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Template:Christ is a new template I started for wikipedia. Hopefully, we might be able to put a whole lot of articles on just one template. 1. Feel free to contribute to it, I've just spent an hour copying and pasting existing templates in there. 2. Can it be added to this page? Once it's ready, of course. A J Hay 11:26, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
Old-Catholic denomination is not in full-communion with Roman Catholic Church. The Roman Catholic Church considers the Old-Catholic denomination as a heretical sect.
Kindly remove Old-catholic denomination from any association with the Roman Catholic Church
In the section about Eucharist it is necessary to mention that the Roman Catholic Church claims for itself the true Eucharist.
The Roman Catholic church does not recognize any Eucharist done by Anglicans or Old-Catholics or Protestants or any other Heretical denominations
I am not sure if Roman Catholic Church recognizes the Eucharist of Orthodox churches and in what terms —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 161.85.127.139 ( talk • contribs) .
The Nicene Creed has been accepted by all orthodox Christians, so it should go without saying that any church that doesn't accept it is not Christian despite their protestations to the contrary. For example, Jehovah's Witnesses don't accept the deity of Christ, a central tenet of Christianity. So, why are they called a Christian denomination in the article? Is it because they call themselves Christians? There are teachings central to Christianity. Any group that fails to affirm all of them should not be labelled as part of this particular religion. It's highly disrespectful to Christians to use such loose standards to define who's in the faith when standards are already available. Jlujan69 06:06, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
LotR, I firmly believe the Bible teaches that Jesus was the Son of God. In many ways one could say I believe Trinitarian doctrine, but in just as many ways, I suspect, one would say I did not and that I am a heretic.
The article does an excellent job of identifying mainstream beliefs. It also does an excellent job of differentiating between those groups who follow mainstream doctrines and those who don't. What I refuse to accept is for anyone or any group to say, "A Christian must believe exactly like we do or they are not Christian". The reason we have over 36,000 different churches in the world is because man does not agree about what Jesus taught and we disagree strongly enough that we break away from each other to form our own group.
I know of no Christian group of significance that does not believe that their doctrines can be proven by the Bible. The problem is personal interpretation. One of the main reasons I reject the Council of Nicea is because it was a group of men that came to an argued conclusion about what they thought was true. Not one of them spoke as the prophets before them saying, "Thus sayeth the Lord". They were men who spoke as men. I believe they were good men, but just men. Christ was not as concerned about the specific doctrines one believed, but rather the condition of one's heart, one's humility, one's willingess to forgive others.
I do believe that the apostles taught us to be students of truth, to seek after truth, and to hold truth sacred. Although it is not clearly taught, I believe we are held accountable for rejecting truth when presented to us. We are encouraged to prove to doctrines of those who come to teach us. However, As soon as we label a group non-Christian then we deny the members of those groups the right to affiliate themselves with Christ. No act could be any further away from the teachings of Christ. Say rather that you disagree with their doctrine, their doctrine does not agree with mainstream Christian teachings and thought, but never place yourself in the position of saying who is Christian. That is beyond our ability and our right. Storm Rider (talk) 18:14, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
::On the contrary, defining the single substance, but two beings of Jesus and God the Father is quite difficult to prove completely with the scripture. Were it not so, there would have been no need for the Council of Nicea. More importantly, Jesus was not perfectly clear on the matter and to attempt to classify it as fact is overly POV.
Stormrider and others who would agree with him, I've yet to hear or read about an orthodox Christian church that rejects the contents of the Nicean or Apostle's Creed. The reason being that these creeds sum up the central teachings of Christianity. The central teachings are what distinguish it from other faiths and upon which the whole religion stands or falls. Take, for example, the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Paul teaches in the Bible that if Christ hasn't been raised from the dead, then "we above all are to be pitied for our faith is in vain". Jesus clearly described Himself as God and subsequent writers of the books of the Bible have said as much. To deny this is to deny a central underpinning of the faith. To state that the central focus of Christianity is love for everybody instead of from Whom that love derives is to take away from the goal of Christiaity: the reconciliation of a sinful humanity with a holy God. Man loving each other without first loving God won't amount to a hill of beans on the Day of Judgment. Christianity is all about God, not man. God showed His love for a sinful humanity by sending His Son to die to atone for our sins. Without this ultimate act of love by God, there would be no point to Christianity. Life would be meaningless since we'd all share the same fate after death. If we love God, then we'll believe what God said in His word (the Bible). The fact that Wikipedia would allow for any old standard to be used for defining the core beliefs of Christianity shows an extreme bias on its part. When it comes to religions of the world, it's a must to consult those whose beliefs are considered orthodox to the particular faith or else I could claim to be a Muslim and believe that he was possessed by Satan and not God's Prophet, yet insist that nobody has the right to question my "Muslim-ness". Somehow, however, I seriously doubt Muslims would see it my way. The same principle applies to Christianity!! Jlujan69 22:49, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
I see what you mean. Also, trying to be totally neutral on a less than neutral topic like religion is impossible. By their very natures, religions themselves are biased and so are their adherents. In that case, you have to check within the religion itself to get the best information possible on it. That would mean checking the historically accepted doctrines and teachings of a religion and then using that as a basis to try to determine if a particular sect or division would fit into it. But as you said, you gotta work with what you got. I don't own Wikipedia, so I can't make the rules. Jlujan69 01:54, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
