Talk: Christian point of view

We need to figure out what our policy is going to be on enforcing a Christian point of view on this site.

Some points to consider:

• Mainstream vs. fringe views
• Catholic vs. Orthodox vs. Protestant views
• How to deal with cult views (and which organizations to specifically refer to as cults)

--Avery W. Krouse 04:23, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Other Denominations

I guess there are a few ways to go about this. One is to allow all points of view. This could quickly get out of hand, so as much as I wish we could allow it, I don't think this is realistic.

The other is to allow the main article to contain ONLY information which is pretty universally accepted by all denominations (I realize "universal" is in itself a bit vague). Then there could be subheadings within the article for "Catholic view," "Orthodox view," "Protestant view," etc. In cases where this would cause the article to become massive, the other viewpoints would be presented in subarticles.

Sadly, we are probably going to have to set an arbitrary cutoff of which denominations' views are allowed in the main article. Perhaps something like 10,000,000 followers could constitute a "mainstream" denomination. Of course we could set the bar higher or lower.

I think there is a lot of value in knowing what the beliefs of fringe groups or even Christian-based "cults" are. But probably, it would be best if these views were presented in separate articles. Such as "Fooian views on the Trinity" or something along those lines. An internal link could point to these many subarticles, all of which would be under a subheading "Other views on the Trinity."

What are your thoughts?

nsandwich 07:17, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, I've already been told that Lutheranism is safe ;) I am a bit concerned that there already starting to be negative remarks made about nontrinitarians, especially Jehovah's Witnesses. Certainly I follow the Nicene Creed and all that, but I just don't think that we should be engaging in name-calling. Archola 08:13, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

If you are referring to "Fooian" please rest assured it is not meant as an insult at all. "Foo" and "Bar" are used as universal placeholders in some programming languages and I've seen them used elsewhere. The term was on my mind when I wrote my comment, because I was reading some wikipedia pages about it. Check out these WP search results as an example. Sorry I did not mean to offend! nsandwich 08:25, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

No, I was referring to "so-called Christians" in the Jesus article, and the article Jehovah's Witnesses and Jesus. Archola 08:27, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

I find it highly unlikely a group that considers Jesus to be an archangel can be Christian :/. I understand the problem your coming up with however, I was thinking a bit on how we're going to deal with Catholicism or other denominations too because you know if we all turn out to be protestants vs. Catholics it might turn into a bit of a problem, I think what we need to be able to do is pick a few, clearly Christian, Bible-based sites that we can empirically see are Bible-based in a literal fashion and cite things from there to make determinations as to the POV towards certain groups. I propose that rather than make value statements about the people of denominations, we rather reserve them solely for the group's beliefs, and speaking of beliefs, here's Jehovah's witness stuff: 1 then go to [www.wayofthemaster.com 2] and look up Jehovah's witnesses in the season 3 thing when it pops up, but I think the CARM site tells everything you need to know. My comments on the Jehovah's witness article weren't about Trinitarianism, all I put in so far was basic stuff about Christ's deity and simple things like that. Homestarmy 14:05, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Well yeah, it's all well and good (and true IMHO) to say that an angel couldn't have provided salvation. It's just that the tone of the article could come off as a little hostile. Better to just say that we disagree, and why. Archola 14:43, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Well im not an expert on Jehovah's witness theology so I couldn't give the article much content, so I dunno :/. Feel free to edit it though, I mean most of my edits are just coming straight out of my brain for now. Homestarmy 14:46, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Most of my edits are coming from copying and pasting Wikipedia articles ;) But, yeah, I rewrote the JW article. Archola 15:58, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Folks, I am glad the issues with the particular article were resolved. Although the CPOV issue has not, I just wanted to point out that I am really glad we are having this discussion. I am a big fan of reasoned debate so I just wanted to continue to encourage that. Thanks go out to everyone! Now I need to get back to cleaning up this recent vandalism. :) nsandwich 18:04, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

I am a Jehovah's Witness and I read some of CARM's insults (I can do without swearing). They said things like Watchtower manipulates Bible. I want to point out that the Bible we are using, New World Translation of Holy Scriptures, are produced not by Watchtower, but by New World Translation Commitee, which is an independent' commitee. And further more, I would like to point out that CARM has no evidence of Watchtower deleting/altering verses of Bible text, i.e. Didn't say something like "Watchtower deleted Chapter x Verse y"... I am just so furious! :((

And also a lot of stuff on our theology is terribly WRONG! :((( (further furious!)

