Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Christian terrorism (2nd nomination)

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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Esquivalience (talk | contribs) at 00:32, 26 March 2015 (Closing debate, result was keep). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. Consensus to keep. There are a considerable amount of delete votes, but many of them are based on the article having original research. However, the original research can be fixed through normal editing, so it is not a reason to delete (see WP:BEFORE § c1). (non-admin closure) Esquivalience t 00:32, 26 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Christian terrorism

Previous AfDs for this article:
Christian terrorism (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)
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As WP:OR and WP:SYNTH disparate events are discussed.The incidents here have nothing to do with the religion Christianity but about a few contemporary groups engaged in regional conflicts. Valetta66 (talk) 11:37, 19 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

  • Strong keep There is almost nil synthesis in the article. As Per MOS if a group calls itself Christian it will be called Christian on Wikipedia. I fail to see any synthesis, perhaps the nominator would be kind enough to point it out on the Talk page of the article and we can remove synthesisFreeatlastChitchat (talk) 13:34, 19 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
If it were true that "if a group calls itself Christian it will be called Christian on Wikipedia", it would have to be true that "if a group calls itself Socialist it will be called Socialist on Wikipedia" And yet National Socialism is neither described as socialist not is it placed in category:Socialism.E.M.Gregory (talk) 17:49, 23 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Christianity-related deletion discussions. Everymorning talk 12:20, 19 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Terrorism-related deletion discussions. Everymorning talk 12:21, 19 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. This article is a NPOV mess involving synthesis and fringe views presented on a par with mainstream views, in contravention of WP:UNDUE and giving false balance. As an example, conflicts such as The Troubles were ethno-nationalist in nature, and are described as such by the vast majority of expert commentators. The existence of remarks by a tiny minority of commentators claiming it was partly religious in nature are used to justify the inclusion of a whole section on The Troubles in the article. "As Per MOS if a group calls itself Christian it will be called Christian on Wikipedia." - quite possibly. But none of the various IRAs, the INLA, or the vast majority of Loyalist terrorists identified themselves as "Christian". The Orange groups that apparently did call themselves Christian had so minor a role they barely featured. By the same token, Anders Breivik described himself as "not very religious", but gets included? Likewise, much of the Indian events and actors seem - on the evidence presented in the article - to be unsourced, only peripherally touching on Christianity, or terrorism for that matter. Ultimately, the article seems to be a collection of disjointed events that might, in some cases, involve some people who might be Christians, and/or might be terrorists, with not that many reliable sources to back up the assertions. BastunĖġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ! 15:51, 19 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong keep Obviously, the article is an WP:NPOV mess. However, that's not really a reason for deletion of the entire article. Of course it needs cleanup and sections should be removed and added, but I think that it is necessary to keep this article. There are articles on Buddhist terrorism, Hindu terrorism, Islamic terrorism, and Jewish terrorism. Deleting this article, in my opinion, would illustrate more bias. Perhaps it should be a Collaboration of the Week at some point? I think that would help this article, but deleting is not the best option. BenLinus1214talk 16:08, 19 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • keep - the article is kind of a mess. but not a reason for deletion. someone needs to take a good look at it though and improve it. per WP:GNG.--BabbaQ (talk) 17:18, 19 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete, and nail the lid shut. This article exists for exactly one reason: to serve as a WP:COATRACK. Do other religions have similar articles? WP:OTHERSTUFF. (And I shouldn't have to belabor the obvious, that Jesus was a pacifist, whereas the founders of some other religions were decidedly not, and hence any alleged "Christians" committing terrorism are bullshitting.) Pax 03:10, 20 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep I'm really not going to get into a debate over whether a possibly not-real figure was a possibly pacifist, since Jesus is nothing to do with whether or not we keep this article. It is a bit of a mess, but this term and concept does exist. See things such as [1] from ThinkProgress, this by Juan Cole, and this in Time Magazine and this in The EastAfrican. JTdaleTalk~ 07:09, 20 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Reply wrong argument Article was created in 2004 that is 11 years ago and requests for more time is wrong argument as per WP:MERCY and other endless discussions and mediation for 6 months have come to nothing and only reinforce that is WP:OR and WP:SYNTH.Valetta66 (talk) 13:40, 20 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. No true Scotsman arguments about whether terrorists are actually Christian are irrelevant. The topic obviously has coverage in reliable sources; for example, [2] from Slate.com, and [3] from Salon.com. If the article is problematic, then it can be cleaned up through normal editing. