note, for compliance with FAC instructions; Okedem is in the top 10 contributors to the article, according to page history statistics. (Nothing personal, okedem; I'd just like to see better compliance in general with the instructions at FAC.) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:17, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

As flattering as that might be, it's only by number of edits, not by content. Almost all of those edits were reverts of vandalism. I've added very little content to the article. okedem 20:22, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

• Comment Interesting article on a great city. Some suggestions: "Sports" subsection should be pruned. Which clubs won in which year is not necessary in this article (years are important in individual club articles). You can simply delete the subsection, and include the names of popular sports and prominent clubs in a paragraph at the end of "Culture" (before the subsection "Religious subsection"). The short paragraph on "Israel Festival" may be merged with the upper paragraph, and a separate short paragraph on sports may be created.

It would be nice if some crime statistics are added in the "Demographics" section. The one-sentence paragraph on the use of "Jerusalem stone", why is that added in "climate"? Any impact of climate on the use of the stone?

I have a feeling that the article is over-wikilinked. Have had some talks with User:Tariqabjotu in this regard. Comments from other users would help in this matter. Regards.--Dwaipayan (talk) 07:36, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

I think the amount of links is fine (not over-linked). I don't think a reader should have to go back looking for a link, when he just wants some information about a specific subject (and so doesn't read the whole thing in one sitting). okedem 08:46, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

I have removed the championship years from the Sports section, although I was a bit apprehensive about removing the sub-section altogether; it seems to go against the article structure established at Wikipedia:WikiProject Cities. I'll find some information on crime in Jerusalem a bit later (unless someone else gets to it first) and add crime as a sub-section under demographics. -- tariqabjotu 14:20, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

I'll have to get around to this in about sixteen hours. I'm having trouble finding crime stats in English. I was able to find this page which seems to relate to crime statistics, but I don't know Hebrew. I'm can't seem to find the English translation and the search box on the English version of the Police website is not working. -- tariqabjotu 04:21, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

These are crime statistics, and they do have statistics for the different districts (like the Jerusalem district), but only in absolute numbers (like "number of murder cases"), not anything comparative (like "number of robberies per 1,000 residents"). Not very useful. okedem 09:52, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

• Comment I do not think starting the article with "Jerusalem is Israel's capital" is the most npov way to handle the dispute over Jerusalems' status. As a suggestion, I point you to Encarta's intro for Jerusalem which I think handles it very well:

Jerusalem (Hebrew Yerushalayim; Arabic Al Quds), city lying at the intersection of Israel and the West Bank, located between the Mediterranean Sea and the Dead Sea, about 50 km (about 30 mi) southeast of the Israeli city of Tel Aviv-Yafo. Jerusalem is composed of two distinct sections: West Jerusalem and East Jerusalem. West Jerusalem, which is inhabited almost entirely by Jews, has been part of Israel since Israel was established in 1948. East Jerusalem, which has a large Palestinian Arab population and recently constructed Jewish areas, was held by Jordan between 1949 and the Six-Day War of 1967. During the war, East Jerusalem was captured by Israel, which has administered it since. Israel claims that Jerusalem is its capital, but Palestinians dispute the claim and the United Nations has not recognized it as such. Jews, Christians, and Muslims consider Jerusalem a holy city, and it contains sites sacred to all three religions. --A.Garnet 13:35, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't want to turn this into another "Capital of Israel" discussion, but concisely - Israel doesn't "claim" Jerusalem is its capital. Jerusalem is, de facto and de jure, its capital. It is the seat of government, parliament, supreme court, president's and PM's quarters. Israel has designated it as capital, and it serves as capital - thus it is capital. International recognition is not a prerequisite for a capital. okedem 14:00, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

I believe a more than signficant part of the international community does not accept Israel administering East Jeursalem as part of its capital, therefore this is a significant political dispute, enough to warrant us handling the intro with a bit more sophistication (certainly for an FA). I believe there is nothing wrong with a similar intro to the Encarta suggestion I made above. --A.Garnet 14:18, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

This has been an age-old issue on this article. See Talk:Jerusalem/capital, Talk:Jerusalem#Capital of Israel, Talk:Jerusalem#Capital, "largest city" out of intro, Talk:Jerusalem#RfC, among other places. Take that as you wish. However, let me point you to the definition of capital. On Wikipedia capital and seat of government are two different articles, but they are essentially the same thing (the former article defines capital as the principal city or town associated with a country's government). According to Merriam-Webster, the capital is a city serving as a seat of government. Well, those definitions certainly apply here. The executive, judicial, and legislative branches for Israel are all located within the city of Jerusalem. There is a footnote attached to the statement in the first line. On this topic, I might advocate saying seat of government instead of capital or closing the gap between capital and the mention of the controversy. However, the very act of suggesting this could result in me being shunned from society. As usual. -- tariqabjotu 14:20, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

I think the use of seat of government is a good alternative. What do you mean you will be "shunned from society" for suggesting this? --A.Garnet 14:31, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Essentially, one would see what boils down to we've discussed this before; now get over it. The problem is that this dispute has been muddied up by accusations that people advocating mentioning capital without qualification are pro-Israel, Jewish Zionists, etc., etc., whereas people against it are trying to make Jerusalem the capital of Palestine or are anti-Semitic, pro-Muslim, etc., etc. There have been times when this mud-slinging has been avoided (especially recently), but it's still a problem. I believe seat of government is the best way to keep the important fact in the intro without having to over-emphasize the controversy. In my opinion, it's neutral, but others see it as dancing around the topic. Note that prior to September 2006, "capital" was not mentioned in the first sentence of the article. Additionally, an RfC from January was inconclusive. -- tariqabjotu 14:56, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

I dont want this FAC to be reduced to a dispute over the intro, but imo, if there is a better more encylopedic alternative, then it should be used regardless of what people "want". Seat of government is an excellent alternative and I would support it. Thanks, --A.Garnet 15:22, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Other alternatives raised included saying "national capital" and linking to Positions on Jerusalem. That could be a reasonable idea as well since most people know what a "capital" is and so the link to Positions on Jerusalem might be more useful. If I remember correctly, okedem (talk · contribs) agreed with an intro that included that (see this section), although I'm unsure if (s)he was aware of that link. So for clarification the ideas proposed over the past six or seven months have included....