I apologize. In my case it's ignorance rather than malice. I can't answer for CARM or others. Archola 09:38, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

That comment by whoever it is sounds a whole lot like some of the hate mail Slick outlines on his site :/. Personally, I think CARM is a highly accurate resource on cult groups, and considering the notices at most of the pages he writes which clearly state "I am not trying to insult you", he seems honest in that regard. But even if I didn't trust CARM, (I mean, personally, I think the guy concentrates waaaay too much on the nature of the trinity and that the evangelistic chat logs he puts up seem to make him out to be a bit, well, ineffective :(.) I do trust all the other hundreds of sites out there which do point out quite clearly the things Jehovah's witnesses do. At the top of my head, John 1:1 has been altered so that instead of "And the word was with God..." it now as I understand reads "And the word was with a God...." but this is not the time to start ranting against Jehovah's witnesses, I mean, I most certainly could do it very successfully given the time, but it's already been done so much by so many people who have probably studied the issue more than I have that I don't really think it ought to be necessary in order to form the CPOV. Some things are just givens like the CPOV policy already says, and Jesus being The God should be one of them, which cancels out a whole lot of groups. Oh and one last thing, anon, Slick has a notice somewhere for most groups which says he welcomes e-mails from people if he's mis-represented a group's perspectives, you should try e-mailing him. Homestarmy 16:45, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Wow... quite a bit of reading so far. Anyway, my own thoughts on the matter are that any one person or group who in good faith believes themselves to be a Christian group should be given the benefit of the doubt. A good very broad definition of a Christian could be "A person who believes that Jesus of Nazareth fulfilled the Messianic prophecies made in the Old Testament." This allows every viewpoint to be available in a neutral context. I'm a firm believer in a "Neutral Christian" point of view policy because if we espouse particular worldviews, doctrines or denominations within Christianity we will discourage potential readers, editors, and cause division amongst ourselves. I think if we start trying to bias ourselves towards "true" Christian doctrines this project will fail, because who's to decide what's true? There's only us here, and I don't think anyone here is qualified to make that Judgement. We should give both the pro and con of everything. Christianity as a whole can be prsented positively while specific topics within that framework can be covered neutrally. After all, the goal of this project is to inform rather than indoctrinate, right?

abyssal_leviathin

I agree with User:Abyssal leviathin. --BenMcLean 16:13, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Further clarifying CPOV

Perhaps we should clarify that CPOV is not limited to the Nicene-Chalcedonian Churches. After all, we have the Book of Mormon as a source text, and have welcomed a Jehovah's Witness as an editor. I was embarrassed when that editor found an edit on the Jesus page that identified JWs as non-Christian. That edit happened here, and not on Wikipedia. Archola 08:54, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

A CPOV debate needs to be outlined sooner than later, I would have hoped we could have done it immedietly, but now that other groups are already getting representation here, it's possibly either now or never. We need some sort of format where we all can peacefully and calmly outline the arguments for and against who's POV is a CPOV, because if we don't do it soon it won't be a useful encyclopedia for teaching people about Christianity, it will simply be a long list of what group believes which things. Jehovah's witnesses and Mormons are not the only radically different group among Christians, there are Swedenborgians, Kaabahlists, Unitarianists, Scientologists, Christadelphanists, Silva Mind control christians, Christian Identity Movement christians, Westboro baptist church christians, (By the way, under no circumstances should we allow the Westboro baptist church to be mentioned on this encyclopedia in anything close to a favorable POV for them) Rosicrucianists, Oneness Pentecostals, and many many more. Their perspectives are complicated and most of the time they all assert that the other side is completely wrong, therefore, only one POV can be right. We need to form a sort of debate where we can hash out once and for all just exactly which POV that is, because otherwise, our articles may be miles long figuratively every time somebody from another cult group logs on and starts going off about how "My 300-member group doesn't have equal representation and by the way, only we are right!" Homestarmy 16:53, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure everyone you mentioned identify themselves as Christian (Kaballah for example is Jewish and not Christian, although some think it's similar to the Trinity), but you have a point. Just wait until we get to Arnold Murray and his Shepherd's Chapel. They have some, ah, interesting doctrines: serpent seed, 8th day creation, gap creationism, British Israelism, and modalism just to name a few. Archola 23:27, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

No shepards chapel. ever. -________________- Homestarmy 03:19, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

The point, of course, is that we do have to draw the line somewhere. Which will always be controversial. Heck, even Paul had to deal with divergent theologies, that's why he had to write all those letters. Archola 03:22, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

which is exactly why I think we need to figure out just where exactly we are supposed to stand in terms of what is Christianity and what isn't before this knowladge base becomes nothing more than a soapbox and an endless edit war between opposing viewpoints :/. Homestarmy 03:36, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't think there's any way, unless we come up with a PCPOV (Pure Christianity Point of View). --Hayson1991 21:15, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Heh. I know of only one pure Christian. All the rest of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, and are saved by His grace through the redemption that comes from that guy. Archola 13:02, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, forget that I used the term pure. --Hayson1991 18:26, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

God...

OK, I think this prolly needs to go on another page, I might set one up this afternoon as proposed policy, but I'd like to throw the idea out here. We should probably achieve consensus of how to write religious terms. For example, when referring to God in an Article, should we write YahWeh, YWH, God, or (after the first usage of the word) He, She, It etc...