Stormrider, what I learned fairly early on in my Christian walk is that certain truth claims must be wholeheartedly rejected if they violate any part of the basic tenets of the faith. I realize you could probably quote to me volumes of scholarly works that would support your contentions about who Jesus is and isn't and what you believe Christianity is and isn't. Therefore, I'll give you a simple example of what I'm saying. If someone came to me claiming that only Caucasians were the true human beings on planet Earth and all other races were not even human, guess what?? I'd categorically reject what he said no matter what scholarly works he had to bolster his claim because what he said is simply not true. Statistics don't lie nor do Bible verses, but they sure can get taken out of context to create an entirely different point of view. I'm not shocked that Christians are facing this type of opposition from the world because End Times prophecies have made it clear this would happen. However, I will continue to fight for the truth of God's Word when it gets perverted or otherwise misrepresented. If that's mistaken for hatred, well, that's not the intent. I just won't compromise the truth in the name of ecumenicalism or political correctness and I certainly will not call someone a Christian who disbelieves in the deity of Jesus Christ just because that person may have sincere beliefs. By doing so, I'd be calling God a liar and that simply won't do. Jlujan69 05:25, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
WIKI is not a soapbox and it is not for the zelots to proclaim what they believe is true. You have misunderstood the purpose of an encyclopedia. This is the Christianity article; not the Orthodox Christianity. I acknowledge your right to believe what is "true". I demand the same respect for everyone else on WIKI. If you want to argue personal beliefs, take it to individual pages or off WIKI entirely. I will call a spade a spade regardless of who is playing the card. By their actions you will know them; if you want to argue with someone take it up with Lord when you get on your knees this evening for prayer. I suspect that you and I might disagree on a few points, but I also know that we will agree on a vast number of points. However, it is not about what you and I think is the "truth". It simply doesn't matter. We are writing an article, not a evangelical pamplet. Take a breath and realize this article is not the place for this position. Wesley, Str, Archola, Codex, Aiden, Ann, and all the other editors that have worked so hard on this article, I would like to hear from you. Storm Rider (talk) 06:13, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
I make the very same recommendations to you. Wikipedia is very careless in just including anyone who wants to be included into Christianity. They would not do the same thing to Islam or other religions. Jlujan69 07:12, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
If there is a consensus, can we mention about Nasrani people on the main page. They are important as they are one of the oldest denomiantions of christianity. (Christianity reached in India before it reached Europe).-- nids 05:28, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
The tree chart does not express that some Nestorian and Oriental Churches have unified with Catholicism and or Greek Orthodoxy in recent years; it should. Lostcaesar 09:15, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
I think the article lacks coherence and is less informative than it should be, and this is because it has no clear structure. Anytime one step is taken in a direction it is necessary to qualify that step in the opposite direction. This is because the article attempts to express the entire belief system of Christianity, whilst at the same time defining Christianity as vaguely as possible, as merely a collection of diverse and contradictory beliefs. The solution is already in the article, in the intro and denominations section. There are, according to it, 1 billion Roman Catholics, 600 million Protestants, and 300 Orthodox. Hence we could trace the core of Christian beliefs on the similarities between Catholic and Orthodox, then give similarities and differences within Protestantism, producing a central core of common beliefs accentuated by contrasts. Then other smaller groups with more divergent beliefs could be introduced. This format Catholic-Orthodox-Reformed-Other could be the structural basis of every section, giving true coherence. Also, it roughly follows the historical development of Christianity. An article needs to avoid a point of view, but it must eventually stand somewhere in order to have a view at all – this way we can give a general survey of the religion in a uniform way. Otherwise, we end up expressing the point of view that Christianity basically doesn’t mean anything, since it means everything, and the chaos ensues, meanwhile people constantly come a edit the page tossing anathemas all around. Lostcaesar 09:27, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
Lostcaesar, you've made a great point about how Christianity is portrayed in this article-with few boundaries and several contradictory beliefs (deity vs. non-deity of Christ; literal Hell vs. non-literal Hell; salvation by works vs. salvation by grace, etc). Clearly, both sets of teachings can't be correct. After all, how can Christ both be deity and not deity? How can Hell literally exist and not literally exist? I advocate one POV and Storm another. We can't both be correct, though we both can be wrong. Like you, I was under the impression that the beliefs section of the article reflected traditional mainstream Christianity. That's why I felt compelled to state that all Christians believe in those things mentioned simply because I've never heard of a mainstream church rejecting them. By saying that only "most" believe them begs the question, 'what do the others believe'? Well, evidently, they believe the opposite, so once again, we have contradictory beliefs being presented. In order to avoid a long and fruitless scenario of "editing wars", I suggest that either "my" views or "Storm's" views be presented throughout the article--not both. Jlujan69 13:04, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
I would like a division between Roman Catholicism, Greek Orthodoxy, and Protestantism as opposed to Roman Catholicism, Eastern Christianity, and Protestantism. Why? The middle term in the latter list is a geographical term, unlike the other two which represent a historical event. We should use the parallel historical event of the schism to distinguish between Eastern Orthodoxy / Roman Catholicism. To use a geographical term "Eastern Christianity" is inaccurate and contradicts the list. Why? Because there are many Eastern Christian groups that are part of the Roman Catholic Church, as the very list attests. Furthermore, there are many protestant groups in the East. In other words, a geographical distinction is non-sense in the given context, and besides it is inconsistent with the grouping method given above. Eastern Orthodoxy is a group that is basically as well defined as the other two, and exhibits a basic historical and doctrinal unity, whereas Eastern Christianity is totally ambiguous. This is more important considering the above goals of using the section to help format the later article. Lostcaesar 12:27, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