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 13:56, 20 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Slate and Salon? *snicker* We have a responsibility to reject WP:BULLSHIT. Pax 07:48, 21 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - Those saying to work on the article/clean it up - yes, that'd be great, if people would actually work on it, or could work on it without every edit being subject to argument and even mediation. There are very few people who have ever bothered working on the article, except those pushing a POV agenda to claim some conflict or event is Christian terrorism, and the article is very definitely subject to ownership. Really - look at this section. A welter of sources (14 listed!) stating it's an ethno-nationalist conflict, but we get a significant chunk of the article included because an editor managed to find four people saying the opposite. A clear breach of WP:UNDUE and WP:GEVAL. If you're voting to keep the article, then please start work on it now. BastunĖġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ! 16:58, 20 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • delete The Slate and Salon pieces are editorials and lack a neutral tone, and that's really the problem all around in this. Wikipedia's articles on religious terrorism (and the Christianity one is particularly bad on this) are heavily driven by a POV that views religion as a menace. It's particularly obvious in the lack of an atheist terrorism article, and my guess is that the other religious terrorism articles suffer to some degree or another from the same fault. There are endless arguments over specific cases and a determined ignorance of problems such as that in N. Ireland the religious parties were surrogates for the underlying political contest (our own articles on the matter say as much). Mangoe (talk) 17:10, 20 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    • It doesn't matter if the sources are biased. See WP:BIASED. It also doesn't matter whether anyone is currently working on the article. See WP:NEGLECT. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 00:30, 21 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
      • Yes, actually it does. There are both opinion pieces dedicated to political argument against the American right. Lots of the characterizations made in these articles are disputed or even largely rejected in more sober and academic works. Mangoe (talk) 15:02, 21 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Keep - As per WP:NOTCENSORED, nothing should be censored in Wikipedia, just because it offends a few groups. Also, there are hundred references, most of them are researched books, which means, this article is highly sourced and referenced with reliable sources. So, deleting this will be a mockery of what wikipedia stands for. - Vatsan34 (talk) 17:37, 20 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Please read Bastun's comment two above yours. Pax 20:49, 20 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Absolutely, Vatsan34, WP is not censored. As I'm not a Christian, I would not in in any way be "offended" by an article purporting to be about "Christian terrorism". This isn't such an article, though. It's a poorly sourced mish-mash of WP:COATRACK "facts" with really poor sourcing in many cases. Look at some of those sources. The IRA were/are "Christian terrorists"? For real? They were/are Marxists and socialists that fought in a nationalist conflict. Some (tiny few) people published articles that describe them as, apparently, "Christian terrorists", so we get a whole section on that? A nutcase explodes a bomb and shoots people in Norway - because his ranting "manifesto" mentions God, it's included in this article as an example of Christian terrorism? Seriously? We're not censoring anything - there's already a full article on Anders ("I'm not going to pretend I'm a very religious person, as that would be a lie") Breivik and the 2011 Norway attacks, dozens of articles on The Troubles and their participants, and ones on the "Christian terrorists" in India such as the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (that manage to not mention the word "Christian" once in the whole article... draw your own conclusions). BastunĖġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ! 01:06, 21 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Bastun Anders was indirectly fighting for the Christian Europe and not for Buddhist Europe and hence he can be mentioned in the article in the current form. Fine with removal of Nagaland, but your removal of African section is not according to Wikipedia policy. 'A group of small muslims involving in violence is published as Islamic terrorism'. In the same scale, the small group of Christians involved in violence can be told as Christian terrorism. Why change of tone for one group and not for another group? But NLFT are a group of Christian terrorists and there is no doubt in that. I am fine with the current form of article as edited by you and is against deleting it. If this article can be deleted, then even Islamic terrorism article can be deleted because it involves a fraction of global muslims. - Vatsan34 (talk) 07:50, 22 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
"indirectly fighting for the Christian Europe and... hence he can be mentioned in the article in the current form" by that logic, in allying Britain and the US with the USSR, Winston Churchill and FDR were "indirectly fighting for the" Communist Party, and WWII can therefore be used to write an article about Communist wars. User:Vatsan34, this is simply not a coherent argument. It does reveal the problems inherent in this article, which as it stands, is more or less an article about Acts of terrorism committed by Christians, or by people of Christian ancestry, or by groups identifying Christianity as one of several aspects of their identity, culture and/or ideological commitments, plus a few dudes like Anders Breivik that nobody can quite figure out.E.M.Gregory (talk) 17:31, 23 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Vatsan34 I rechecked the Africa section. It refers to participant groups made up of Christians and animists working together, and their motivation seems to be revenge, so it really doesn't appear to be "Christian terrorism" (else the Christians would not be working with the animists?). In any case, it's included on the basis of a single citation from Time magazine. BastunĖġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ! 