Talk:History of Christianity/Archive 3

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Some scholars

There was a sentence that described what some scholars felt without saying who those scholars were. LoveMonkey (I believe) added a fact tag, asking who these scholars were (a resonable request). Lostcaesar removed the whole sentence. I restored the sentence with a citation, so all should be good right? Wrong. LoveMonkey restored a citation request when I had already supplied a citation. Richardshusr is helping clear things up, but I wanted to come to talk so we could all explain our position better, if necessary. I believe my citation was good enough, so why was the citation needed tag restored AFTER I already added a citation.-Andrew c 16:33, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I saw the citation that you provided to Ehrman. Unfortunately, I'm not familiar with that author and the title of the book didn't make it clear whether he was a scholar or simply a popularizing author who was summarizing the work of scholars so I inserted the scholar that I did know, Elaine Pagels. I'm open to rewording the text to read "Scholars such as Elaine Pagels and Bart Ehrman".

Bah, humbug. I should have checked out Bart Ehrman first instead of wasting everybody's time. Sorry.

--Richard 17:05, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

I wrote the sentence originally. A little while ago, LoveMonkey added a fact tag. I thought perhaps we should just drop the sentence if it was going to be disputed, since I didn't think an extended treatment was proper here. Looks like an extended treatment is developing. The problem I see now is that we have cited in detail scholars like Pagles and Ehrman, whose positions are disputed, and thus we need now a counterposition. This is getting a bit legnthy. Perhaps we could restore the original sentence with those works in a footnote, kind of like Andrew had it, and give the details in the main article. As is it, I dont think we ave give Pagles a say without other who worked on gnosticism who think her scholarship is in major error having an equal say, and on and on. Lostcaesar 21:17, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

I was thinking myself that things were starting to get into a debate. We had the one sentence, then LoveMonkey added a rebuttle to the one sentence, which then turned into the sentences about G. K. Chesterton. It's tough because if we add information about one position, someone will want to come along and add information about the other position, and on and on. We are getting to the point where things are getting out of hand. I would not support adding more information in support of the tradition, Christian apologetic view. What may be a better idea is removing the stuff about Chesterton (century old info) and replacing it with the views of a contemporary scholar who shares similar views. If that is still much, then I would support reducing the extended section on Ehrman, Pagel, Bauers, if we also reduced the Chesterton stuff. I know, it's hard to balance things when we are considering NPOV. -Andrew c 21:28, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

So, this is what subsidiary articles are for. Let's move the whole mess to Christian heresy and leave only a summary. The summary should make clear that Bauers, Pagels and Ehrman are a minority view although Pagels writes in an accessible way and so her books have a certain popular following. --Richard 22:33, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

(sheepishly) So... I forgot that I already copied the text in this article to Christian heresy this morning. I didn't keep it all together in one place in Christian heresy so it's not immediately obvious that I copied the text but I did. So, all that's left is to trim the section back to being a summary. --Richard 22:39, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

LoveMonkey's latest edits are exactly the sort of thing I was trying to avoid. This shouldn't be a debate, and there doesn't need to be a rebuttal to everything. This section is getting rather long, when there is already a whole article devoted to this topic. I suggest we trim down this section fast. LoveMonkey, can you please comment on what I, LC, and Richard have been discussing before expanding this section even more? Thanks.-Andrew c 23:01, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

I reverted LoveMonkey's last edit as it was getting out of control and the quality of the English prose was atrocious to boot. I have left him a note on his Talk Page advising him of our discussion here and asking him to focus his energies on expanding and improving the Christian heresy article instead.