You probably should not be writing the "Divisions" Section at all if you don't understand the divisions any better than that. You CANNOT make Oriental Orthodoxy a subordinate branch to Eastern Orthodoxy. ፈቃደ ( ውይይት) 12:31, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
This is an important discussion because I am attempting to reach a terminological clarity that will be useful further on in the article. As I see it, we can either list the Oriental Orthodox Churches as a subgroup that doesn’t fit into the above categories, as one of my edits has done, or group them with the Eastern Orthodox into a larger category and give this a name. I think the former is justified if the number of Oriental Orthodox is significantly smaller than the Eastern Orthodox. If we choose the latter, and I have no problem with doing so, then we should avoid the name “Eastern Christianity”. My problem is not in the grouping so much as the term “Eastern Christianity” and its lack of clarity. For this same reason, Str, I agree with you that Oriental Orthodox Churches is inferior to Old Orthodox Churches, since in English oriental and eastern are synonyms, and whatever the case such a distinction, confusing in English, is completely impossible in most other languages. To sum, “Eastern Christianity” wont work – I want a solution to that difficulty, the grouping debate is secondary to that in my view. Only forty years ago English distinguished Greek Catholic from Roman Catholic, and Eastern Orthodoxy included Greek Catholic and Old Oriental – but this has shifted (of course, we use to say “Mohammedans” also). Lostcaesar 13:38, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
I've never heard of "Old Oriental" until seeing it on this talk page. I'd never heard of "Oriental Orthodox" until seeing it on wikipedia. I'd normally heard of these churches described as a group as either "Monophysite" (traditional, but apparently offensive) or "Non-Chalcedonian" (although that might include the Assyrians, as well, who are strangely never called "Non-Ephesian." john k 13:59, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
"Old Oriental" is the term common in German, this is why I asked. Str1977 (smile back) 15:15, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
To the person who edited the last paragraph of that section, I commend (for whatever my commendation's worth). At least it's not stating categorically one way or the other the accuracy of those churchs' doctrines in relation to mainstream Christianity. That's much better than the way it was presented before. Jlujan69 13:14, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
I see now that there is an article Orthodox Christianity in addition to the article Eastern Christianity. If editors here feel "Eastern" is too geographic, the other term is equally inclusive and acceptable. (They can all be Eastern, and they can all be Orthodox, just whatever you do, don't lump them all under "Eastern Orthodox"! Yes, I know it's confusing and may seem silly, but that's really the way it is! ;o)
Right now it looks like Orthodox Christianity is scheduled for a merger with Orthodox Church. Probably all three of these articles could be merged, since they all include the same branches... ፈቃደ ( ውይይት) 03:23, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
I don't know if I read you correctly, but I think I disagree: Eastern Orthodox cannot serve as an umbrella for all these groups. That each groups considers itself orthodox is a truism but Eastern Orthodox (which is an umbrella for Greek O., Bulgarian O., Serbian O., Russian O. etc. -sorry if I missed out some) is theologically opposed to Oriental Orthodox. Str1977 (smile back) 10:59, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
Str, I think Codex agrees with you - he said that you can call all these churches "Eastern" and that you can call all of them "Orthodox," but that you can't call all of them "Eastern Orthodox." Personally, I'd prefer "Eatern Christiniaty" as the term. The idea or "Oriental Orthodoxy" is a relatively new, and rather incoherent one, based, as far as I can tell, on the fact that westerners decided that "Orthodox" meant any eastern church, even the, er, heterodox ones. Beyond that, the Assyrian Church of the East is an eastern Church which is not called Orthodox at all, and there are Eastern rite Catholic churches which would probably be included in "Eastern Christianity" but not in "Orthodox Christianity." I'm not sure what the value is of a term that includes Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox, but not Eastern Catholic and ACOE. What do Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox have in common that the others do not, besides use of the word "Orthodox"? john k 13:26, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
Thanks, John, I thougt so. I guess that Eastern Christianity was defined this way: Christians of the Eastern rites minus those affiliated with the RCC. As for "orthodox" - every church would call itself orthodox. Maybe, should add a certain note to the Eastern Christianity section about the unified Eastern rites churches. Str1977 (smile back) 15:13, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
Well I have just listed what all the similarities are; I'm sorry you have decided they are insufficient. May I ask what your level of expertise is? Not too long ago in an edit summary on another article, you scoffed at the idea that there was ever any such thing as a "Christian historian", may I ask do you still feel these two terms are mutually exclusive? Haile Selassie I, the Defender of the Faith in his country, speaks at length in his Autobiography and elsewhere about how the Greek Orthodox are fellow Orthodox and the only minute thing separating them doctrine-wise was the 'number of natures' thing. He recognised the kinship and when he visited Jerusalem in 1924 he met with the Greek Patriarch Damianos he agreed to an exchange of a small room in Jerusalem for land near Addis Ababa for a Greek monastery, "on the condition that it never pass to a non-Orthodox group or Church". (My Life and Ethiopia's Progress, Chapter 15). A lot has happened since the days centuries ago when Oriental and Eastern Orthodox were bitter rivals, that maybe you don't know too much about. But you say "that doesn't seem sufficient to me to posit", so perhaps you are the expert. ፈቃደ ( ውይይት) 04:59, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
