Talk:Christianity

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Lede needs to be reworked

The lede as it is doesn't seem to follow the MOS:LEAD guideline. It is too unwieldy, it has too many citations when it should actually mainly summarize the contents of the body of the article, it has excessive details, and if it has citations I'm thinking it also has info that is not in the body of the article. I encourage my fellow editors to work on it in a piecemeal fashion if you want. I am already doing my part. Thinker78 (talk) 22:29, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

This could be a solution

“ Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religious group based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, also known by Christians as the Christ. It is the world's largest religion, with over 2.4 billion followers, or 33% of the global population, making up a majority of the population in about two-thirds of the countries in the world. Its believers affirm that Jesus is the Son of God, the Logos, and the savior of humanity, whose coming as the Messiah (Christ) was prophesied in the Old Testament of the Bible, and chronicled in the New Testament.

Christianity began as a Second Temple Judaic sect, in the 1st century, in the Roman province of Judea. Jesus' apostles, and their successors the Apostolic Fathers, spread it around Syria, Europe, Anatolia, Mesopotamia, Transcaucasia, Egypt, Ethiopia, and Asia, despite initial persecution. Emperor Constantine the Great converted to Christianity and decriminalized it in the Edict of Milan (313), later convening the First Council of Nicaea (325) where Early Christianity was consolidated into what would become the state religion of the Roman Empire (380). The council formulated the Nicene Creed (325), and the Church Fathers supervised the compilation of the Christian Bible (5th century). The period of the first seven ecumenical councils is sometimes referred to as the Great Church, the united communion of the Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, and Oriental Orthodoxy before their schisms. Oriental Orthodoxy split after the Council of Chalcedon (451) over differences in Christology, while the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church separated in the East–West Schism (1054), especially over the authority of the Pope. Similarly, Protestantism split in numerous denominations from the Catholic Church in the Protestant Reformation (16th century) over theological and ecclesiological disputes.

Today, the four largest branches of Christianity are the Catholic Church (1.3 billion), Protestantism (920 million), the Eastern Orthodox Church (260 million) and Oriental Orthodoxy (86 million), amid various efforts toward ecumenism. Their theology and professions of faith, in addition to the Bible, generally hold in common that Jesus suffered, died, was buried, descended into hell and rose from the dead to grant eternal life to those who believe in him for the forgiveness of their sins. They further maintain that Jesus physically ascended into heaven, where he reigns with God the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit, and that he will return to judge the living and the dead and grant eternal life to his followers. His incarnation, earthly ministry, crucifixion and resurrection are often referred to as "the gospel", meaning "good news". Generally accepted as the Bible, describing Jesus' life and teachings, are the four canonical gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, with the Jewish Old Testament as the Gospel's respected background. Christianity remains culturally diverse in its Western and Eastern branches, as well as in its doctrines concerning ecclesiology (church visible/church invisible), ordination (apostolic succession, papal primacy), and Christology (Chalcedonianism/Non-Chalcedonianism).

Christianity was a leading influence on the development of Western civilisation in Europe during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. Following the Age of Discovery (15th–17th century), Christianity spread to the Americas, Oceania, Sub-Saharan Africa and the rest of the world through missionary work and colonization.

”

Thanks. I'd say this can be deleted from the lede as too deep into theology that anyway differs denominationally: "They further maintain that Jesus physically ascended into heaven, where he reigns with God the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit, and that he will return to judge the living and the dead and grant eternal life to his followers. His incarnation, earthly ministry, crucifixion and resurrection are often referred to as "the gospel", meaning "good news". Generally accepted as the Bible, describing Jesus' life and teachings, are the four canonical gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, with the Jewish Old Testament as the Gospel's respected background."