--Richard 23:25, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

I think a good place for this would be either Christian heresy, or Early Christianity, or (for Pagels) Gnosticism / History of Gnosticism etc. Perhaps we should go back to the original wording, with these names in a footnote. The problem with mentioning, say, Ehrman specifically, is it seems obligitory to say that his mentor, Bruce Metzger, disagreed with key parts of his analysis, or, for Pagels, that other scholars, her collegues, who worked on the same Gnostic texts, have published against her early dates and conclusions, etc. This sounds like a good topic, but one taken up (both sides taken up) elsewhere. So, I suppose I am repeating myself, but it helps explain why, when the fact tag was applied, I deleted the sentence. The article is very long,and in a sense it needs to be so that's ok, but we cannot afford sections like this. Whole centuries get only a sentence at times. Lostcaesar 06:51, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Christian heresy

Since our attention has been drawn to early Christian heresies, I invite those who are interested to look at the Christian heresy article. This is something that I worked on for a while a month or two ago. It probably still needs work. Your thoughts and comments would be appreciated.

--Richard 17:22, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Early heresies

User:Lostcaesar restored the following text that I had deleted...

One of the roles of bishops, and the purpose of many Christian writings, was to refute heresies. The earliest of these were generally Christological in nature, that is, they denied either Christ's (eternal) divinity or humanity. For example, Docetism held that Jesus' humanity was merely an illusion, thus denying the incarnation; whereas Arianism held that Jesus was not eternally divine. Most of these groups were dualistic, maintaining that reality was composed into two radically opposing parts: matter, usually seen as evil, and spirit, seen as good. Orthodox Christianity, on the other hand, held that both the material and spiritual worlds were created by God and were therefore both good, and that this was represented in the unified divine and human natures of Christ.

Actually I had deleted it intentionally for two reasons: first, it seemed to be non-crucial to the point we were trying to make and, in the context of User:Andrew c's suggestion that we trim, this seemed to be an expendable piece of text. Second, there was an editor who wanted to raise an issue about whether early Christian heresies were dualistic or not. This seemed an unimportant controversy to describe in this article (as opposed to the Christian heresy article.

I will comment that this text was copied to the Christian heresy article so it has not been "lost", just relocated.

That's why I deleted the text. Presumably, Lostcaesar disagrees and feels the text is, in fact, important to retain in this article. I personally don't care either way but other editors might so I figured I'd raise the question here on the Talk Page.

--Richard 06:49, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Oh, I see. Well, I know of no debate - early Christian heresies did tend to be dualistic (early heresies). The sentence is referenced from a textbook. The idea of the first sentence was to provide a transition from the previous section and to explain something unique about orthodox christianity - the bishop. Also, the next sentence was supposed to provide, in one sweep, a general statement about all early heresies - or why they were "heretical": orthodoxy is distinguished by not denying the eternal divinity or humanity of Christ and could have this position because it believed both matter and spirit were good, where as, if you believed matter was evil, then you would deny the incarnation (or vice versa). Anyway, my opinion is that this section is more informative, in a general sense, than the rest - but that's my opinion. If concensus turns otherwise, then so it shall go. I restored it thinking it was accidentally deleted (I've done that kind of thing before, you see). Lostcaesar 06:57, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

I disagree. I think that most of the earliest heresies where about clarification in doctrine. Most about the definition of Jesus and his divinity. Other then gnosticism I do not see any of the earliest let alone the biggest having anything to do with duality. As for quoting from a text book I think that such a sweeping and overly simplifed generalization as the text implies is very unacademic. I would like the page number. I think that at least one of the professors has a webpage and can be contact at least for clarification. LoveMonkey 14:06, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

I would also like to point out some very disturbing points that this article is lacking.

