Talk:Christianity

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Gnosticism can be Christian

I got a revert saying "Gnosticism is NOT Christianity". There are certainly Gnostic groups that are not Christian but I never claimed that Gnosticism is Christianity, rather, I said there are Christian denominations that are Gnostic, they are Gnostic Christians and as such their beliefs should be considered also when defining Christianity. Thinker78 (talk) 23:58, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

As gnosticism is a heresy, any person holding those beliefs is anathema (i.e. not part of the Communion). So there are no Gnostic Christians. Laurel Lodged (talk) 12:21, 3 November 2017 (UTC)

Holy Guacamole! But who has the authority to declare another denomination heretic? I think all denominations can declare each other heretic so in short it can be said that all Christian denominations are heretic. I will remind you about Wikipedia:NPOV policy though. Thinker78 (talk) 04:07, 4 November 2017 (UTC)

There are no Christian teachers, either mainstream or minority, that consider Gnostic teachings to be orthodox. If there are sources that say otherwise, I'd be interested to review them. Laurel Lodged (talk) 20:22, 1 January 2018 (UTC)

Thinker78 is right. Gnosticism should be included. Not only is it not heresy, except to those who don't understand it, it can be proven to be THE SOURCE of orthodoxy. Yes, that's my book. It can't be used as a reference. But it is true. The Gospel of Judas proves that the Bible is false and always has been. 'Judas' is just a cover for the successor, James the Just -- the real first century savior. Sahansdal (talk) 11:51, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

The number for Christianity needs updating. all latest data put it at 2.3 million or below. Not 2.4 million or above. that estimate is using percentages from the past surveys, which are no longer relevant. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 139.190.81.2 (talk) 04:58, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

Denominations

In the Denominations section, hovering over the blue text for Eastern Orthodox Church and the blue text for Protestantism. The appearing text reads 'Second Largest' for both denominations. Eastern Orthodoxy should read '3rd largest'. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:C8:8100:C020:3DF1:B1BB:CD21:5AC6 (talk) 20:39, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

That blue text is called a wikilink and what you are seeing is a page preview. The discrepancy you noticed is because of what is stated in the lead sections of those two articles, namely Eastern Orthodox Church and Protestantism. Although it is indeed a bit unclear, I think the reason why both are listed as the second largest is probably because Protestantism is the second largest group of Christians, though Protestantism is not a denomination (it contains many denominations, though!); whereas the Eastern Orthodox Church is the second-largest denomination and Church, second only to the Catholic Church. Regardless, thanks for your diligence at checking on these matters! —Nøkkenbuer (talk • contribs) 15:01, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

Comparison to Islam article

First Christians don't refer to Jesus as "the Christ".

In general the article on Islam is very supportive of Islam. You'd think everything in Islam was settled and fine when in fact it is characterised by its never-ending strife.

Yet for the Christianity article we get: " irreconcilable differences in theology and a lack of consensus on the core tenets of Christianity, Catholics, Protestants and Orthodox often deny that members of certain other branches are Christians."

Who says they're irreconcilable? Not Christians in general. And Christians do not deny other denominations are Christians. However, although you'd never know it from the article, Muslims DO very definitely deny other groups of Muslims are Muslim. It's one of the fundamental characteristics of Islam.51.52.147.62 (talk) 18:03, 1 September 2018 (UTC)

"Christians do not deny other denominations are Christians." I have certainly heard and read some people who claim to be Christians do precisely that. I use the words "claim to be" for that very reason. I could start a very long discussion by asking you to define a Christian, but this isn't really the place. HiLo48 (talk) 00:57, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

Additionally, any purported deficiencies in the Islam article should be noted on the Talk:Islam page, not here. Jtrevor99 (talk) 22:28, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

Religion vs Religion group

While I'm currently inclined to believe any difference between the two terms is unnecessarily pedantic, I'm opening this Talk section for anyone who wishes to discuss it. I reverted the "ref needed" tag on "religion" in the first sentence, because the intention - to find a reference calling Christianity a "religion" instead of a "religion group" - was unclear. It instead appears to the reader a violation of WP:BLUE. Jtrevor99 (talk) 17:22, 14 September 2018 (UTC)

Common Baptism Discussion Included From User Talk Page

In Article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity#Restorationism

You deleted an edit you made to an article on the basis it had no evident support and you gave no EVIDENCE for this save ONE example. In your comment you headed it with " Most of the claims in this passage are either dubious or demonstrably false (even the citied source gives totally different demoninational statistics)."

You commented not on most but on ONE which was the claim about 5 denomination representing 95% of Christian population. I should have put 85%

the denominationsl stats are from the 1990s but the point I made was " . These five denominations represent over 95% of those that identify as Christian."

It should read 85% not 95% but rather than change 9 to 8 you just deleted the entire article citing this one claim as "lack of evidence" ! Let's ADD UP the actual numbers.

"Global Catholic population exceeds 1.28 billion – CatholicHerald.co.uk". 6 April 2017.