My only remark would be to introduce some paragrah or at least sentence speaking about past and present persecution, which ought also historically mentioned the Islamic conquests as a significant event in the history of Christianity. Chicbyaccident (talk) 12:05, 27 October 2018 (UTC)

I help out with copy editing on Wikipedia and I think a main issue with this lead is the overuse of links. If you take a look at MOS:LINK and MOS:LEADLINK, you'll see that about 66% of links are not clicked so really you want to include links that would help but not hinder. Also, links shouldn't be adjacent. If, for instance, you really feel that Abrahamic monotheistic religious groups needs to have three links, you should try to rework the sentence so those words are not together. Also from that guide, many of the links are unnecessary because the information is already known or is covered in one of the other links. For example, if you link Jesus, you really don't need to link Son of God, Logos, savior of humanity, because presumably that information is discussed further in the Jesus article. You don't need to link Europe or Middle Ages or the Americas and the like. I would say that that whole article suffers from overlinking which makes it hard to read, but just in the lead there are duplicate links—the churches are linked twice, the bible is linked three times, etc.

You don't need all the citations in the lead if the information is covered elsewhere in the article and properly cited, unless the information may be controversial. For instance, citation #2 is used twice in the first sentence and then down in the Demographics section. In this case, one citation should probably be kept in the lead because this information may seem controversial to some and so should be easily checkable by readers. However, you don't need five citations to state that Christianity played a prominent role in the shaping of Western civilization. By the way, that's stated twice in the lead, in the first and third paragraphs.

There are also three notes in the lead which interrupts flow and detracts from the idea that this is a summary.

Note that civilization is spelled both the American and British way in the lead. The lead is the only place in the article that uses the British spelling. Doesn't matter which spelling is chosen, but stick with one spelling.

If you take a look at WP:CREATELEAD, I think that the current lead does a good job of covering the 5 Ws.

I do have a question about capitalization. The gospel is introduced as lower case but then in the next sentence is capitalized. It seems that when each gospel is talked about, like Gospel of Matthew, gospel is part of the title so it is capitalized. Should it be capitalized on its own? And that whole sentence needs a rework ... "generally accepted as the bible" -- is that controversial? Why is gospels italicized? With all the links in this article, I am surprised that Jewish is not linked. I don't understand what "respected background" is trying to say.

Last sentence, I don't understand what "culturally diverse" means. Again with the links, you don't need to link pairs of contrasting examples. See MOS:OVERLINK.

I hope this was helpful. And these are just my thoughts, other copy editors may have different ideas. Good luck. PopularOutcast^talk2me! 14:24, 27 October 2018 (UTC)

In my opinion, the second paragraph goes way too in depth about the history of Christianity. I've typed up a more concise version, tell me what you think. The bolded sections are things that I think I didn't word very well and should probably be changed.

“ Christianity began as a Second Temple Judaic sect in 1st century Judea. Jesus' apostles and their successors quickly spread the religion to other areas of the world, despite initial persecution. Emperor Constantine the Great converted to and decriminalized Christianity, and convened the First Council of Nicaea (325), where the Nicene Creed (325) was formulated and where Early Christianity was consolidated into the state religion of the Roman Empire (380). In the 5th century, the Church Fathers supervised the compilation of the Christian Bible. Starting in 451, the Christianity had many schisms, including the Oriental Orthodoxy schism in 451, the East–West Schism in 1054, and the Protestant split in the 16th century. ”

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Awsomaw (talk • contribs) 20:55, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

While the beginning of that proposal was helpful, I'm afraid the other shortering makes things more vague in an unhelpful way. Please note that their were plenty of substantial schisms prior to 451 also. Chicbyaccident (talk) 14:30, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

Fair. Here's a potential edit I see in the fourth paragraph that maybe you can also run down... (bolded is the part that is changed.)