1. The section in question is not reflecting what the general consensus is in the field of Christian history. 2. The "scholars" posted have had their opinion challenged and in the case of Pagels they are now widely ignored (see her article here on wiki about some of her work being called one of the worst books ever written). 3. The challenges to those opinions (the posted opinions are not in the mainstream of scholarly opinion), challenges and points, are not being posted nor given a voice in this article. 4. Since the article is supposed to be as concise as possible, being only an overview, why are extreme opinions being posted as if they are the general consensus in the field of Christian history rather that be archeological, biblical text etc, etc. 5. Also the article history seems to focus only on a small area and on a small group of people. The text posted seems to only draw from a Western European, United States opinion. It does not take into account Slavic, Mideastern or Greece scholars (modern or ancient). The only exception to this would be the NT text it's self and the earlier church fathers. But they are not being treated as the general or modern prevalent opinion. A minority opinion (at best) is. 6. The POV being posted is an opinion if taken on it's face value stating that even Jesus did not and could not specify what a christian was. Since by the Bauer opinion, the standard Jesus was talking about in specifing incorrectness, was meaningless and in reference to no one. When Jesus specified what false prophets where he was specific and just like Irenaeus gnostics fit the description. By Bauer no one was wrong even when the founder of the religion warned about what was unacceptable to their teachings. Also please look over my edits to the Early Christianity article. I would like to have a consensus about the parts I added to the gnosticism sections so I can expand and add and clarify Irenaeus' apology to the Christian Heresies article. LoveMonkey 14:24, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

I would propose two things. First, in this article, look for a concise way to summarize the points that you made above. I have no problem in portraying Bauer, Ehrman and Pagels as minority viewpoints and even to mention that other scholars have refuted them. However, the section needs to be short because this article is too long. Second, put your more prolific effort into Christian heresy. I'll be happy to get some help on that article. It's a mess. --Richard 14:48, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, I think we need to establish here on talk what we all believe the majority opinion to be. I do not believe Bauer's still holds strong weight because his views are decades and decades old. Pagels is a decent scholar, but has fringe views, such as the significance and early dominance of Gnosticism. On the other hand, Ehrman is a fairly solid scholar. He is on the liberal side, but not as far as the Jesus seminar. His work, which I cited, did not present many, if any new ideas, and was an attempt to summarize the scholarly views. He doesn't explicitly state that one of the early sects is the one true religion of Jesus, and the rest are all heretics (like Pagal does with Gnosticism, or Chesterton does with Orthodoxy). He states that all the sects claimed apostolic succession, that all had sacred texts that claimed to go back to Jesus, that all wrote negatively about the competing sects, the point of lying and forgery. I do not believe that the majority of scholars claim that one sect over another is the One True religion of Jesus. All sects underwent theological development and evolution (and some sects only developed later down the road when a new question arose, and people conflicted over what the answer to the question was, such as the trinity). John P. Meier describes this in his Criterion of discontinuity. I'm curious to see what other editors on this page think is the majority view, and what sourced they have to back that up. I think this is a fundemental place to start to insure that we are summarizing the scholarly field correctly, and not giving undue weight to a position (I now feel like grouping Ehrman with Pagels and Bauer might not have been a good idea). -Andrew c 15:51, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Ehrman is not without his critics and his stance and association with the Jesus Seminar have undermind his standing with many. LoveMonkey 16:27, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, it looks like the can of worms has been opened, and I don’t suppose we can close it now. I would like to push this info to other articles dedicated to a proper discussion, as we simply cannot give paragraphs to one scholar in an article where whole eras and peoples get less. Anyway, I will try and give what I understand to be the “majority” (as difficult as that is). For Pagels, I can say that her colleagues who worked on the same Gnostic texts were critical of her early dating. I could find some sources for this statement. For Ehrman, I was not aware that he claimed that other groups, besides orthodoxy, asserted episcopal apostolic succession (do you mean apostolicity?), if so that would (I can only imagine) be a minority view. What I can say is that his position, as I understand it, is that the manuscript traditions of the biblical texts show alterations that establish a changing set of essential doctrines and thus a set of “orthodoxies”, one could say. In this regard he is at variance with, among others, Metzger (his mentor), not in saying there are differences in the manuscripts (because there are), but in saying that they are doctrinally significant. Now, the view of “orthodoxies” in general, divorced from the manuscript issue (and the manuscripts are, in regards to this, late, anyway) is, I believe, more common, and would at any rate concord with Bauer. As for the point about there being no “One True religion of Jesus”, if I may give a more opinionated statement, I would have to say that this sounds like just another kind of orthodoxy – an orthodoxy of pluralism. As such, I imagine it is fairly popular, but I don’t know. Anyway, we're in the wrong article for all this, I think. Lostcaesar 21:07, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree we are in the wrong article. Briefly, what I meant is best summarized by Ehrman himself: "I should emphasize that other groups had their own versions of the argument for apostolic succession. The Valentinian Gnostics, for example, maintained that their views came from Valentinus, the disciple of Theudas, who was the disciple of Paul the apostle; the Ebionite Christians maintained that their views were handed down to them by James, the brother of Jesus." This isn't a minority view, it isn't even a view. It is simply a fact. The POVs come in when we try to put validity or doubt into the claims of these groups (orthodoxy included). All that said, I think we should all agree on some summary form that isn't too argumentative, and move to the more specific article.-Andrew c 21:56, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