Lutheran = 70-90 million

Global Christianity – A Report on the Size and Distribution of the World's Christian Population, The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, December 2011
Religions of the World: A Comprehensive Encyclopedia of Beliefs and . Books.google.it. 2010-09-21. ISBN 9781598842043

Calvinism (Reformed churches) – 55–100 million

Global Christianity – A Report on the Size and Distribution of the World's Christian Population, The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, December 2011
"About The World Communion of Reformed Churches (WCRC)". World Communion of Reformed Churches (WCRC). Archived from the original on 27 October 2014. 
"Old First Reformed Church in Park Slope : : The Reformed Church". Oldfirstbrooklyn.org. Retrieved 26 October 2014.
http://wcrc.ch/about-us

Methodism – 60–80 million

"Member Churches". Worldmethodistcouncil.org. 
"Membership". www.methodist.org.uk.

Total Christian 2240000001 90.00% 2016000000.9 other cath 18000000 Catholic 1285000000 Anglican 85000000 Orthodox 356000000 Lutheran 90000000 Methodist 80000000

Sum Catholic anglican Orthodos Lutheran Methodist ( the 5 I mentioned) 1914000000

Percentage ( of 2.34 billion) 85.4464285333 =85.5% is not "Demonstrably false" in relation to 85% rather than 95% .Sorry I put 9 instead of 8 by mistake. Do you accept 85% is supported by reliable sources?

Thanks for your input. I will find more sources and re insert this content later. Please tell me if it should be under a separate heading in the article in your opinion. the sources came from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_denominations_by_number_of_members Please also note that after your comment on my talk page wher they say "While you are welcome to re-use Wikipedia's content, here or elsewhere, Wikipedia's licensing does require that you provide attribution to the original contributor(s)." Please acknowledge that the reason the attribution to the original contribution was removed was because your removed it as far as I am aware! Did you not? Isaw (talk) 21:10, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

Hello Isaw, thanks for getting back to me! I am not the person who objected to using wikipedia as a source, that was Editor2020. You should talk to that editor about those concerns. My concerns, and what I feel needs to be done to address them, are as follows:

• As mentioned, the statistics were incorrect according to the source. The numbers that you cite are also very different from those on Adherents.org, and come from different sources that may count differently (for example, some counts are based on listed membership, others based on surveys of church attendance, others on professed belief). Fix: correct stated statistics. Make sure all our numbers come from the same source or at least are counting the same way.
• It's unclear why we list "Catholics of the Latin Church, Anglicans, Orthodox, Lutherans and Methodists" specifically. Why not mention Reformed, Pentecostal, African Indigenous, or Baptist, all of which are larger groups than Lutherans according to the cited source? Fix: either list the largest groupings, or make it clear what is significant about the groupings mentioned.
• It's unclear who "these groups" refers to. Since it is in the section for Restorationism, it appears to mean "Restorationist groups" but if so some of the following statements are incorrect or dubious. Fix: make it clear what groups are being referred to, and if Restorationist groups are not what is meant, either correct the information below or move the text to a more appropriate section of the article.
• The statement "There are tens of thousands of these groups representing 1% of people calling themselves Christian" is dubious. A commonly cited number is that there are 33,000 Christian denominations worldwide. This claim originates in the World Chris­t­ian Ency­clo­pe­dia, which uses a different definition of denomination than the one being used in this article (for example, they divide Roman Catholicism into 242 different "denominations"!). Even allowing this definition of denomination, there are not tens of thousands of Restorationist denominations. Fix: remove this incorrect statement.
• The statement "none of them would be accepted by the Three core Catholic/Orthodox/Protestant denominations as falling under their agreed common baptism" is also dubious. The Roman Catholic, Methodist and Lutheran churches, for example, all recognize baptisms performed by most other Christian groups (including restorationist groups), even those not part of the "common baptism" agreement. Fix: remove this incorrect statment.
• The statement "Nor would they accept the core denominations or indeed each other as Christian." is a broad sweeping statement that is demonstrably untrue in many cases. Many if not most smaller Christian groups recognize members of other groups as Christian. Fix: remove this incorrect statement.
• The statement "Catholics of the Latin Church, Anglicans, Orthodox, Lutherans and Methodists agree to a common Baptism and regard any Baptised in those denominations as valid Christians." is unclear. While it is true that all of those denominations recognize each other's baptisms as valid, they are not the only groups which do so, and they do not recognize each other as fully "valid Christians" as, for example, Lutherans, Anglicans, and Methodists are all excluded from communion in Catholic churches, unless that has changed recently. Fix: clarify the extent to which these and other groups recognize each other.
• The section discussing the "common baptism" is out of place in the Restorationism section as it is not primarily about Restorationism. Fix: refactor it and move relevant information on "common baptism" to the Baptism section.

I hope that clarifies what my concerns are. I think there is room in the article for a clearer explanation of the recognition and lack thereof between different Christian groups, but I think these concerns need to be addressed before it is reinserted. Cheers, and thanks for your efforts! -- LWG ^talk 16:28, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

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