So, back to the point. I would like to change Eastern Christianity to Eastern Orthodoxy. Then, I would like to move Oriental Orthodox and Assyrian Christians of the East to the section that begins "the above groupings are not without exceptions…" or the section "other denominations and churches are difficult to classify in the above groupings at all…" What are the thoughts on this move? If Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox are unrelated other than geographic location, then perhaps they ought not to be classified together at all. If there is some overarching classification, besides geography, then let us employ that term. Lastly, I am in favour of changing Oriental Orthodox to Old Orthodox, though that should be a separate topic. P.S., the claim that "Roman" is a geographical term in RCC, like "Eastern" is in Eastern Christianity, is absurd – its doesn't mean "Catholics in Rome"; there are Roman Catholics in Japan; it would be equivalent to saying Constantinopolitan Orthodoxy, not [Near] Eastern Christianity. Lostcaesar 10:12, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
Str1977 (smile back) 10:31, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
I don't see what's wrong with "Eastern Christianity." In terms of rites and ritual and so forth, the three groups which this name covers (4 if you include eastern Catholics, which you probably shouldn't if you are discussing Catholics as a whole separately) are quite similar, and they are generally treated as a group. They are all churches with full apostolic succession of bishops which derive directly from the ancient world, and which derived from the eastern parts of the old Roman Empire. "Orthodox Christianity" needlessly forces us to have some awkward separate mention of the rather small Assyrian Church. Beyond that, pretending that Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox form some kind of single community, while perhaps reasonably true at present (I will give Codex the benefit of the doubt on that) is highly misleading historically. The only reason the Oriental Orthodox exist as a group is because of their unwillingness to accept the results of the Council of Chalcedon, and they were heavily persecuted by the forebears of the Eastern Orthodox church for many years - in the Antioch area, at least, down to the arrival of the Seljuk Turks in the 11th century, and in most of the rest of the Near East until the coming of Islam in the 7th century. Any reconciliation between these groups is recent, and should no more make us consider them to be a single group than recent discussions between the Church of England and the Scandinavian Lutheran churches should make us view these churches as a single coherent group. History matters, and the history of Eastern Orthodox and Non-Chalcedonian churches as being at odds with each other is too significant for us to refer to them as "Orthodox Churches". They are, along with the Assyrians, "eastern churches." Why isn't that good enough? john k 13:36, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
The following suggestions were generated by a semi-automatic javascript program, and may or may not be accurate for the article in question.
{{fact}}
s.You may wish to browse through User:AndyZ/Suggestions for further ideas. Thanks, Arch O. La Grigory Deepdelver 10:49, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
Just a curiosity. Arch O. La Grigory Deepdelver 10:49, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
The following two paragraphs from the Encyclopedia of Christianity perhaps could be used as a source for the monasticism material in the History and origins section.
Would anyone object to implimenting the revision at User:A.J.A./Tohu&Bohu/Beliefs? A.J.A. 14:38, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
I deleted the following paragraph:
Reasons are as follows: the word catholic means universal, or perhaps general, “inclusive” in English means something quite different from this, especially in a religious context. Protestant is inappropriately limited to the description protesting papal primacy – protestants protest much more than this. Indeed, Protestants originally used the term evangelical, with “protestant” first being limited to certain German groups. Orthodox is defined differently later in the article. The business about other churches being “officially named” after the four Nicene marks sounds odd, where else in the article is this articulated? There were schisms before the Nicene Creed. The whole paragraph is bad. Lostcaesar 08:59, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
This is meant in an amendment to the peer-review above, to further address problematic issues within the article that; quotes indented and discussed below.
Now we say “most protestants” – what is that? Is it Lutherans, Reformed, Lutheran and Reformed…? We could use a reference here to different protestant confessions saying this. Also, what does “at the time of salvation” mean; the section on salvation didn’t discuss this moment.
Is this the same as “virtually all Christian Churches”
I will have to stop here, at Christian practices, but I hope the above is some help here concerning the differing terminology that we use, undefined, and the fluid structure of the article. Central to this problem is our lack of a solid a guidepost; we use: mainstream Christianity, most Christians, Christians, orthodox Christians (as distinct from Orthodoxy), the vast majority of Christian Churches, Traditional Christian, virtually all Christian traditions – furthermore, our subgroups are named differently: we call Roman Catholics both Catholics and Traditional Catholics; we use Orthodoxy and Eastern Orthodoxy and Eastern Christianity somewhat interchangeably, all in overlapping (and confusing, if not contradictory) ways. - hope that is of some help Lostcaesar 12:34, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
I have my Edit History set to view 50 edits (which I think is the default). On the current screen of fifty edits, there is one new link (itself of dubious value: why "WeSpreadtheWord" but not the Vatican?) and one spelling fix. Everything else is bad edits and reversions. A.J.A. 14:30, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
Scholor and his puppet have repeatedly added some text about "pagan parallels". Thoug it is probably in vain and has been tried before, I will explain why these edits are unacceptable:
So please, Scholor, stop adding this, no matter under which name. Str1977 (smile back) 09:52, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
This page links directly to Acts. While that used to automatically redirect to Acts_of_the_Apostles, it doesn't any longer and these links must be updated. Considering the current state of protection, I'm incapable of doing so myself. Can someone take care of this? Thank you. 70.92.174.251 06:46, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 25 | Archive 26 | Archive 27 | Archive 28 | Archive 29 | Archive 30 | → | Archive 35 |
Template:Christ is a new template I started for wikipedia. Hopefully, we might be able to put a whole lot of articles on just one template. 1. Feel free to contribute to it, I've just spent an hour copying and pasting existing templates in there. 2. Can it be added to this page? Once it's ready, of course. A J Hay 11:26, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
Old-Catholic denomination is not in full-communion with Roman Catholic Church. The Roman Catholic Church considers the Old-Catholic denomination as a heretical sect.