That sounds like claims for apostolicity rather than apostolic succession (not to be picky). For what its worth I'm not sure the claim of the Valentinian Gnostics is as well established as to call it an undisputed fact. As far as I know, the only reference to such a claim by the Valentinian Gnostics is wrapped up in a polemic against them by one Father (who states their supposed claim in rejecting it) - he may have been seeing their claims through "orthodox eyes", if you see what I mean. But I'm just am amateur here, and this is a personal musing, so I'll step aside. We agree on the relevant points here. Lostcaesar 22:01, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I also agree that we are in the wrong article if only because, by definition, this article has to provide only a very high-level summary of any topic. Discussion of early Christian heresis can be found in Early Christianity in quite some detail. (Lostcaesar, you may remember the discussion we had about "Orthodoxy" vs. "Orthopraxy". Those are covered in Early Christianity). Heresies are also covered in Christian heresy. Some work is going to be needed to regularize those two articles.

--Richard 00:12, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Agreed but keep in mind that to include one heresy is to include them all. So the list is going to be long. Now if you wish to include only the largest of early christian heresies then I think that Arianism wins that prize. Even so the earliest heresy would have to be Judas.

LoveMonkey 12:53, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Clarification

Consensus means a general agreement. Take this article for example here. We can do our best to deny that there is a consensus amount Christian History scholars but the reality is that there are simple things like- They have a consensus that Jesus existed and was not an apparition or an amalgamation of old Gods, like gnosticism. That he was believed, by Christians, to be the Messiah and therefore not meerly a prophet or special teacher, again like the gnosticism. That Jesus was of Semitic heritage, that he could read and write, that he taught people to love one another not that any knowledge matter but that kindness and ethical behavior mattered. These are simple consensus. This is but a start. LoveMonkey 16:27, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

In this context, you seem to use "consensus" to mean "overwhelming majority opinion" and, using that meaning, I agree with you that this is the consensus. However, consensus can also mean "unanimous opinion without dissent" and, using this meaning, I disagree with you. It is not our job to describe Christianity as it is thought of by the overwhelming opinion of Christian scholars who believe in Christ but rather our job to describe Christianity as it is thought of by all people whether they be theological scholars, scholars of other disciplines and even those who are not scholars (e.g. popular opinion and popular media).

--Richard 16:52, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Now I am confused, why use scholars at all. Also why is the consensus a job? I need you to clarify that for me.

LoveMonkey 17:13, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

And remember why should this be about opinions only in Western Europe and Northern America. Why not about opinions of people actually in the mideast? LoveMonkey 16:27, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

If you can express those opinions concisely, then feel free to insert them in the article. At this point, we are trying to constrain the length of this section. I am willing to trim the discussion of Pagels' POV to one sentence. If you can characterize the opposing opinions into another sentence, then that will achieve our goals.

I don't say that Western Europe and North America have a monopoly on theology but "actually in the mideast" carries no weight with me. The question is what are the opinions of internationally recognized scholars. If you wish to argue that Orthodox theologians get less respect internationally than Western theologians, we can look at that but "actually in the mideast" does not mean anything to me. Why should proximity to Jerusalem make a person's argument more credible?