1. Current phrasing.
2. "capital", with link to Positions on Jerusalem
3. seat of government, instead of capital
4. Moving "capital" out of the first sentence
5. Closing the gap between saying "capital" and mentioning the related controversy

To be honest, all I care about is getting this article featured. I can live with the current phrasing if most people are okay with it, but I get the feeling that that is not entirely the case. On a side note, however, I'd like to point out that, as far as I know, the "international community" has rejected Jerusalem as the capital of Israel as a form of punishment. In the same manner many Arab nations refuse to recognize Israel as a sovereign nation as a form of punishment (for what...?), much of the international community refuses to accept Jerusalem as Israel's capital -- even though it is -- due to the annexation of East Jerusalem (against some UN resolution somewhere, I believe). I think we may have trouble with the first sentence of this article being used in a Today's Featured Article Main Page blurb, as some important information is missing, but the footnote should suffice here. The expectation that someone would at least read the entire introduction (which does mention the controversy) is not unreasonable. Additionally, the statement by itself that Jerusalem is Israel's capital is not incorrect. So again, I'm okay with the current wording, but okay if a great number of people see it as problematic. -- tariqabjotu 15:41, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Attempting a compromise here, I added seat of government, without removing "capital", to emphasize the correctness of the term capital. -- tariqabjotu 16:31, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

My opinion on this is: We shouldn't use any phrasing which does not include the word "capital", since that's simply evasive. We use the word capital for every other capital city in the world, and Jerusalem shouldn't be any different. We should state the fact that it is capital, and it should be in the first sentence, as it is a major function. Despite all objections, going by the definition for "capital", Jerusalem is one.

Linking to "Positions..." seems like a good idea.

Is there a difference between "capital" and "national capital"? okedem 17:12, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't think there is a difference between "capital" and "national capital". -- tariqabjotu 17:49, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't really see how to close the gap between "capital", and the controversy, since that's a whole paragraph, and I don't want to flatten the issue to just a few words (like "its status is disputed"), when we can be far more informative. Honestly, I think the current phrasing is the best possible. I know the "capital" issue bothers many people, but it's just stating the facts, not saying that it's okay or anything. okedem 17:16, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree that the current wording is probably the best possible. I definitely believe that any Main Page blurb that mentions capital should link to Positions on Jerusalem since the footnote, for obvious reasons, cannot be put on the Main Page. But, on placing the link in the article itself, I'm indifferent; we may have done enough already. -- tariqabjotu 17:49, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

How about stating "...capital, as claimed by Israeli law..." (with footnote, of course).--Dwaipayan (talk) 18:38, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

No, no, no. I say this again - by any common definition of the word "capital", Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. It's not claimed, it just is, regardless of how right or internationally recognized it might be. okedem 19:05, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

I dont find your position constructive okedem, you do not seem willing to accept anything that does not introduce Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, regardless of its internationally disputed status. Put simply, we cannot introduce Jeursalem on the front page of Wikipedia in front of 2m+ people as the capital of Israel, not when that capital entails the administration of an occupied part of the city whoses status remains unclear and the centre of much political debate. This is very simple, the solution is very simple as has been shown by myself and Tariq's suggestion. Now imo if this solution cannot be implemented because it will risk edit warring, and we must rely on a pov wording open to controversy, then this article is not stable enough to warrant FA status (which is a shame because the rest of the article is very good). --A.Garnet 20:02, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

You do not seem to address my point. A capital is a simple term, and it has a definition, which you can find in any dictionary and encyclopedia. Following that definition, Jerusalem is Israel's capital. Writing it any other way would distort the truth, and mislead the readers. It's current status and function as capital is reality, and not open to debate. Whether it should be under Israel's control, whether it's just and legal - that's another thing.

The controversy is handled well in the last paragraph of the lead. For the front page we can use something like this:

"Jerusalem ... is Israel's capital, and largest city (though its legal status is disputed, see Positions on Jerusalem)...". okedem 20:19, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

<- (de-intent) Exactly. The Main Page blurb does not have to be the first paragraph of the article. Additionally, a suitable Main Page blurb is not a pre-requisite for featured article status. The threat of preventing featured status from being granted is not constructive at all. -- tariqabjotu 21:03, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

My friend, I have made no threat in preventing this from reaching FA. I have said on the contrary that I would support your earlier suggestion and that the article is very good. For me however, no reputable encylopedia would begin an article on Jerusalem stating it as Israel's capital unless explained within the greater conflict. I'll leave this for other editors to comment lest you think I have some kind of interest in preventing this from reaching FA. --A.Garnet 22:16, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Not sure where I should put this comment, but here willdo: Just want to say that the point in the sentence about Jerusalem's status as Israel's capital not being recognised by the UN is irrelevant - recognition of capitals (any capitals) is a bilateral matter between governments. If you want to make the point I think you're trying to make, you need to say something about the number of countries that have located their embassies in Jerusalem (not many). PiCo 10:05, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

• Comment "Demographics" would be comprehensive with coverage of population density, literacy, sex ratio etc. Crime scenario is not that important. Languages spoken should be mentioned.
• "Culture" Can we have something on the cuisine, dress (clothing)? Any indigenous sports? Any products unique to Jerusalem which are probably sold in some alleyways in the Old City (just guessing :)).
• "Economy" What is the primary source of income? Tourism or service sector? Or may be both are equally contributive.