Kindly remove Old-catholic denomination from any association with the Roman Catholic Church
In the section about Eucharist it is necessary to mention that the Roman Catholic Church claims for itself the true Eucharist.
The Roman Catholic church does not recognize any Eucharist done by Anglicans or Old-Catholics or Protestants or any other Heretical denominations
I am not sure if Roman Catholic Church recognizes the Eucharist of Orthodox churches and in what terms —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 161.85.127.139 ( talk • contribs) .
The Nicene Creed has been accepted by all orthodox Christians, so it should go without saying that any church that doesn't accept it is not Christian despite their protestations to the contrary. For example, Jehovah's Witnesses don't accept the deity of Christ, a central tenet of Christianity. So, why are they called a Christian denomination in the article? Is it because they call themselves Christians? There are teachings central to Christianity. Any group that fails to affirm all of them should not be labelled as part of this particular religion. It's highly disrespectful to Christians to use such loose standards to define who's in the faith when standards are already available. Jlujan69 06:06, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
LotR, I firmly believe the Bible teaches that Jesus was the Son of God. In many ways one could say I believe Trinitarian doctrine, but in just as many ways, I suspect, one would say I did not and that I am a heretic.
The article does an excellent job of identifying mainstream beliefs. It also does an excellent job of differentiating between those groups who follow mainstream doctrines and those who don't. What I refuse to accept is for anyone or any group to say, "A Christian must believe exactly like we do or they are not Christian". The reason we have over 36,000 different churches in the world is because man does not agree about what Jesus taught and we disagree strongly enough that we break away from each other to form our own group.
I know of no Christian group of significance that does not believe that their doctrines can be proven by the Bible. The problem is personal interpretation. One of the main reasons I reject the Council of Nicea is because it was a group of men that came to an argued conclusion about what they thought was true. Not one of them spoke as the prophets before them saying, "Thus sayeth the Lord". They were men who spoke as men. I believe they were good men, but just men. Christ was not as concerned about the specific doctrines one believed, but rather the condition of one's heart, one's humility, one's willingess to forgive others.
I do believe that the apostles taught us to be students of truth, to seek after truth, and to hold truth sacred. Although it is not clearly taught, I believe we are held accountable for rejecting truth when presented to us. We are encouraged to prove to doctrines of those who come to teach us. However, As soon as we label a group non-Christian then we deny the members of those groups the right to affiliate themselves with Christ. No act could be any further away from the teachings of Christ. Say rather that you disagree with their doctrine, their doctrine does not agree with mainstream Christian teachings and thought, but never place yourself in the position of saying who is Christian. That is beyond our ability and our right. Storm Rider (talk) 18:14, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
::On the contrary, defining the single substance, but two beings of Jesus and God the Father is quite difficult to prove completely with the scripture. Were it not so, there would have been no need for the Council of Nicea. More importantly, Jesus was not perfectly clear on the matter and to attempt to classify it as fact is overly POV.
Stormrider and others who would agree with him, I've yet to hear or read about an orthodox Christian church that rejects the contents of the Nicean or Apostle's Creed. The reason being that these creeds sum up the central teachings of Christianity. The central teachings are what distinguish it from other faiths and upon which the whole religion stands or falls. Take, for example, the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Paul teaches in the Bible that if Christ hasn't been raised from the dead, then "we above all are to be pitied for our faith is in vain". Jesus clearly described Himself as God and subsequent writers of the books of the Bible have said as much. To deny this is to deny a central underpinning of the faith. To state that the central focus of Christianity is love for everybody instead of from Whom that love derives is to take away from the goal of Christiaity: the reconciliation of a sinful humanity with a holy God. Man loving each other without first loving God won't amount to a hill of beans on the Day of Judgment. Christianity is all about God, not man. God showed His love for a sinful humanity by sending His Son to die to atone for our sins. Without this ultimate act of love by God, there would be no point to Christianity. Life would be meaningless since we'd all share the same fate after death. If we love God, then we'll believe what God said in His word (the Bible). The fact that Wikipedia would allow for any old standard to be used for defining the core beliefs of Christianity shows an extreme bias on its part. When it comes to religions of the world, it's a must to consult those whose beliefs are considered orthodox to the particular faith or else I could claim to be a Muslim and believe that he was possessed by Satan and not God's Prophet, yet insist that nobody has the right to question my "Muslim-ness". Somehow, however, I seriously doubt Muslims would see it my way. The same principle applies to Christianity!! Jlujan69 22:49, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
I see what you mean. Also, trying to be totally neutral on a less than neutral topic like religion is impossible. By their very natures, religions themselves are biased and so are their adherents. In that case, you have to check within the religion itself to get the best information possible on it. That would mean checking the historically accepted doctrines and teachings of a religion and then using that as a basis to try to determine if a particular sect or division would fit into it. But as you said, you gotta work with what you got. I don't own Wikipedia, so I can't make the rules. Jlujan69 01:54, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