--Richard 16:52, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

This makes almost no sense in a biblical historical context. Take for example Apology of Aristides its pretty clear that these things are not going to show up in Alabama. So why are the people and culture that Christianity sprang from not going to be given precedent?

LoveMonkey 17:13, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Because Christianity is a world religion and because Western Christianity is, well, Western. If Eastern Christianity has a different perspective, that perspective deserves to be presented. However, there is no reason to give it precedence just because they happen to live in the place where Christianity originated. The Kingdom of God is not any physical place on earth but in the hearts, minds and souls of Christians.

And, by the way, secular and atheist perspectives also deserve to be presented. Wikipedia is not here to put forth the "right" view of Christianity. It is here to present ALL views of Christianity, citing each to a reliable source and giving each view its due weight.

--69.236.160.117 00:08, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

"Take for example Apology of Aristides its pretty clear that these things are not going to show up in Alabama." - um, I don't understand this point. What is that sentence supposed to mean, exactly? Lostcaesar 12:14, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Well were was the discovery of the document made? Are we going to find or validate any of the "History of Christianity" in Alaska or for that matter New Guinea? Be honest. I think that we can narrow the scope of the article but keep in mind that I am not saying "don't" include but the History of Christianity in say Antartica should not get the primacy of the history of Christianity in Jerusalem.

LoveMonkey 12:37, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

There are catholics in Jerusalem, Alaska, New Guinea, and Alabama (maybe even in Antartica) - their history is all one, all part of the same church. Its the same faith, universal. Lostcaesar 13:02, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

I am not arguing that at all. As for Roman Catholic come on Czar you do have a Pope you know (and yes he gets primacy over average Christian Joe in the bahamas). Lets stay focused on history and as much as possible the physical history of Christianity. Like I stated I am not saying don't include I am saying primacy.

LoveMonkey 15:29, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

I'm not quite sure what you're arguing then. Nonetheless, here is what I wrote before your last message.

History of Christianity should give precedence to that "history" that is important regardless of where it happened. As it happens, most of the important history of Christianity (after the life of Jesus) happened outside Palestine and much of the important history of Christianity happened outside the Middle East (i.e. outside Anatolia/Asia Minor).

I hate to say it but when people think "History of Christianity", they think "History of Western Christianity". If you want to argue that there is insufficient weight given to the "history" of Eastern Christianity, then we can discuss that. I am sure there is a Western bias to this article as darn little is presented about the Byzantine Empire and Eastern Orthodox churches.

However, there is a difference between "history" and "theology". Theology happens all over the world. Bauer, Ehrman and Pagels are Western scholars, maybe even theologians. Let's not quibble over that. If there are notable Eastern scholars and theologians who have opposing views, we should mention them but their opinions don't get precedence just because they live close to where certain documents were found.

If you want to argue the point about where the documents were found, we should then ask "who found the documents" and "who analyzed the documents?". If the pre-eminent scholars of Gnosticism are in the Middle East, then those scholars deserve to be given precedence but only because they are considered by the academic community to be pre-eminent. Geographic proximity to the location of the documents is not relevant. This is especially true in this digital age.

Just as an aside, I saw a National Geographic documentary on the "Gospel of Judas" that indicated that analysis of the fragments is being done by taking digital photographs of the fragments and manipulating the digital images rather than touching the actual fragments. Coool...

--Richard 15:35, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, this has all left me more confused than before. I will just say things in general. I feel the article concentrates on Christianity in Western lands, i.e. Europe and the Americas, and could benefit from information on the Near and Middle East as well as Russia. The reason why it has such a focus is because Richard and I have been the main contributors and, though I cannot speak for him, my knowledge is of the Western Middle Ages, Late Antiquity, and, to a lesser extent, the Empire – and I can only contribute concerning what I know about. So if you want to add Eastern information, that would be good. As for distinguishing between “eastern” and “western” Christianity, I think this is a vain maneuver, since Christianity has always been both Eastern and Western. There are times when one can make a historical distinction between “Latin” and “Greek” Christendom, which I find altogether more accurate than “eastern” and “western”, and, regarding those historical times, such language should be used and proper distinctions made. As for the origin of scholars, I really don’t know what you want. First, I don’t see the relevance, as scholars are distinguished more by their subjects, which could be “eastern” in locus or “western”, rather than their personal origin. Second, we are stuck with mostly English sources, both since this is English wikipedia and since, presumably, that is the native language of us contributors – and even granting other linguistic skills (which some of us have), I think you will find few who know non-Western (Romance) languages, so I don't see this as a likely escape. Third, I haven’t seen any reason why it matters, to be frank; in other words, why this is a problem. Lostcaesar 15:50, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