Regards.--Dwaipayan (talk) 05:52, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

• Perhaps some of the information under Demographics would be nice, but I want to warn you that those statistics may be difficult to find. As those pieces are tailored to the Indian city Wikiproject, I have a feeling they are easy to find in India's census. The same might not be true for Israel and Jerusalem. -- tariqabjotu 15:40, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm. Ok, if data is not available, then of course that cannot be added. Please have a try. And what about the cultural bits like clothing and cuisine etc?--Dwaipayan (talk) 18:55, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Please try this, this, and related documents. How did they generate the data here? Here is a book. Someone may find it in some library. However, IMO, data is really hard to get. Regards.--Dwaipayan (talk) 19:14, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Did you mean to say data is really hard to get? If you meant really easy... um... I have been doing some searching and found very little prior to posting the comment above. Regardless, the first couple of sources look good. The book does not look like something that could be found in a standard library. Regarding the link in the middle, I stumbled upon that earlier but was dismayed that the stats included the West Bank and Gaza. If I remember correctly (from online sources I mean), the last census was in 1995. I'll try to find that and also look for later estimates, since 1995 information is a bit outdated. -- tariqabjotu 19:38, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Have you seen the things I added today to "demographics" and "economy"? The CBS has some good data. okedem 20:11, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Alright; I'll take a look at those. I'll be out of town until Sunday night (~ 00:00 UTC Monday). I may have Internet access while I'm away, but I cannot guarantee that. During that time, feel free (as always) to improve the article. -- tariqabjotu 23:26, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I really did mean that data is really hard to get. I did some search, and presumed you might have done much more extensive search than what I did. I must clarify that I did not make any sarcastic comment. I am only trying so that the article becomes even more comprehensive. Regards.--Dwaipayan (talk) 19:11, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

• Strong Support Its very very well done. Its very well cited, and I'm highly impressed with this article Max 07:35, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
• Object switched to "support", see below. The fact that a large part of the city lies in the occupied territories should be explicitly mentioned in the introduction, as that is a central topic of debate, not only relating to Jerusalem itself but also to the Israel-Palestinian conflict as a whole. The statement from the introduction Israel's annexation of the primarily Arab neighborhoods that form East Jerusalem has been particularly controversial, as Jerusalem has been claimed by Palestinians as the capital for a future Palestinian state is not explicit enough. Given that even "occupied territories" is a hotly debated term it may be difficult to find a suitably NPOV way of phrasing it, but nevertheless it's a very important fact and must not be weaseled around. Kosebamse 11:35, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

  I don't understand your objection. The issue is mentioned right there in the lead, and is not "weaseled around". Do you want it to be phrased differently? Make a suggestion, then. The issue is also handled in "History-->The state of Israel", and the whole section of "Government". okedem 11:55, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

  Where is it "mentioned right there in the lead"? The only reference that I can find is the sentence that I cited and that is IMO not sufficient. There is no link there to the capture of East Jerusalem in 1967, to the law that formalised the annexation, or to the occupied territories in general. I am thinking of an explicit phrase along the lines of "situated partially in the occupied territories of West Bank (see also Jerusalem Law and Positions on Jerusalem)". I certainly would not insist on a particular way of phrasing it, but the matter should not be mentioned en passant and without a relevant link or two. Kosebamse 12:35, 12 April 2007 (UTC), amended 12:53, 12 April 2007

  I have made a suggestion on Talk:Jerusalem. Kosebamse 13:08, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

  The matter has been discussed on Talk:Jerusalem, new phrasing is better IMO, retracting my objection. Kosebamse 14:10, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

  Support. Overall, a well written, neutral and comprehensive article. (Note: I have made another suggestion for improvement on the talk page. )Kosebamse 15:33, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

• Support. A good, in depth article that presents Jerusalem with as much of an NPOV as I have seen on Israel pages. --יהושועEric 19:37, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
• Support. An inordinate amount of time and effort has been invested in this article, more than in many other FAs. nadav 10:06, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

• I'm going to stick my neck out and declare that 1d is a problem for me. The bias towards Judaism and Israel is variously subtle and not so subtle. It's a very difficult topic on which to achieve geopolitical and cultural balance in this context. Tony 13:04, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Do you have any examples? -- tariqabjotu 22:13, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, yeah. Just to start, what hits you in the face is the point of departure: it frames J entirely in Isreali terms, rather than taking a broad, historical sweep, and then providing the detail. Propriety is too hot an issue to take that line at the top. It's not good enough to put the disclaimers further down in the lead. The ambiguous (some would say "rich and complex") status of the city in political terms should be respected at the point of departure. I see now that similar issues have been raised above. The point of departure bias appears to be repeated on a smaller scale in lists in the lead. I think it needs to make more effort to acknowledge the Moslem view. I have absolutely no religious affiliations, and I have no interest in prioritising race and culture; quite the opposite. Tony 02:30, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

"frames J entirely in Isreali terms"? I think that is an exaggeration. We can all agree that NPOV is a priority for this article, but obviously we must mention in the first sentence the country where (most) of the city is located. In future, the east side will hopefully be the capital of Palestine, but there is no reason to omit that it is Israel's capital/seat of government already (and will continue to be, according to the Oslo accords). It would be unprecedented and unencyclopedic to bury the current status after a long history section. For that topic, we have History of Jerusalem. nadav 08:06, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree. Look at other articles about cities with long histories - they necessarily focus on modern times, and leave most of the history to another article. There's no way to avoid "framing Jerusalem in Israeli terms" - It's under Israel's control, has been for 59 years (west) and 40 years (east). It's populated by Israeli citizens, and is the nation's capital, housing all branches of government. It's an Israeli city, for better or worse. Of course, if you (Tony) have specific suggestions - please express them on the talk page. okedem 09:09, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Other cities with long histories? Like ... London or Paris, or Beijing? They are not the subject of bitter disputes over sovereignty. I'm not suggesting that the Israeli hold over the city be ignored in the article, or even in the lead. On the contrary, I'm suggesting that this claim not be framed as the starting point, and that rather a sense of the long, rich, multicultural history of the city be the theme in the opening paragraph, followed by a careful account, from a NPOV stance, of the current geopolitical status. Otherwise, WP might be seen to repeat in its text one of the adversarial perspectives that may be fuelling the real-life conflict. To achieve NPOV in this article, as I stated above, is a difficult task, although achievable, I think, with greater sensitivity to the major groups that lay claim to such sovereignty than is conveyed by the current opening. A special treatment is required; pointing to the structure, tone and content of articles on Moscow or Delhi, IMV, misses the point; Jerusalem is like no other city.

I must reiterate that I mean no ill-will to any religion or cultural group in my recommendation that a more balanced opening be developed. My only concern is to ensure that WP's worldwide reputation for balance is not put at the slightest risk by a gold-star endorsement of the opening wording. Tony 09:37, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Let's not confuse the legality of Israel's claim over the city with the reality of it. Jerusalem, regardless of international perspective, is under Israel's full control, and has been for a long time now. It is an Israeli city, and that's the fact today. There's serious controversy over its future, sure, but that is handled in the article right now. The only sovereign entity there is Israel, even if other group want sovereignty too.