Stormrider, what I learned fairly early on in my Christian walk is that certain truth claims must be wholeheartedly rejected if they violate any part of the basic tenets of the faith. I realize you could probably quote to me volumes of scholarly works that would support your contentions about who Jesus is and isn't and what you believe Christianity is and isn't. Therefore, I'll give you a simple example of what I'm saying. If someone came to me claiming that only Caucasians were the true human beings on planet Earth and all other races were not even human, guess what?? I'd categorically reject what he said no matter what scholarly works he had to bolster his claim because what he said is simply not true. Statistics don't lie nor do Bible verses, but they sure can get taken out of context to create an entirely different point of view. I'm not shocked that Christians are facing this type of opposition from the world because End Times prophecies have made it clear this would happen. However, I will continue to fight for the truth of God's Word when it gets perverted or otherwise misrepresented. If that's mistaken for hatred, well, that's not the intent. I just won't compromise the truth in the name of ecumenicalism or political correctness and I certainly will not call someone a Christian who disbelieves in the deity of Jesus Christ just because that person may have sincere beliefs. By doing so, I'd be calling God a liar and that simply won't do. Jlujan69 05:25, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
WIKI is not a soapbox and it is not for the zelots to proclaim what they believe is true. You have misunderstood the purpose of an encyclopedia. This is the Christianity article; not the Orthodox Christianity. I acknowledge your right to believe what is "true". I demand the same respect for everyone else on WIKI. If you want to argue personal beliefs, take it to individual pages or off WIKI entirely. I will call a spade a spade regardless of who is playing the card. By their actions you will know them; if you want to argue with someone take it up with Lord when you get on your knees this evening for prayer. I suspect that you and I might disagree on a few points, but I also know that we will agree on a vast number of points. However, it is not about what you and I think is the "truth". It simply doesn't matter. We are writing an article, not a evangelical pamplet. Take a breath and realize this article is not the place for this position. Wesley, Str, Archola, Codex, Aiden, Ann, and all the other editors that have worked so hard on this article, I would like to hear from you. Storm Rider (talk) 06:13, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
I make the very same recommendations to you. Wikipedia is very careless in just including anyone who wants to be included into Christianity. They would not do the same thing to Islam or other religions. Jlujan69 07:12, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
If there is a consensus, can we mention about Nasrani people on the main page. They are important as they are one of the oldest denomiantions of christianity. (Christianity reached in India before it reached Europe).-- nids 05:28, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
The tree chart does not express that some Nestorian and Oriental Churches have unified with Catholicism and or Greek Orthodoxy in recent years; it should. Lostcaesar 09:15, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
I think the article lacks coherence and is less informative than it should be, and this is because it has no clear structure. Anytime one step is taken in a direction it is necessary to qualify that step in the opposite direction. This is because the article attempts to express the entire belief system of Christianity, whilst at the same time defining Christianity as vaguely as possible, as merely a collection of diverse and contradictory beliefs. The solution is already in the article, in the intro and denominations section. There are, according to it, 1 billion Roman Catholics, 600 million Protestants, and 300 Orthodox. Hence we could trace the core of Christian beliefs on the similarities between Catholic and Orthodox, then give similarities and differences within Protestantism, producing a central core of common beliefs accentuated by contrasts. Then other smaller groups with more divergent beliefs could be introduced. This format Catholic-Orthodox-Reformed-Other could be the structural basis of every section, giving true coherence. Also, it roughly follows the historical development of Christianity. An article needs to avoid a point of view, but it must eventually stand somewhere in order to have a view at all – this way we can give a general survey of the religion in a uniform way. Otherwise, we end up expressing the point of view that Christianity basically doesn’t mean anything, since it means everything, and the chaos ensues, meanwhile people constantly come a edit the page tossing anathemas all around. Lostcaesar 09:27, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
Lostcaesar, you've made a great point about how Christianity is portrayed in this article-with few boundaries and several contradictory beliefs (deity vs. non-deity of Christ; literal Hell vs. non-literal Hell; salvation by works vs. salvation by grace, etc). Clearly, both sets of teachings can't be correct. After all, how can Christ both be deity and not deity? How can Hell literally exist and not literally exist? I advocate one POV and Storm another. We can't both be correct, though we both can be wrong. Like you, I was under the impression that the beliefs section of the article reflected traditional mainstream Christianity. That's why I felt compelled to state that all Christians believe in those things mentioned simply because I've never heard of a mainstream church rejecting them. By saying that only "most" believe them begs the question, 'what do the others believe'? Well, evidently, they believe the opposite, so once again, we have contradictory beliefs being presented. In order to avoid a long and fruitless scenario of "editing wars", I suggest that either "my" views or "Storm's" views be presented throughout the article--not both. Jlujan69 13:04, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
I would like a division between Roman Catholicism, Greek Orthodoxy, and Protestantism as opposed to Roman Catholicism, Eastern Christianity, and Protestantism. Why? The middle term in the latter list is a geographical term, unlike the other two which represent a historical event. We should use the parallel historical event of the schism to distinguish between Eastern Orthodoxy / Roman Catholicism. To use a geographical term "Eastern Christianity" is inaccurate and contradicts the list. Why? Because there are many Eastern Christian groups that are part of the Roman Catholic Church, as the very list attests. Furthermore, there are many protestant groups in the East. In other words, a geographical distinction is non-sense in the given context, and besides it is inconsistent with the grouping method given above. Eastern Orthodoxy is a group that is basically as well defined as the other two, and exhibits a basic historical and doctrinal unity, whereas Eastern Christianity is totally ambiguous. This is more important considering the above goals of using the section to help format the later article. Lostcaesar 12:27, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