I would first off like to say that the dialog and points made by both Czar and Richard so far now have been good points and I think it is a good perspective. Here is a close example of what I am getting at. Example, the earliest text that we have of the bible is in Greek. The earliest understanding of the theological terms as well as the word theology is Greek. When the understanding of the nature of Christ his divinity and the divinity and expression of the trinity where expressed they were expressed in Greek. Why?

So Greek holds the same importants to the understanding of Christianity as say pig latin? It's a matter of primacy. So what do the Greeks believe? Are they different? Why are they different? How about the Egyptians? Didn't Jesus visit Egypt? Where? What happened to Nazareth? Another example, the earliest places visited by the apostles say Paul and the communities that he founded where in the mideast (again Paul did not go hang out in Paducah). Here is another example. Churches as buildings above ground (other then the underground ones, that is a set of articles for wiki I am working on right now) didn't exist and were not allowed until Christianity became legal. Now where did that happen first? Armenia. Are these specifics, surface and obvious things, even in the History of Christianity article here? No. Where is the oldest church in the world? Why did the Cappocian fathers go to Cappocia to found above ground churches and monasteries? Why Cappocia and not Frankfurt or Hamburg? Where are the synagogues that St Paul visited? What happened to them? These points are all history. Not if I feel good about Jesus. But why are the monasteries in Antolia no longer there? What happen to the Byzantine Christian population of those regions? Why Byzantine? And now a further example, What happened to Paul? What happened to Mark? What happened to Matthew? What happened to Peter? Where did they go? Amsterdam? Why is this not in the article? Where or who has this history? What currently existing "group" of Christians had and have the gospels? Where are they located? History. And how do we know about them and what happened to them? Where does that history come from? I am not trying to be nationalistic at all. But this article is greatly lacking and these points are small and just plain obvious. But it seems we are avoiding the obvious. If I knew nothing of Christianity, could read this article and be able to gleen that Jesus had his ears pieced, that he had long hair? That he wore a toga? That he liked opera? Or if I read this article could I say that the History of Christianity starts in the mideast and that Christianity is still there. If so who is there and been there, what do they have to say? Lets start here. Is this point reflected in this article? What do the scholars of these 1000 year old churches have to say? Say about Bauer? Is there difference? Why? If I go to a Syrian Orthodox Church in Damascus are the services and worship there going to be the same as say London? If not why? Is this all not history? Now is it lacking from the article? LoveMonkey 16:50, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

To answer the last question, first. As regards history, some of what LoveMonkey describes is history although not necessarily history that belongs in the top-level summary "History of Christianity". I can imagine articles like History of Eastern Orthodoxy or "History of Christianity in Anatolia". There is History of the Papacy, History of the Catholic Church, History of Protestantism and I'm not sure what else

As regards theology, LoveMonkey, somehow I feel that you are reading but you are not listening. Christianity may have started in Palestine, it may have grown in Cappadocia/Anatolia/Asia Minor but it has grown beyond that. It is NOT a matter of primacy. Rome asserts primacy and, even if such were not granted, Rome would not accept the primacy of any other bishop. Moreover, an entire wing of the Christian church (the Protestants) rejects the concept of primacy, many preferring to rely on "scriptura sola". Within that wing, there are those who would step outside both primacy of bishops and scripture and venture forth into a humanist and scientific analysis (e.g. Pagels and the Jesus Seminar). Also within that wing are those who are Restorationists and reject traditional dogmas, doctrines and interpretations of Christianity (e.g. Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses).