I can't really say anything more - if you'd like to make specific suggestions, I'd be glad to discuss them with you, and I'm sure the other editors would too. okedem 10:40, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

But my point is that the article currently does confuse those two concepts. Tony 11:34, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

I think it's wrong to skirt the issue by placing the current status after a long history section. I do, however, see a compromise. We keep the current first sentence, but move up to the second sentence the statement "Jerusalem has been claimed by Palestinians as the capital for a future Palestinian state" which now appears towards the bottom. Reactions? (We should probably move this discussion to Talk:Jerusalem by now). nadav 10:57, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Support This article is as NPOV as possible satisfying both sides. A great article and thoroughly fascinating Flymeoutofhere 10:24, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

• Object The lead is simply unacceptable, as it does not adequately summarize the article. It has no word on history, only on religion and geography. The reader will never learn that Jerusalem is first and foremost the holiest city in Judaism. Now the article jumbles together Jerusalem's role in Judaism, which is immense, and the fact that the city was Muhammad's first direction of prayer, a minor and insignificant fact, which was only the case for a very brief time period. Beit Or 17:25, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

What are you talking about? Did you miss this sentence: "Jerusalem has been the holiest city in Judaism and the spiritual center of the Jewish people since the 10th century BCE."?

I don't pertain to know much about Islam, but Jerusalem is considered holy to Muslims, and that's a fact. The lead doesn't talk about the reason, and says nothing about direction of prayer (besides, isn't Jerusalem where Muhammad is believed to have ascended to the heavens from?). What would you like to add about history? We can add a paragraph summarizing the history section. okedem 18:03, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, there is such a sentence, but its buried after the completely misleading claim "Jerusalem is considered important to the three major Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam." The lead does mention Muhammad's direction of prayer despite the extremley low importance of this fact; please read carefully. Beit Or 18:36, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Jerusalem is holy to Christians and Muslims only because it is the holy city of Judaism, to which the other religions are styled as successor traditions. I am not aware that Jerusalem, unlike Mecca, Medina, Najaf or Karbala, has ever played any practical role in Islam, either related to the discharge of religious duties or as a center of administration, excepting seventeen months during which it was the direction of prayer for a few hundred people who had never visited the city.Proabivouac 19:29, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't think that's true. The Night of Ascension is exclusive to Islam and the crucifixion of Jesus is insignificant in Judaism. -- tariqabjotu 03:33, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

I completely agree with Tariqabjotu. Do you have any evidence for your assertion that "Jerusalem is holy to Christians and Muslims only because it is the holy city of Judaism". --Agha Nader 03:38, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

• Object, simply because the article - like the city, it sadly seems - will never be entirely stable, and will never be free of NPOV arguments and partisanship. Featuring it will invite more strife and discord, and that's precisely something we don't need on this topic. This may very well be the best-written article in WP; but the underlying topic is simply too controversial to showcase it. My apologies on all those who have worked hard on it - my view should not discount your efforts and accomplishments. --Leifern 18:56, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
  • This objection is not actionable and can be disregarded. (Rule of thumb: most any objection containing the phrase "this article can never be a featured article beccause..." is inactionable) Raul654 03:44, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
  • I'm not sure how I could address this. Many changes are being made according to statements on this FAC and the talk page or in attempts to fight vandalism, but that does not make the article unstable. Objecting to granting featured status on the basis that doing so might lead to "strife and discord" does not seem to be reasonable. If there is a problem with the article as it currently is, please raise the matter. However, if your objection is based solely on conjecture (i.e. "what could happen"), there's no decent objection here. -- tariqabjotu 03:42, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
    • Well, look at the discussion that's resulting from the nomination itself. For some people, anything that gives Jerusalem any amount of legitimacy as Israel's capital or even a holy city for Jews is unacceptable; for others, efforts to deprive Israel of its sovereign right to choose its own capital is reprehensible. You can't bridge those two views in an article. --Leifern 13:59, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
      • I beg to differ on that last point. A compromise seems possible here as people from both sides of the aisle (if there is an aisle) seem to have converged upon Talk:Jerusalem#Compromise. Ultimately at the end of the day, some of the objections may just be out of line. Everyone is free to voice his or her opinion, but no one is bound to accept it as correct when that's just not the case. -- tariqabjotu 16:30, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
• Object I must concur with Beit Or regarding the lead. It is certainly appropriate to mention Jerusalem's secondary role in Christianity and even more minor role in Islam, but to treat these as mirror images of or somehow analogous to Judaism's singular focus on Jerusalem, which appears to have been quite consciously done at several turns, constitutes undue weight. A greater emphasis on history in the lead will also help address this problem.Proabivouac 19:16, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

First off, please assume good faith - we're all working for a better article here.

Look at it another way - Judaism is a minor religion, with a few million believers. Islam and Christianity have, combined, billions of believers. Thus, even a relatively minor role is one of them can be viewed as very important.

Look. We can all argue about what weight to give each thing, and we'll never be completely pleased. We can't make the lead long enough to include everything, and we don't want to leave things out. Instead of calling out what you think is wrong, why not suggest a better way to phrase things? Please try. The talk page is right there, waiting for you. okedem 19:42, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm going to have to concur with Okedem on this; I don't see the problem. Jerusalem has been the holiest city in Judaism and the spiritual center of the Jewish people since the 10th century BCE seems to cover the matter. -- tariqabjotu 04:21, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

• Object I still do not agree with the current wording of the introduction. It's status as capital should be explained within the context of the conflict, not stated as fact in the first sentence. I have already said however that i'd agree with "seat of government" and the capital dispute explained further below. --A.Garnet 19:35, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

And I have explained why "capital" should remain, given that Jerusalem fulfills the definition of capital, which can be found in any dictionary or encyclopedia, and does not include any demand for international recognition. Saying anything other than "capital" would distort reality, and mislead the readers. okedem 19:42, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

That would be fine for almost every other city; but not for this one. On one side, yes, J does fulfil that definition, but it's a disputed definition. That is why POV cannot be satisfied by privileging that statement. The order in which the participating cultures/religions are treated, on the largest and the smallest levels, should also be varied during the article, to give a sense of even-handedness. Tony 22:16, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Please try not to over-politicize the lead; it simply states the facts as they are. Jayjg ^(talk) 22:19, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm gobsmacked that you can't see that the current wording is highly politicised. That's why people are raising POV here. BTW, Object (Cautious withdrawal of object) until the issues are fixed. Tony 22:42, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