You probably should not be writing the "Divisions" Section at all if you don't understand the divisions any better than that. You CANNOT make Oriental Orthodoxy a subordinate branch to Eastern Orthodoxy. ፈቃደ ( ውይይት) 12:31, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
This is an important discussion because I am attempting to reach a terminological clarity that will be useful further on in the article. As I see it, we can either list the Oriental Orthodox Churches as a subgroup that doesn’t fit into the above categories, as one of my edits has done, or group them with the Eastern Orthodox into a larger category and give this a name. I think the former is justified if the number of Oriental Orthodox is significantly smaller than the Eastern Orthodox. If we choose the latter, and I have no problem with doing so, then we should avoid the name “Eastern Christianity”. My problem is not in the grouping so much as the term “Eastern Christianity” and its lack of clarity. For this same reason, Str, I agree with you that Oriental Orthodox Churches is inferior to Old Orthodox Churches, since in English oriental and eastern are synonyms, and whatever the case such a distinction, confusing in English, is completely impossible in most other languages. To sum, “Eastern Christianity” wont work – I want a solution to that difficulty, the grouping debate is secondary to that in my view. Only forty years ago English distinguished Greek Catholic from Roman Catholic, and Eastern Orthodoxy included Greek Catholic and Old Oriental – but this has shifted (of course, we use to say “Mohammedans” also). Lostcaesar 13:38, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
I've never heard of "Old Oriental" until seeing it on this talk page. I'd never heard of "Oriental Orthodox" until seeing it on wikipedia. I'd normally heard of these churches described as a group as either "Monophysite" (traditional, but apparently offensive) or "Non-Chalcedonian" (although that might include the Assyrians, as well, who are strangely never called "Non-Ephesian." john k 13:59, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
"Old Oriental" is the term common in German, this is why I asked. Str1977 (smile back) 15:15, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
To the person who edited the last paragraph of that section, I commend (for whatever my commendation's worth). At least it's not stating categorically one way or the other the accuracy of those churchs' doctrines in relation to mainstream Christianity. That's much better than the way it was presented before. Jlujan69 13:14, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
I see now that there is an article Orthodox Christianity in addition to the article Eastern Christianity. If editors here feel "Eastern" is too geographic, the other term is equally inclusive and acceptable. (They can all be Eastern, and they can all be Orthodox, just whatever you do, don't lump them all under "Eastern Orthodox"! Yes, I know it's confusing and may seem silly, but that's really the way it is! ;o)
Right now it looks like Orthodox Christianity is scheduled for a merger with Orthodox Church. Probably all three of these articles could be merged, since they all include the same branches... ፈቃደ ( ውይይት) 03:23, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
I don't know if I read you correctly, but I think I disagree: Eastern Orthodox cannot serve as an umbrella for all these groups. That each groups considers itself orthodox is a truism but Eastern Orthodox (which is an umbrella for Greek O., Bulgarian O., Serbian O., Russian O. etc. -sorry if I missed out some) is theologically opposed to Oriental Orthodox. Str1977 (smile back) 10:59, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
Str, I think Codex agrees with you - he said that you can call all these churches "Eastern" and that you can call all of them "Orthodox," but that you can't call all of them "Eastern Orthodox." Personally, I'd prefer "Eatern Christiniaty" as the term. The idea or "Oriental Orthodoxy" is a relatively new, and rather incoherent one, based, as far as I can tell, on the fact that westerners decided that "Orthodox" meant any eastern church, even the, er, heterodox ones. Beyond that, the Assyrian Church of the East is an eastern Church which is not called Orthodox at all, and there are Eastern rite Catholic churches which would probably be included in "Eastern Christianity" but not in "Orthodox Christianity." I'm not sure what the value is of a term that includes Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox, but not Eastern Catholic and ACOE. What do Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox have in common that the others do not, besides use of the word "Orthodox"? john k 13:26, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
Thanks, John, I thougt so. I guess that Eastern Christianity was defined this way: Christians of the Eastern rites minus those affiliated with the RCC. As for "orthodox" - every church would call itself orthodox. Maybe, should add a certain note to the Eastern Christianity section about the unified Eastern rites churches. Str1977 (smile back) 15:13, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
Well I have just listed what all the similarities are; I'm sorry you have decided they are insufficient. May I ask what your level of expertise is? Not too long ago in an edit summary on another article, you scoffed at the idea that there was ever any such thing as a "Christian historian", may I ask do you still feel these two terms are mutually exclusive? Haile Selassie I, the Defender of the Faith in his country, speaks at length in his Autobiography and elsewhere about how the Greek Orthodox are fellow Orthodox and the only minute thing separating them doctrine-wise was the 'number of natures' thing. He recognised the kinship and when he visited Jerusalem in 1924 he met with the Greek Patriarch Damianos he agreed to an exchange of a small room in Jerusalem for land near Addis Ababa for a Greek monastery, "on the condition that it never pass to a non-Orthodox group or Church". (My Life and Ethiopia's Progress, Chapter 15). A lot has happened since the days centuries ago when Oriental and Eastern Orthodox were bitter rivals, that maybe you don't know too much about. But you say "that doesn't seem sufficient to me to posit", so perhaps you are the expert. ፈቃደ ( ውይይት) 04:59, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