All of these, God bless them, are Christians in some sense although we might not wish to accept all of them as Christian brothers and sistes, God help us.

If we fail to adequately describe Greek Christianity as Lostcaesar calls it (I prefer "Eastern" because I think of "Greek" as "Greek ORthodox"), then we fail in our mission.

However, if we fail to describe "the rest of Christianity" outside Latin and Greek Christianity (i.e. Roman and Greek), then we also fail in our mission.

Christianity is what it is. There may be parts that you do not like or that I do not like but nobody cares two whits what we like or don't like. Describe what is documented out there by reliable sources. That is our mission.

Nuff said?

--Richard 18:08, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

It's not a matter of one more time

Go Richard and just sit back and reread the entire article we are discussing. Look at it objectively enough to see how little of the actual church and it's continuity from the middle east is actually in the article. Really it's that simple. And let me clarify. [1], [2]. Well at least Constantin von Tischendorf seems to think so anyway you that it's obvious where he went for his history and it wasn't Paduckia. LoveMonkey 18:13, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

I think you have misunderstood me. Lostcaesar and I do have a Western bias and so probably do most editors of the English Wikipedia because that's where most English speakers come from (North America, U.K. and British Commonwealth and Europe). We readily admit that this article has a Western bias and welcome introduction of information about Eastern/Greek Christianity. But we're not competent to do it ourselves. If you can suggest material that is missing, we can insert it.--Richard 01:13, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

But theology is a different matter. With respect to "Early Christian heresies", if you know a Greek/Eastern theologian who has taken aim at Bauer/Ehrman/Pagels, we could include a citation to them. Otherwise, we have to rely on Western theologians.

For now how about half way. I think the article should reflect this type of format and content or mirror this book Florvsky, Western Orthodox apology, and for fun a protestant endorsement of Chesterton, GOA this is a start more Western in flavor. I hope.
LoveMonkey 04:56, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

I suspect that Christian theology may exhibit a similar Western bias and I invite you to make your case to the editors of that article.

Well theology is a different thing, as for theology mets apology I suggest Vladimir Lossky and his book The Mystical Church.LoveMonkey 05:05, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Some time ago, I created an article titled History of Christian theology. If you wish to contribute material about the history of Eastern/Greek theology, it would be much appreciated. --Richard 01:13, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

I appreciate the offer but the Orthodox stance on theology is not one of primacy. It is one of experience of God. One can not be a theologian in Orthodoxy without Phronema, and most importantly theoria.LoveMonkey 05:01, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

I have to confess that I don't understand this response. What does "primacy" or "experience of God" have to do with whether or not you contribute to the History of Christian theology article? Echoing Lostcaesar's comments below, I think we would all like to see more coverage of the Eastern Church in Wikipedia articles about Christianity. Wikipedia's goal is to be the repository of all human knowledge. LC and I are sharing our knowledge about the Western church. Speaking for myself, I would like to learn more about the Eastern Church. Wikipedia is my primary source for learning new things. (NB: I don't argue that it is authoritative or comprehensive but simply that it often introduces me to new things that I didn't know before.) Why are you suggesting that contributing information about the Eastern Church to articles such as Christian theology and History of Christian theology is somehow inappropriate or ill-advised? --Richard 16:14, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

And to czar's comment "Third, I haven’t seen any reason why it matters, to be frank; in other words, why this is a problem." I'll match your Gabriel Vasquez, and Thomas Aquinas with Saint Seraphim of Sarov and Gregory Palamas. The difference is to be a church theologian one must have theoria not scholasticism. Yeah- Ha! LoveMonkey 23:15, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