The only thing "politicizing" it is your attempt to claim that simple facts are "political". Jayjg ^(talk) 00:34, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Jayjg, everyone agrees that as of now all of Jerusalem is controlled by Israel. That is not the point. The argument is that the question of what Jerusalem's status should be is so very controversial that mention of it should already be mentioned in the very beginning. Encyclopedists have struggled with this issue before. Encarta devotes its entire first paragraph to this controversy. What do you think of the compromise on the talk page? nadav 23:59, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

It's not just a fact that Jerusalem is controlled by Israel; it is also de facto and de jure Israel's capital. The U.N. has no input into which cities countries elect as their capital, nor do other countries. To insist that basic facts cannot be stated because of Palestinian wish lists and demands is fairly absurd. Shall we also say that Tel Aviv is not an Israeli city, because Hamas insists that it too is "occupied Palestinian land"? Jayjg ^(talk) 00:34, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

No no no, I would never say that. Instead we should give more weight to the question of future status by adding text on Palestinian claims, while keeping fact that Jerusalem is Israel's capital. nadav 00:51, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

"a disputed definition"? Disputed by who? Can you find any definition of "capital" which has a requirement for international recognition? All definitions I found are basically this: "a city is the capital if it's designated as such, and/or if it's the seat of government." Jerusalem fulfills both these terms, so, obviously, it's the capital of Israel. Capital describes a reality, and shouldn't be bent to political claims. okedem 08:11, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

• Comment. I am very saddened by the turn this discussion is taking. Editors have worked so hard on this article and it has been years in development. FA status would have been a remarkable statement that even on tough issues with entrenched POV's, compromise is still possible and an excellent article can exist on Wikipedia. Perhaps I was too optimistic. It seems people are too unwilling to work together and accept compromises that achieve a higher goal. (I don't want to ponder the political implications.) It will be sad indeed if Leifern's objection is proved correct. nadav 23:06, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
• Comment regarding lead I have made a few changes to the intro. Please review and comment either here or on the talk page -- wherever you feel is more appropriate. -- tariqabjotu 06:32, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

IMO the change is not an improvement. What does "remains meaningful to Palestinians, who see it as the capital for a future palestinian state" mean? It certainly does not do justice to the intensity of the struggle over the status of Jerusalem. The second Intifada is known as the Al-Aska Intifada. Jerusalem's status is one of the key (some say intractable) issues at the core of the Israeli Palestinian conflict. Many Palestinians considered Oslo a sell out becuase it prosponed the decision on the status of the Jerusalem to the final stage. Then there is the question of the attempts by the Israeli authorities to create facts on the ground by attempting to reduce the Palestinian population (by denying planning applications, beurocratic obstacles to granting residency rights of babies born to Palestinian families, removing residency rights from Palestinians who have spent more than two years abroud, constructing the wall on a route which isolates Palestinian areas, encircling Palestinian areas with new jewish neigbourhoods. Of course this does not need to be detailed in the intro. But the intro should make the bitterness of the conflict over Jeruslem clear (a conflict which has claimed hundreds of victims in Jerusalem over the last two decades). And the conflict should be given more space in the body of the article. ابو علي (Abu Ali) 10:23, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

This is the Jerusalem article, not the Arab-Israeli conflict article. -- tariqabjotu 10:45, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

So it is. But the two are so intimately linked that is hard to talk about one without the other. ابو علي (Abu Ali) 10:49, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Agree with Tariq. This isn't the place. Do you want the lead to read: "And Palestinians have murdered more than a 1,000 Israelis in what they call the Al-Aska Intifada over control of Jerusalem"? Let's not turn this into another fight. Not everything needs to be about the conflict. It's mentioned, and that's enough. Please, we're trying to reach some acceptable phrasing here, and we can't put the entire article in the lead! okedem 10:52, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

I would not consider "And Palestinians have murdered more than a 1,000 Israelis in what they call the Al-Aska Intifada over control of Jerusalem" to be a NPOV formulation. ابو علي (Abu Ali) 10:55, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Nor would I, and I would never actually add such a sentence to the lead. What I'm trying to say it that we don't have to focus on the conflict in every single paragraph and article here - it's just not the place. If we stray from the cold hard facts (and start guessing just how important Jerusalem is for the Palestinians) we'll fight forever, and get nowhere. Better to stick with the current formulation. The lead already has more than enough about the current status, considering it's only the last 60 years, in a city with a history of at least 3,000 years. okedem 11:04, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

More comments

• Support. Tariqabjotu is to be commended for tackling this, and he's done a remarkable job of steering a middle course and trying to describe each position fairly. It's carefully written, well-sourced, interesting, comprehensive, easy to read, and it's a good length. I hope that editors who are opposing only on the basis of strong POV will reconsider. We don't have to agree with articles to be able to see the quality in them. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 18:21, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

• Further comment—SV, this "middle course" is a matter for debate. What some reviewers see as a one-sided framing of the point of the departure, and in the ordering of other information in the article, is unchanged. Here's an example from lower down in the lead of subtle framing towards the Israeli claim:

"The civic and cultural center of modern Israel extends from western Jerusalem toward the country's other urban areas to the west, while areas populated mostly by Arabs may be found in the northern, eastern and southern districts." "Modern Israel" (as a state, with all of the advantages and prestige that a nation carries) is pitted agains individual "Arabs". The nation frame is reinforced in the same sentence with "the country's". The western part of the city is framed in terms of national ownership, and one that extends outward geographically into the "nation". By contrast, the other major group, the Arabs, are billed as only "mostly" populating "areas"; these are worded in terms of areas that "may be found" (vs. "extending"), and are further described as mere "districts". The bias in this article would provide fodder for a whole linguistics PhD dissertation.