So, back to the point. I would like to change Eastern Christianity to Eastern Orthodoxy. Then, I would like to move Oriental Orthodox and Assyrian Christians of the East to the section that begins "the above groupings are not without exceptions…" or the section "other denominations and churches are difficult to classify in the above groupings at all…" What are the thoughts on this move? If Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox are unrelated other than geographic location, then perhaps they ought not to be classified together at all. If there is some overarching classification, besides geography, then let us employ that term. Lastly, I am in favour of changing Oriental Orthodox to Old Orthodox, though that should be a separate topic. P.S., the claim that "Roman" is a geographical term in RCC, like "Eastern" is in Eastern Christianity, is absurd – its doesn't mean "Catholics in Rome"; there are Roman Catholics in Japan; it would be equivalent to saying Constantinopolitan Orthodoxy, not [Near] Eastern Christianity. Lostcaesar 10:12, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
Str1977 (smile back) 10:31, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
I don't see what's wrong with "Eastern Christianity." In terms of rites and ritual and so forth, the three groups which this name covers (4 if you include eastern Catholics, which you probably shouldn't if you are discussing Catholics as a whole separately) are quite similar, and they are generally treated as a group. They are all churches with full apostolic succession of bishops which derive directly from the ancient world, and which derived from the eastern parts of the old Roman Empire. "Orthodox Christianity" needlessly forces us to have some awkward separate mention of the rather small Assyrian Church. Beyond that, pretending that Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox form some kind of single community, while perhaps reasonably true at present (I will give Codex the benefit of the doubt on that) is highly misleading historically. The only reason the Oriental Orthodox exist as a group is because of their unwillingness to accept the results of the Council of Chalcedon, and they were heavily persecuted by the forebears of the Eastern Orthodox church for many years - in the Antioch area, at least, down to the arrival of the Seljuk Turks in the 11th century, and in most of the rest of the Near East until the coming of Islam in the 7th century. Any reconciliation between these groups is recent, and should no more make us consider them to be a single group than recent discussions between the Church of England and the Scandinavian Lutheran churches should make us view these churches as a single coherent group. History matters, and the history of Eastern Orthodox and Non-Chalcedonian churches as being at odds with each other is too significant for us to refer to them as "Orthodox Churches". They are, along with the Assyrians, "eastern churches." Why isn't that good enough? john k 13:36, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
The following suggestions were generated by a semi-automatic javascript program, and may or may not be accurate for the article in question.
{{fact}}
s.You may wish to browse through User:AndyZ/Suggestions for further ideas. Thanks, Arch O. La Grigory Deepdelver 10:49, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
Just a curiosity. Arch O. La Grigory Deepdelver 10:49, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
The following two paragraphs from the Encyclopedia of Christianity perhaps could be used as a source for the monasticism material in the History and origins section.
Would anyone object to implimenting the revision at User:A.J.A./Tohu&Bohu/Beliefs? A.J.A. 14:38, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
I deleted the following paragraph:
Reasons are as follows: the word catholic means universal, or perhaps general, “inclusive” in English means something quite different from this, especially in a religious context. Protestant is inappropriately limited to the description protesting papal primacy – protestants protest much more than this. Indeed, Protestants originally used the term evangelical, with “protestant” first being limited to certain German groups. Orthodox is defined differently later in the article. The business about other churches being “officially named” after the four Nicene marks sounds odd, where else in the article is this articulated? There were schisms before the Nicene Creed. The whole paragraph is bad. Lostcaesar 08:59, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
This is meant in an amendment to the peer-review above, to further address problematic issues within the article that; quotes indented and discussed below.
Now we say “most protestants” – what is that? Is it Lutherans, Reformed, Lutheran and Reformed…? We could use a reference here to different protestant confessions saying this. Also, what does “at the time of salvation” mean; the section on salvation didn’t discuss this moment.
Is this the same as “virtually all Christian Churches”
I will have to stop here, at Christian practices, but I hope the above is some help here concerning the differing terminology that we use, undefined, and the fluid structure of the article. Central to this problem is our lack of a solid a guidepost; we use: mainstream Christianity, most Christians, Christians, orthodox Christians (as distinct from Orthodoxy), the vast majority of Christian Churches, Traditional Christian, virtually all Christian traditions – furthermore, our subgroups are named differently: we call Roman Catholics both Catholics and Traditional Catholics; we use Orthodoxy and Eastern Orthodoxy and Eastern Christianity somewhat interchangeably, all in overlapping (and confusing, if not contradictory) ways. - hope that is of some help Lostcaesar 12:34, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
I have my Edit History set to view 50 edits (which I think is the default). On the current screen of fifty edits, there is one new link (itself of dubious value: why "WeSpreadtheWord" but not the Vatican?) and one spelling fix. Everything else is bad edits and reversions. A.J.A. 14:30, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
Scholor and his puppet have repeatedly added some text about "pagan parallels". Thoug it is probably in vain and has been tried before, I will explain why these edits are unacceptable:
So please, Scholor, stop adding this, no matter under which name. Str1977 (smile back) 09:52, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
This page links directly to Acts. While that used to automatically redirect to Acts_of_the_Apostles, it doesn't any longer and these links must be updated. Considering the current state of protection, I'm incapable of doing so myself. Can someone take care of this? Thank you. 70.92.174.251 06:46, 4 September 2006 (UTC)