11:26, 22 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - Clean it up. Stub it if you must but there is enough material out there to support and sustain this topic in an NPOV way. Jbh (talk) 10:39, 21 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment -- This is certainly synthesis. It is a collection of disparate movements that have been labelled as Christian, but I see no ideaological or other coherence, except seeking freedom or independence. "One man's Freedom Fisher is another man's terrorist". Several of these are insurgencies by Christians; I do not know whether the tactics used amount to terrorism. Some may self-identify as Christian; others may be Christian by heritage. In Northern Ireland, IRA are (or were) Catholics; their tactics were certainly terrorist, but their opponents were another kind of Christian: IRA were Christian and terrorist, but I do not think they are Christian terrorists in the sense that their terrorism was motivated by Christian faith. It was a tribal conflict between two groups with religious labels. Similarly movements in NE India and Burma may be Christiasn v Hindus and Buddhists, but these are much more tribal independence movements than motivated by Christianity. Perhaps we should rename it Tribal conflicts involving Christians where terrorist tactics have been employed. This differs from Muslim terrorism which is motivated by the religious concept of jihad, though I understand many Muslims reject that interpretation. Peterkingiron (talk) 18:14, 21 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Excellert points by User:Peterkingiron.E.M.Gregory (talk) 01:08, 22 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
"IRA were Christian and terrorist, but I do not think they are Christian terrorists in the sense that their terrorism was motivated by Christian faith." No, they were mostly (but not exclusively) from a Roman Catholic background, but were not fighting a religious was or for religious freedom in any way, shape or form. They want(ed) a united, and socialist, Ireland. Political/nationalist - not religious. BastunĖġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ! 11:15, 22 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete WP:COATRACK, involving WP:OR, WP:SYNTH and some serious WP:CHERRYPICKING. To put this disgrace of an article together, editors roped together Guy Fawkes' failed participation in an international power struggle, the racism of the Ku Klux Klan, Lebanon's Maronite, Sunni, Shia power struggle, and even - Lord help us - Anders Behring Breivik. If that isn't enough unrelated material hung on this WP:COATRACK, the article wades into the intricate complexities of hill tribes, the Hindu expansion, colonization, identity and power in eastern India. Problem is that there is little beyond a couple of opinion columns and the fact that individuals and groups of of Christian background were involved in movements with little else connecting them. Certainly no body of theoretical work on the relationship between Christianity and the choice terrorism as a tactic is cited. Nor am I aware that such a literature exists.E.M.Gregory (talk) 01:01, 22 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    Excellent. Best post in thread. The salient point here is that there are no reputable RS supporting the tendentious premise inherent to the article's title. The closer should take this into account, as policy out-weighs the clamorous mass of 'keep' !votes. Pax 00:39, 25 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per nom. In some incidents the perpetrators seem to be fighting each other about the identities that they hold about themselves and not about the religion in particular. ༆ (talk) 06:17, 23 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete This article is certainly against WP's neutrality policies. It also fails to substantiate how it's cited terrorist instances are consistent with historical Christianity. No element of that religion compels it's followers by instruction from their holy book to carry out heinous crimes. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nathankyle2188 (talk • contribs) 19:15, 23 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep If an organization calls itself Christian, it is Christian per the MOS. list of Islamic terrorist attacks does not represent Islam in general, just as this article does not represent Christianity as a whole. KonveyorBelt 22:16, 23 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
While I agree that List of Islamic terrorist attacks should be moved to List of Islamist terrorist attacks, to distinguish between Islamic civilization and Islamism. (come over to that page and discuss) Your iVote does not address policy issues pertinent to this page.E.M.Gregory (talk) 22:26, 23 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Again - none of the various IRAs, the INLA, or the vast majority of Loyalist terrorists identified themselves as "Christian". They are still included. Likewise our articles on some of the the Indian organisations also don't mention the word "Christian", once. Konveyor Belt, perhaps you'd work on the article to remove those entries? BastunĖġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ! 17:57, 24 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Would also support this proposed compromise. BastunĖġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ! 23:14, 23 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - Jesus was a pacifist, but all Christians are not. NPOV is when we shown both the negative and the positive. Hafspajen (talk) 13:32, 24 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
We are all aware that not all Christians are pacifists. However, this is a discussion about terrorism, not about pacifism or the ethics of war. If we are to get anywhere, iVotes need to address concerns including WP:COATRACK, WP:OR, WP:SYNTH and WP:CHERRYPICKING, i.e., the fact that at present the argument for deletion is that this page is a WP:COATRACK on which diverse terror incidents perpetrated by individuals or groups of Christian heritage are strung although many have no ideological commitment to Christianity as justification for terrorism. Speak to this, or or speak to the proposal to delete this article and start a List of terrorist attacks motivated by Christian ideology. so that we can move this conversation forward.E.M.Gregory (talk) 17:27, 24 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