As well as Criterion 1d, I wish to broaden my objection to 1a. Here are examples of why:

• • What is "storied history". "Storied doesn't seem to be a word.
  • Unnecessary amplifications and repetitions at the top: "... is Israel's capital and seat of government. It is Israel's largest city[iv] both in population and area, with a population of approximately 724,000 (as of 2006) in an area totaling 126". "is Israel's" x 2; "population" x 2; "area" x 2. Is "both" necessary? It's not used for "captial and seat of government". Is "totaling" necessary, instead of the unmarked "of"? Perhaps as a personal preference, I'd use "about" rather than "approximately", as shorter, plainer and less spiky.
  • "Barely one square kilometer,[7] the Old City is home to several of Jerusalem's most important and contested religious sites, including the Western Wall and Temple Mount for Jews, the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa Mosque for Muslims, and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre for Christians."—"in area" is required after "kilometer". There are two subset items ("several of" and "including"); can we do without one or both of these to strengthen the flow?
  • "Surrounding the Old City are more modern areas of Jerusalem." Is "of Jerusalem" necessary in this firm context? "More" is ambiguous—it could mean "further" or it could be comparative (more modern than the old city). Is the word necesssary at all? In any case, if it's retained, it needs a deictic ("the"). Tony 03:54, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
    • First, storied is a word. And so is nitpicking. I took care of most of the items in the second half of your statement. Regarding the first half... I pretty much left that alone. The lead is being discussed on the talk page quite a bit. In my opinion, I think you're over-analyzing things. There is little choice but to "pit" (uh... sure...) the country of Israel with individual Arabs. There's no other country to discuss, so what else are we to say? Israel is one of the most developed country in the region, so... you know... que sera sera. Neutrality does not mean distorting facts to ensure a disadvantaged group is portrayed as equal to a more advantaged group. Like I said, you're reading into things too hard. If you're willing to debunk an article based solely on petty semantics over whether "may be found" is used versus "extending" while also complaining that "population" is used twice in the first paragraph, you have come to the wrong place. -- tariqabjotu 04:29, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Tariq. This looks like nitpicking, and moreover it comes down to stylistic preference. I think it reads very well as is. Even if you don't agree, will you dismiss the entire article because of it? nadav 05:41, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, whether we like it or not, around Jerusalem there's one sovereign country, Israel, and areas/districts populated with Arabs/Palestinians. Only one sovereign body here, one country. If you'd really like, we can add something like: "...mostly by Arabs may be found in the northern, eastern and southern districts (including areas controlled by the Palestinian National Authority)" (these are Bethlehem and Ramallah).

Of course there is some "framing" of Jerusalem as a part of Israel - It is a part of Israel! Israel controls all of it, it's Israel's capital, it's an Israeli city with Israelis living in it! So we talk about its history, we talk about the conflict, we talk about Palestinian claims to it, but still, today, it's an Israeli city. How would you like to phrase it?

Please, try not to read hidden meaning in every little word here. These words were chosen in good faith, not to try and hide/distort the truth. Don't confuse style with content. okedem 12:46, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

• At the link you provided, "storied" = often spoken of or written about; famous:

Theirs was the most storied romance in Hollywood.

I suggest that you use a more familiar word, and one that you can be sure is appropriate. Romance novels or the tabloids may "story" a love affair, but I'm unsure whether the history of a city is an appropriate use for this epithet.

These were examples of why the whole article needs the attention of a copy-editor, preferably one who's unfamiliar with the text.

It's easy to accuse me of "overanalysing" that passage, but you offer no qualitative rejoinder or rebuttal to the points I made in that analysis: that the bias is subtle and infused throughout the wording. Accusing me of "petty semantics" and "reading into things too hard" isn't going to contribute to serious debate here, either. And if you don't care about ungainly repetition, right at the top, you've come to the wrong place; this article isn't going to satisfy the criteria. Nor is your insincere and apparently gloating "que sera sera" a serious rebuttal. There's a circularity about the world-view espoused here. Tony 07:17, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

At the risk of turning the entire future of the Jerusalem article into a silly argument over a word, let me offer the following def.s from Random House unabridged [6] and from Merriam-Websters [7] resp.: "1. recorded or celebrated in history or story: the storied cities of ancient Greece.", "2 : having an interesting history : celebrated in story or history <a storied institution>" nadav 12:02, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

I think you misunderstood me. I was saying that you were sending mixed messages when you advocated both word variety (by complaining about the repetition of "population") and lack of word variety (by complaining about the "areas" vs. "extending" bit) in the same comment. Additionally, I'm unsure where you get gloating from. I was saying that Israel is the most developed country in the Middle East; that's the way it is whether you like it or not. So, it would be very difficult to portray Israel as being on equal footing as the West Bank or whatever political entity is located there. I did provide a rebuttal: you're reading into things too hard and inventing bias where none is actually present, in the same manner you misinterpreted my words (most likely inadvertently). I'm not sure how else to convey this. -- tariqabjotu 18:32, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Keep in mind that Tony often comes up with nitpicking details regarding his own personal preferences that have nothing to do with proper or even preferred usage, and then opposes FA status ostensibly for those reasons. It's best to ignore them, rather than get worked up. Jayjg ^(talk) 22:58, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

• Comment. Tony, I feel you're being too harsh. The copy editing points you made are largely minor and boil down to preference. For example, I wouldn't write "Surrounding the Old City are the more modern areas of Jerusalem," but there's nothing wrong with it. It might be faster for you to tweak the writing than to leave detailed examples here.
• As for the POV issue, I can't see a POV in "The civic and cultural center of Israel extends from western Jerusalem toward the country's other urban areas to the west, while areas populated mostly by Arabs may be found in the northern, eastern and southern districts."
• You wrote of that sentence

  "Modern Israel" (as a state, with all of the advantages and prestige that a nation carries) is pitted agains individual "Arabs". The nation frame is reinforced in the same sentence with "the country's". The western part of the city is framed in terms of national ownership, and one that extends outward geographically into the "nation". By contrast, the other major group, the Arabs, are billed as only "mostly" populating "areas"; these are worded in terms of areas that "may be found" (vs. "extending"), and are further described as mere "districts". The bias in this article would provide fodder for a whole linguistics PhD dissertation.