“ Today, the four largest branches of Christianity are Catholicism (1.3 billion), Protestantism (920 million), Eastern Orthodoxy (260 million)[21] and Oriental Orthodoxy (86 million), amid various efforts toward ecumenism. ”

Also it seems like the second to last sentence (starting with "generally accepted") just doesn't make sense. The Bible is not just made up of four gospels, and also not made up of the 4 gospels and the old testament. What is "generally accepted" as the Bible? The canonical 4 gospels? The fact that it's describing Jesus' life and teachings? Is the phrase talking about Jesus' life and teachings explaining what the Bible is? Or what the 4 gospels are? Is it just me or is that sentence just confusing? I would try to reword it but I have no clue what it's trying to say. Awsomaw (talk) 14:52, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

While there were some improvements of the recent updates of Editor2020, I think it would be loss to altogheter drop the ecclesiological history. Still today, all-encompassing ecclesiology is a concern for a majority of Christians, and has been so since antiquity. Reflecting that, it doesn't hurt to retain at least a couple of sentences on major schisms and their reasons. Some note on persecution ought better be included in the lead section as well. Chicbyaccident (talk) 00:45, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

If you want it to be there please add it back in. Editor2020 (talk) 00:54, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

This is more of a reflection that a suggestion, but wouldn't it make some sense to group Eastern and Oriental Orthodoxy together? Of course they are different, no dispute about that, but I'd say the difference between an Antiochian Greek Orthodox and an Antiochian Syriac Orthodox is much smaller than between a high church Anglican and a born-again southern Baptist in both theology and religious practice. Then again, that's a point of view. If most sources make this distinction, then we better keep it. Jeppiz (talk) 15:39, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

Suggest removing the cleanup messageboxes as they are outdated.-Inowen (nlfte) 01:57, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

What message boxes? Thinker78 (talk) 04:46, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

I support keeping the church history. What can go from the lead are the statistics--put them under "Demographics. There are many organizations collecting statistics. There is no firm way to compute them, as self-identifying type membership is based on a combination of surveys, opinion polls, and church rolls. Even preferring one form of data over the other gets you into POV territory with one church or another. There is a no consensus on the number of Christians in the world.

General practices of Christians can go in the lead... for example, something like "Most, but not all Christians get baptized, celebrate the Lord's Supper, pray the Lord's Prayer and other prayers, read or listen to the Bible, have clergy, and attend group worship services.--Epiphyllumlover (talk) 02:42, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

Not in my personal experience. In Greece where I live, most Bibles are printed in Koine Greek, and not in Demotic Greek which is the current vernacular. So most people can't read them, or even understand church service, if they haven't studied ancient Greek language.

Both of my parents considered themselves pious Christians, but never read a single page of the Bible. My father has no idea who the Four Evangelists or the Apostles were, and can't name a single one of them. My even more-religious aunt (attents Church on a daily basis) is nearly illiterate and can't read the Bible. The only persons in my entire family who used to regularly read the Bible was my atheist grandfather (he liked to quote and mock its absurdities), and me (also an atheist). Dimadick (talk) 08:51, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

I thought about people in your sort of situation, and I figured that readings during mass do count--although as you say, in another language hardly means much. A long time ago, many people never heard the Bible except in languages they did not understand. This is where the word Hocus Pocus came into being. People didn't understand what the words were. I attended a service in Latin once, and some other times in Greek, so that gives me an idea what that is like. Even in Greek I could make out some parts like the Kyrie (also a Bible quote), and I don't know much Greek at all.

From what I understand, nearly all Catholic churches operate in the vernacular, and of course Protestants do, so that leaves Orthodox. Still, even someone like your Aunt has heard the blessing at the end of the service, or the Lord's Prayer, and those are quotes from the Bible, and even someone who doesn't otherwise know the language used in the liturgy probably will know something of the basic parts if they attend often.

One the other hand, some are pious and don't attend much, and the services are in another language as you say. I don't know how many that would be... Maybe someone here knows.--Epiphyllumlover (talk) 04:54, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

Christianity is not a religion, but a family of religions.--67.87.191.87 (talk) 04:43, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

It is rather poor that the world's most persecuted group/community is not described as such in its lead section, isn't it? PPEMES (talk) 15:08, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

Conclusion

I propose the following lead:

Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teaching of Jesus Christ.