And the title of such a new article would then be in error, since no Christian tenet (unlike, say, many surahs) authorizes such activities, either explicitly or obliquely. The correct title of such an article would be List of terrorist attacks by idiots and liars who claim to be Christian but don't act like it. Pax 00:50, 25 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed. "NPOV is when we shown both the negative and the positive." Absolutely. But another of the five pillars is verifiability - Hafspajen, you seem to have missed the point that some of the people and/or organisations named on this article are not, and never claimed to be, acting out of any sort of Christian ideology. BastunĖġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ! 17:51, 24 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
No, I haven't. Check here... God bless, my son. Hafspajen (talk) 19:23, 24 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
That's a long page? What am I supposed to be reading, there? A diff would be useful. (There is no God, but I'll take the blessing, thanks :-) ) BastunĖġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ! 20:53, 24 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, nothing in special, nobody really has the patience to read that any more... but I know the difference between something called a thing but not being that what it is called. Hafspajen (talk) 23:07, 24 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
So, Hafspajen's argument, like Pax's argument and over half of the iVotes on this page comes down to WP:IDONTLIKEIT.E.M.Gregory (talk) 11:19, 25 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I'm on your side. ;-) Scan back up for the word "Excellent". Pax 19:50, 25 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
My apologies, User:Раціональне анархіст It's obviously irrelevant what side you are on , what matters is that here: This article exists for exactly one reason: to serve as a WP:COATRACK. Do other religions have similar articles? WP:OTHERSTUFF and elsewhere you were making policy-based arguments. Arguments that have yet to be encountered by "keep" iVoters.E.M.Gregory (talk) 20:10, 25 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Which specific sources demonstrate that "Christian Terrorism" is a coherent thing, as opposed to being a series of notable topics?E.M.Gregory (talk) 13:38, 25 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
WP:ATTP to the side, let's not detract attention from the fact that this article is, as E.M.Gregory exhaustively details above, an unsalvageable piece of crap. Pax 19:46, 25 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you, User:Раціональне анархіст. We can all ignore the SPAs. What I am not seeing are policy-based arguments for keep. And just asserting that the topic is important is not the same as showing that the topic exists (Christian terrorists exist, but where are the sources on Christian terrorism?) is not an argument.E.M.Gregory (talk) 20:05, 25 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The essential problem here (aside from Wikipedia policy problems, which should govern the course of this AfD) is that too many intellectually lazy people see a phrase like "Christian terrorism" and reflexively assume a valid concept just because the words are sitting there strung together despite representing a crashing contradiction. E.g., Jewish atheism -- but that example is explained by "Jew" also referring to Semitic ethnicity (in addition to Judaism). But there is no Christian ethnicity; it's entirely a state of mind. You can't be a "Christian atheist" and you can't be a Christian XYZ" if XYZ is explicitly contrary to gospel. You could claim to be, but it wouldn't be true, and it is the project's responsibility to reject articles whose inherent thrust is to promote the existence of a false narrative. Pax 20:41, 25 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
User:Раціональне анархіст, with all respect, I'm not sure that's a valid argument. For example, it would be impossible to find any avowed Christian today who would argue for the mass murder of a large population of heretic civilians, or for the burning of heretics. But back in the Church burned Jan Hus and sponsored the slaughter of Hussites, and Cathars. Everyone who sat in the Council of Constance was Christian; so was the Pope. I think that if a group puts together a coherent, Bible-based justification of terrorism, we have to call them Christianity-inspired terrorists (or some other phrase equivalent to Islamist). The problem here, as I see it, is that Islamist terrorism is a real theological approach, datable to a specific era, shared and upheld by Islamists with clerical credential who claim the Quran as their inspiration. I don't see anything of the sort in the motley groups roped together in this article.E.M.Gregory (talk) 22:31, 25 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed. I became involved after noticing the inclusion of the "Northern Ireland paramilitaries". The IRA were fighting for a united, socialist Ireland - not for a united, Catholic Ireland. That led me to look at some of the other entries. An African "Christian" group that's composed of animists who want to take revenge on Muslims who had previously attacked them? A Maoist group in India fighting for a nationalist cause? A solo nutcase who said himself that he wasn't very religious? Yet all get included because one or two people claim they were "Christian terrorists". The actual Christian terrorists (which can be sourced) are the Americans blowing up abortion clinics and shooting doctors. They get a mention near the start of the article, and at the end. BastunĖġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ! 23:05, 25 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
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