• It is a fact that there is a state of Israel and that there is no other state on that piece of land. I feel that in trying to deconstruct that sentence in terms of bias, you may simply be reflecting your own, because I think most people would not see in it what you extracted from it. This is understandable because biases are hard to shake off, but I feel that tariqabjotu has managed it. How would you rewrite that sentence, as a matter of interest?
• I spoke to a friend about this yesterday. He was born in Israel and lived in Jerusalem for a few years as an adult. He is non-Zionist and doesn't like that the State of Israel exists in its current form, and he is himself a good writer, so I asked him to read this article. He said it was excellent. He said he doubted there is a more neutral way to present the contentious issues, and he called the article "a work of art." SlimVirgin ^(talk) 18:54, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Why should we care about your non-Zionist friend? Beit Or 21:23, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Good question. Since when are the opinions of non-Zionists acceptable on Wikipedia? :-) ابو علي (Abu Ali) 14:54, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

• Because he's Israeli and cares deeply about the country; because he loves Jerusalem and knows a lot about it; and because he's non-Zionist and so, while loving Israel, he understands the hostility toward it. He's also a good writer. For all those reasons, I was interested to see what he made of the article. He called it a "work of art." I thought that was worth mentioning. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 21:35, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

OK, I have a Zionist friend, who is a professional writer and thinks that this article is a badly-written exercise in skewing the image of Jerusalem. Sounds impressive? Beit Or 22:22, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Comment: I was going to make a point-by-point analysis of the history section to demostrate it weaknesses, which are multiple. Since I have no time for that right, it may be enough to point out the on-going disputes on talk regarding history and lead to show that the article in its current state is light years away from featured status. Beit Or 21:21, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

That discussion only started as a way to satisfy some of the complaints voiced here by you and others. As for Itzse, he meant well, but just added unsourced statements which were reverted. nadav 22:47, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm concurring with Nadav. The statement that this article is "light years away from featured status", especially based solely on those two discussions, is light-years away from being correct. -- tariqabjotu 23:49, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Beit Or, can you give an example of a sentence or paragraph that you feel is unacceptable: not just one that you don't like, but one that you feel is clearly too POV for FA status? Or if the issue is omission, can you give an example of a point you feel is missing and which you regard as important for neutrality? SlimVirgin ^(talk) 21:31, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Since you're pressing, a few quick points:

• The whole history section is mostly about changes in control. There is virtually nothing at all on the city proper: how it developed, for instance.
• The entire history of Jerusalem between the 6th century BCE and the time of Herod is missing. These are five centuries, full of lots of interesting events.
• "From that point, the rights of the non-Muslims under Islamic territory were governed by the Pact of Umar..." This is wrong and unhistorical, the Pact of Umar was developed by Muslim scholars of the 8th century onwards, who projected their rulings back to Umar in order to lend them greater authority.
• The section on religious significance contains three paragraphs: the shortest one on Judaism, the two longer ones on Christianity and Islam. This is absolutely unacceptable given the totally different weight given to Jerusalem by Jews, Christians, and Muslims. As I have pointed out above, the article strongly and consistently underplays the Jewish nature of Jerusalem.
• Why is there nothing at all on Jerusalem in literature and arts?

Beit Or 22:19, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

If the Jerusalem article were any longer, it would be called too long. Editorial decisions have to be made on what to include. The time period before Herod is mentioned as including the Hasmonean rule. Note that there is also a lack of authoritative sources about this time, since it precedes Josephus. The religious significance paragraphs are merely summaries of topics that have entire subarticles devoted to them, so it is not useful to look at the difference of a few lines. Also, the Judaism paragraph appears first. nadav 00:20, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

As for Pact of Umar, the period discussed there is the 8th century. While its eventual codified form may have only appeared later, many scholars contend that its ideas date back to even pre-Islamic times. Most importantly, the statement in the article is sourced to an authoritative work by Marcus, who writes:

The Pact was probably originated about 637 by Omar I after the conquest of Christian Syria and Palestine. By accretions from established practices and precedents, the Pact was extended; yet despite these additions the whole Pact was ascribed to Omar...It is generally assumed that its present form dates from about the ninth century

So, in some form, the pact was already practiced. Moreover, the sentence in the article is also speaking about the 400 years that followed, which includes the time the time the pact was codified in its present form. If you don't like the current wording, I suggest you change it to something you find more agreeable. nadav 00:43, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Beit, much of the information you may be looking for is in (or at least should be in) the History of Jerusalem article, which is more detailed and lengthy than the section in the main Jerusalem article. I'll work on a footnote for the Pact of Omar though to clarify the matter and the questionable time frame of its creation. -- tariqabjotu 02:03, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

The footnote on the Pact of Umar is even more POV (and, to put it bluntly, false) than the body of the article. In fact, it is the consensus opinion of modern historians that the Pact of Umar is a work of later Muslim jurists. If anything, the article seems to be getting worse. Beit Or 19:17, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Could you write something about it yourself for the article? SlimVirgin ^(talk) 19:21, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Will you give me a barnstar for that? :) Seriously, no, I'm not going to rewrite the lead and the whole history section. Beit Or 19:32, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

No one asked you to; we're talking about the Pact of Omar piece. I too am itching to see your take on the matter. -- tariqabjotu 19:40, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Whether anyone asked me or not, this is what the article needs. Beit Or 19:49, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

So you're not willing to propose a new wording for the footnote that you feel is neutral? I guess there's nothing else to see here then... -- tariqabjotu 19:52, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

One either reivews the article or makes substantial edits to it, but not both. At least, this is my understanding of the process. It is not appropriate to tell commenters on FAC "then go fix it if you care". In adidtion, I wasn't talking about the footnote only; both the body text and the footnote are unacceptable, and the latter has made the former look even worse. Beit Or 19:57, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

If you don't want to write something in the article, you can propose something either here or on the talk page. You can't just say the footnote is POV, but then withhold further rationale. The footnote clearly notes the timing of the Pact of Umar is debatable; one can easily find sources that support either position. What more do you want? -- tariqabjotu 20:03, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Your comment above has misrepresented my arguments. I did not "withhold further rationale", but provided it, several times by now. It is a false and unattributed idea that the timing of the Pact of Umar is debatable; the consensus opinion of modern historians is that Umar never signed such a document. I can't be more clear than that. Beit Or 20:11, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

The note doesn't say he did. Everyone agrees that in its current form, it did not originate with him. But Marcus says that in some (more limited) form it probably existed in his lifetime, and many point out that the pact is very similar to the earlier Persian law. Thus (say the experts cited in the note) it is reasonable to believe that the pact was already established practice in some form. nadav 00:18, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

If by unattributed you mean sourced, then yes, that is correct. -- tariqabjotu 20:24, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

We're all editors here, Beit Or. We don't have one class of reviewers, and another class that does the actual work. If you want to see the section you complained about improved, and you know what you're talking about, by all means go ahead and improve it, or place your suggested text on the talk page for discussion. Can you give some sources for "the consensus opinion of modern historians is that Umar never signed such a document"? SlimVirgin ^(talk) 20:35, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

• comment images- can we get more images of the city, especially the modern city into this article. I think we could have a few more images of famous landmarks in the old city, but we need more images of the modern city here.--Sefringle 04:01, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Lazarus and Dives RFC

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)

List of ex-Christians

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 FAR

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

possibly duplicative article

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)

Mainstream Christianity

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)

Adding the article importance to the project template

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)

Non-neutral endorsement by article

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).