Coming from a liberal American background, my proposal is this. Unless quoting text, or providing a relevant example, God shall be referred to as God (Capital G). Furthermore, pronouns should not be used to refer to God. That sound good to everyone? --Dragoonmac - ^Talk_Contribs. 20:45, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

We've been referring to God as, well, God. The Bible translation we have uses Yahweh for God the Father. As for pronouns....hmm, I have no real solution. Some people may prefer masculine pronouns, but God is not a sexual being. "It" is impersonal and thus inappropriate. Archola 20:49, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Well the Bible refers to God clearly in the masculine, but simply writing "God" should suffice, I mean, it is correct. Technically, the Bible doesn't actually capitalize "He" every time it refers to God, I just personally do it alot out of respect. I mean He is God, I think He is due a little respect. Ordinarily what I do is when somebody is mentioning a god besides God i'll just leave it uncapitalized, so it shouldn't be that complicated an issue. Homestarmy 22:20, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

I think pronouns are ok, and I agree with Homestarmy that if we do use them, they should be capitalized out of respect. I am fine with use of the masculine form as well, since it does appear in the Bible. Certainly God is not a sexual being, but for mere simplicity I think it's fair to use "He", "Him" etc. I would leave it up to the author of the particular article to decide whether to use the pronoun if they wish, but it will not be against any rules to do so. Do we have a style guide? If everyone agrees, I would like to add this as an official policy to that page. -- nsandwich 06:31, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Err, actually

If I remember a poll we saw on Wikipedia correctly, about .3 percent of Anglican clergymen are atheists or something, and I think the Unitarians might see Jesus as a non-existant spiritual figure who never actually did anything. So "Christianity" as in everyone who claims to be Christian is just diverse enough to be 100 percent self-contradictory x_x Homestarmy 16:23, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Atheist clergymen?!! How is that possible? Also, I thought Unitarians believe that Jesus was a man, a great prophet but nothing more. Do any Unitarians actually say that Jesus was nonexistent? Archola 16:33, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

I think I remember it somewhere about their theology, something mystical and new-age sounding about Jesus merely being some sort of spiritual construct or vauge things like that, many new-age type things get annoyingly vauge at times. And I guess atheist clergymen are possible because, well, sometimes some people don't care who's the preacher :/. I mean, you've got people like Dan Barker, (I think Assistant president of Freedom from Religion) who were once preists for quite some time, and then just somehow became atheists, all the while proving they probably didn't have any idea who God was in the first place. So being a clergyman isn't exactly proof positive someone is a Christian unfortunently :/. Homestarmy 01:29, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

It's a rather odd concept to have an atheist clergyman. "I don't believe in God, but I will lead you in worship of Him anyway." Sounds inherently deceitful to me. Perhaps these are the false prophets we've been warned about? This is quite different from those who don't believe in God and don't pretend to. In the latter case, the seeds were not sown or simply did not take root (cf the Parable of the Sower). Archola 11:39, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Well remember even Paul mentioned some people who were preaching the truth out of selfish reasons or something, and being a clergyman can sometimes be like a respected position, so it could be related to that. Or they just might admire the "beneficial social effects" of Christianity or really downplayed stuff like that, I dunno..... Homestarmy 16:08, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Beneficial social effects like eternal salvation? Of course, you need faith for that ;) Archola 19:21, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Oh you know, the same old story about "Well, maybe a couple christians have done a few charitable things here and there" and all that stuff. Homestarmy 22:40, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Maybe social benefits like "Christianity. Free to Join. 1000's of pictures Of Beautiful Christian Singles www.loveandseek.com." (Darn google ads!) Or maybe it's something like J. C.'s Girls Girls Girls. Archola 06:18, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Is Book of Mormon counted as a part of Scriptures?

If not, I am going to remove my "M_Cite" template which is used for citing Book of Mormon... --inky 02:52, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

The best answer I can give on that question is: "not by the wiki in general, but it is by some users." --BenMcLean 19:13, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

I have a question.

Is this site only for Christian articles? I mean, can I start on an article like Computer? It doesn't say in CPOV. -- HAYSON¹⁹⁹¹ 02:14, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

You can give Christian views on computers in an article on computers. (i.e. some Christians might think computers are bad, that they are the mark of the beast, etc, others think not - you could examine that aspect of it) --BenMcLean 19:14, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Refining the CPOV

When I first came across this site, I began looking at articles and was a little surprised to see a notification alerting me that "this article may reflect a neutral point of view" as though it were a bad thing. I looked here for more info, but didn't see any. So after a bit of reflection, I think I know why the CPOV is employed here, and I am planning on adding the following piece to the "Introduction" section on the CPOV article:

While there is nothing wrong with being neutral in and of itself, the Christianity wiki community recognizes that the NPOV of wikipedia is there so that they come across as a global community seeking the truth. But this does not accurately reflect the Christianity wiki community; we are a specific community that has found the truth, and so neutrality is not precisely appropriate for this encyclopedia.

NOTE: I am writing this in the good faith that I understand our position correctly; if this is not accurate, please edit it for precision, or delete it if I have completely misunderstood. Thanks, guys!

71.50.32.234 23:54, 3 June 2008 (UTC)Dmar198