Christians believe that Jesus died for all people; that God is endless goodness; that God Father, Son of God and Holy Spirit form the Trinity; and that people are justified through faith. Two main Christian sacraments are baptism, which purifies from sin, and Eucharist, which gives virtues. Christians practise various prayers, fasting and almsgiving. They follow the Great Commandment of the love of God and neighbor.

Church of the East and Oriental Orthodox Churches split from the Catholic Church in the 5th century, Eastern Orthodox Churches in the 11th and Protestant churches in the 16th. Christianity spread over the Middle East and Roman Empire, then in Europe, the Americas, Africa and Asia. Nowadays it is world's largest religion with 2.4 billion adherents, of which 1.3 are Catholics, 0.8 Protestants and 0.3 Orthodox.

Propositum (talk) 14:46, 25 May 2019 (UTC)

Oppose. That would exclude Nontrinitarianism from its definition of Christianity. The Catholic Church did not exist prior to the 11th century. And the way Christianity spread was through forced conversion, not through evangelisation.:

• "During the Saxon Wars, Charlemagne, King of the Franks, forcibly converted the Saxons from their native Germanic paganism by way of warfare, and law upon conquest. Examples are the Massacre of Verden in 782, when Charlemagne reportedly had 4,500 captive Saxons massacred for rebelling, and the Capitulatio de partibus Saxoniae, a law imposed on conquered Saxons in 785, after another rebellion and destruction of churches and killing of missionary priests and monks, that prescribed death to those who refused to convert to Christianity."
• "Forced conversion that occurred after the seventh century generally took place during riots and massacres carried out by mobs and clergy without support of the rulers. In contrast, royal persecutions of Jews from the late eleventh century onward generally took form of expulsions, with some exceptions, such as conversions of Jews in southern Italy of the 13th century, which were carried out by Dominican Inquisitors but instigated by King Charles II of Naples."
• "Jews were forced to convert to Christianity by the Crusaders in Lorraine, on the Lower Rhine, in Bavaria and Bohemia, in Mainz and in Worms."
• Pope Innocent III pronounced in 1201 that if one agreed to be baptized to avoid torture and intimidation, one nevertheless could be compelled to outwardly observe Christianity: "[T]hose who are immersed even though reluctant, do belong to ecclesiastical jurisdiction at least by reason of the sacrament, and might therefore be reasonably compelled to observe the rules of the Christian Faith. It is, to be sure, contrary to the Christian Faith that anyone who is unwilling and wholly opposed to it should be compelled to adopt and observe Christianity. For this reason a valid distinction is made by some between kinds of unwilling ones and kinds of compelled ones. Thus one who is drawn to Christianity by violence, through fear and through torture, and receives the sacrament of Baptism in order to avoid loss, he (like one who comes to Baptism in dissimulation) does receive the impress of Christianity, and may be forced to observe the Christian Faith as one who expressed a conditional willingness though, absolutely speaking, he was unwilling ..."
• "During the Northern Crusades against the pagan Balts and Slavs of northern Europe, forced conversions were a widely used tactic, which received papal sanction. These tactics were first adopted during the Wendish Crusade, but became more widespread during the Livonian Crusade and Prussian Crusade, in which tactics included the killing of hostages, massacre, and the devastation of the lands of tribes that had not yet submitted. Most of the populations of these regions were converted only after the repeated rebellion of native populations that did not want to accept Christianity even after initial forced conversion; in Old Prussia, the tactics employed in the initial conquest and subsequent conversion of the territory resulted in the death of most of the native population, whose language consequently became extinct." Dimadick (talk) 16:45, 26 May 2019 (UTC)

The Trinity is the key concept of the Christianity, as stated in the Nicene Creed; and the Catholic Church along with the Pope exists since the very beginning. Propositum (talk) 17:30, 26 May 2019 (UTC)

Editors interrupting GOCE edit

Howdy! Hello, I'm sorry if I screwed something up, but I'm currently copyediting this article for the GOCE; somebody placed a ce tag on it. So can you please not make edits to the article while I'm here? There's an in use template, but oops I put the in use tag in the {{multiple issues}}. So can please everybody just stop editing while I'm here?