1. This is not an article.
2. 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)

For Your Information

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)

New WikiProject

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)

Passion Conferences

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)

Holy Land and Holy Land (Biblical)

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)

Please see the deletion discussion for List of people who went to heaven alive

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)

Another new WikiProject

Wikipedia:WikiProject Calvinism has been created too :).

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

List of Jesus-related articles needs your help

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." [8]. Anybody care to take a look at this and fix anything that needs fixing? Thanks. -- Writtenonsand 05:40, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Ryan_St._Anne_Scott

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)

original research? afd?

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)

LORD

I have created {{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 {{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 an edit in Christian views on magic. Fuzzypeg (talk · contribs) changed "LORD" to use smallcaps using the code,

L<span style="font-variant:small-caps;text-transform:lowercase">ORD</span>.

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 {{subst:LORD}} as a the typing helper.
• transclude. Make a guideline that the Tetragramaton be typed as {{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 {{LORD}} in a few select articles that are guaranteed to be on watchlists:
   • Genesis
   • Monotheism
   • Messiah
   • List of Jewish prayers and blessings
2. Wait to see if changes are reverted, and what comments I get.
3. 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 {{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 {{LORD}} to {{smallcaps|1=Lord}} in a few articles:
   • Genesis
   • Monotheism
   • Messiah
   • List of Jewish prayers and blessings
   • Christian views on magic
   • Names of God
2. Wait to see if changes are reverted, and what comments I get.
3. If all is OK, change other articles in small batches.

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

Assessments/Headerbox

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.

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

Need for Consistency in the "Importance" parameter for denominations

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)

Reviving "task force" idea

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)

Propose addition to project banner

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)

Jesus is an FA nom

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)

Project sidebar

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)

Membership Sub-page?

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)

Revamp/Update project page?

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 for churches

Hillsong Church
Location	Castle Hills, Sydney, Australia
Denomination	Assemblies of God, Australia
Membership	19,900
Website	http://www.hillsong.com/
History
Founded	August 1983

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)

Neutral tone guidelines

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 <Whatever>" -> think if it could be changed to simply <Whatever>
• "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 "<Adjective> 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)

Christian Perspectives on Human Sexuality

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)

Baptist work group

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)

RFC:Bob Dylan being on List of converts to Christianity

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)

Update on project page revamp

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)

"Stubs" and article progression

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)

Infoboxes and Templates

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?

Denominations

• 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).

Theologians

• Template:Infobox Calvinist Theologian

Further Discussion

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

Task forces proposal

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

Jesus task force

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.

Core topics task force

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).

Proposed merger

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. 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)

Existing task force proposals

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)

Preterism

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)

Templates on Article pages

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 {{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)

"Church" vs "church"

I have altered the Roman Catholic Church article to reflect neutral language and proper English usage.[9] 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 requested

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

Creating a guideline that applies to all religous articles

Please discuss this in a discussion here--Sefringle 03:21, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Council of Jerusalem

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)

{{user:Wikihermit/Christ}}

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)

New project proposal

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)

Request for someone who has AWB or admin rights

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)

State of the Category:Jesus

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)

Merger: "Christian Church" and "One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church"

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)

Chronology of the Bible

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)

New template

For what it might be worth, there is now a template which can be added to Lists of Christians, in place of the overused {{Christianity}}. It is modeled on the {{Jew list}}, and can be seen at {{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

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

Article assessment

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

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

Black church peer review

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)

John Sebastian Marlowe Ward

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.

Prophetic worship?

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)

Proposed Merge from Evangelical Catholic into Evangelicalism

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)

Sign of the Cross

The article Sign of the cross (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) 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)

Category inquiry, what's the difference between a festival and a holy day?

[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)

AfD

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)

RFC: Christianity by country.

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

RFC for Philippians 4:13

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)

Tanakh/Old Testament/Hebrew Bible categories

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)

Two witnesses

I have been working on fixing the citations in Two witnesses by using the {{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)

Portal:Christianity

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)

Articles to be included in the WP Version 1.0 team selection

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 requested

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)

Eschatology and End Times

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 FAR

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 here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:44, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Any Early Church History or Roman Persecution experts out there?

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 for Moses to become a featured article vote

Vote at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Moses so as too get Moses into a featured article --Java7837 22:58, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

For possible deletion

[[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)

New Template

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

Assessment

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)

What "stories" of the Bible merit separate articles?

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)

Arian controversy

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)

POV question about Athanasius of Alexandria

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)

Two Witnesses

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 FAR

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 here. -- Avi 18:44, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Guidance on notability for articles on local churches

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)

The Seven Spirits of God

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 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)

Christian views about women

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)

List of Christians

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)

purgatory

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)

Bible

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 "fiction"?

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"?

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)

Added new Stub types

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)

Jews for Jesus

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)

WP:RFC at Talk:Iglesia ni Cristo

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)

Backdoor etymology-of-Jesus original research

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)

Nativity of Jesus

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)

Proposed deletion

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)

Current AfDs

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 your help

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??

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)

Cannot put WP:Christianity Banner on Talk:Mount Tabor

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)

Aleister Crowley

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)

missing word?

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)

correct word?

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)

Help needed: 2 article deletion discussions and a possible new article

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 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)

Holy anointing oil merger proposals

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)

Two Witnesses

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)

John 3:16

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)

Universal image for all Christians

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)