Pinging: @Martin of Sheffield, TheTexasNationalist99, and Joshua Jonathan:

P.S. If you want to contact me, please {{ping}} me. – Ben79487 (talk contribs) 22:35, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

Sure. But do notice that the template displays this message when you've been inactive fkr more than 24 hours: Please remove {{GOCEinuse}} from this page as this page has not been edited for at least 24 hours. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 04:26, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

Yes, and what Joshua wrote. I removed things even Wikipedia articles show wasn't true.--TheTexasNationalist99 (talk) 16:13, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

I know. But can you wait until after, please? – Ben79487 (talk contribs) 03:04, 13 March 2019 (UTC)

Go ahead; thanks for the efforts! Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 06:19, 13 March 2019 (UTC)

At second thought: you've been editing this page now for eight days, making 13 edits, including placing the 'goce in use' template at top; I appreciate yout intention to improve this page, but at this pace, you're effectively blocking the development of this page. As a courtesy to other editors, please only use it when you're actually editing the page. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 07:50, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

Please study WP:LQUOTE before changing the punctuation at the end of quotations. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 11:03, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the tip, Martin of Sheffield, and I'm an on-and-off editor. (Hey, I'm in school, and homework takes a long time!) – Ben79487 (talk contribs) 01:43, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

Good to know. Once again, your efforts are appreciated. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 05:23, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

Too many pages on the history of Early Christianity

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Proposal

There are too many pages on the (history of) early Christianity:

• Overview:

• Christianity
• History of Christianity

• 1st-3rd century:

• Early Christianity
• History of early Christianity

• 1st century:

• Pre-Pauline Christianity:

• Origins of Christianity
• Jewish Christian

• Emerging Church:

• Apostolic Age
• Christianity in the 1st century

• 2nd-3rd century:

• Ante-Nicene Period (c.100-325 AD)
• Christianity in the 2nd century
• Christianity in the 3rd century

• Diverse topics:

• Diversity in early Christian theology
• Split of early Christianity and Judaism
• Proto-orthodox Christianity

Excessive, isn't it? This way, it's impossible to reach, or maintain, any acceptable quality-standard; there are simply too many pages to watch, and it's disheartening to even make a start. There may be WP:COATRACK issues also; see Talk:History of early Christianity#"Origins". I don't think that supposed Hellenistic influences warrant separate pages (that would be a coatrack), but I've also noticed that there's a lot of info which is actually the traditional Christian, Biblical narrative on the origins and history of the earliest Christianity.

Anyway, some thoughts:

• Merge Christianity in the 1st century into Apostolic Age; that's the exact same topic
• Merge Early Christianity, History of early Christianity, and Ante-Nicene Period into Apostolic Age and Ante-Nicene Period. "Early Christianity" and "History of early Christianity" overlap to a great extent; even the sections on "Beliefs" and "Ecclesiology" can be divided over "apostolic Age" and "Anti-Nicene period," c.q. 1st, 2nd and 3rd century.

Christianity#Early Christianity and History of Christianity#Early Christianity (c. 31/33–324) can be used as overview-pages, with short sections on the relevant topics, and links to the main articles. This would also include Historicity of Jesus, Historical Jesus, Quest for the Historical Jesus; and Paul the Apostle and Judaism, New Perspective on Paul.

Honestly, I think it's a shame that a religion with 2,3 billion adherents is covered in such a messy way. We can do better than that. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 07:37, 19 March 2019 (UTC) / update Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 10:25, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

Discussion

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Semi-protected edit request on 13 July 2019

There are several dead links on this page and I found the correct urls for them. I'm putting this request in to go in there and replace the dead urls with the proper live ones. Helpful Hippopotamus (talk) 15:29, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

 Not done: According to the page's protection level you should be able to edit the page yourself. If you seem to be unable to, please reopen the request with further details. Begoon 15:37, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

yes it is working now, thank you! |answered=