LoveMonkey, all I can say is that I think you are triumphantly thrusting in an already opened door. Everyone, myself included, thinks that the article could benefit from concise, sourced, relevant information on Christianity in the East. I really see no reason to place holy Thomas Aquinas as a "rival" of the sacred Greek fathers and don't understand your approach. To speak personally, and I say this in a brotherly way, I have found your comments to be indicative of a certain paranoia that the East has had from all things Latin since perhaps the fourth crusade. We all would love to see the East better represented, not because it rivals the Latin tradition, but because it is a necessary and integral part of the history of Christendom, like the two lungs of the body or the sun and the moon. Our lack of contributions comes only from self-professed ignorance, and our reluctance to follow on all points is only out of interest in sources and brevity. Please, carry on enriching the article with the treasure of the Eastern faith and her history. Lostcaesar 13:10, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Ah, spoken like a true christian. This is good. I think that it would be best that we could all be nice yes. But look at how long a series of comments it took to even get this far. Please don't fault me for standing up and saying something. I would much rather work through you and Richard then around you (as a matter of fact I refuse to work around you we will do this by consensus). I will send you a link please read it and tell me what you think. LoveMonkey 15:28, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

I think it has taken this long because the discussion started on a much different topic (theories of Bauer, Ehrman and Pagels) and it took a while for us to understand your underlying issues. Nonetheless, we do not fault you at all for making the more general criticism of the articles about Christianity. It just took us a while to understand it (and for you to understand that we understood). I would like to see that link as well. Please e-mail it to me or just provide it here on this Talk Page. --Richard 16:14, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Christian heresy

A couple of editors have criticized the Christian heresy article on Talk:Christian heresy. I am interested in hearing your opinion of their comments. Please be honest. Despite the fact that I am the creator of this article, I am truly interested in your thoughts on whether the criticism of the basic premise of the article 209.59.32.37 is on the mark or not.

--Richard 07:40, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Here is the final link to some of the previous questions you asked [3]. LoveMonkey 12:52, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Relative importance of history of the Eastern Church

"The unexamined life is not worth living" - Socrates

I want to revisit something I wrote earlier not because primarily beacuse I want to re-emphasize the point but because I want to challenge whether what I wrote was just spouting a lot of hot air or whether it is in fact valid.

I wrote:

History of Christianity should give precedence to that "history" that is important regardless of where it happened. As it happens, most of the important history of Christianity (after the life of Jesus) happened outside Palestine and much of the important history of Christianity happened outside the Middle East (i.e. outside Anatolia/Asia Minor).

I hate to say it but when people think "History of Christianity", they think "History of Western Christianity". If you want to argue that there is insufficient weight given to the "history" of Eastern Christianity, then we can discuss that. I am sure there is a Western bias to this article as darn little is presented about the Byzantine Empire and Eastern Orthodox churches.

Well, you know, from my Western eyes, Christianity moved rapidly to Rome and Constantinople/Byzantium and left the churches of Jerusalem and Asia Minor behind.

However, this article focuses on Rome and the Western church. It does not discuss Constantinople/Byzantium in anywhere near as much detail. I think it was gross hyperbole for me to say that "much of the important history of Christianity happened outside the Middle East". For the purpose of this discussion, let us count Constantinople/Byzantium as being part of the Middle East. One cannot imagine that 1700 years of Christian history in the Eastern Church passed without anything notable happening. And yet, off the top of my head, I cannot think of a single important thing that happened in the Eastern Church during those 1700 years. This is thus an indication of my ignorance. We clearly need to "fill the gap". What we need to know is: "What pivotal events occurred in the Eastern Church over those 1700 years that affected the course of Christianity in the East?" Obviously, we shouldn't name every patriarch that ever lived but, if there were major theological disputes we should mention them. Oh, OK, I just remembered... iconoclasm. That needs to be mentioned. What else?

--Richard 16:26, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

One section that is currently a stub is the matter of Jihad. This greatly affected Eastern Christianity (and Western Christianity, of course) from the 660s straight through the fall of Constantinople in 1453 and beyond. Obviously, its not so simple, but this point begs to be elaborated upon. Iconoclasm, as you mentioned, can be largely understood in this context (why had God’s favour turned form his anointed Empire headed by his secular representative, the Emperor? - images). —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Lostcaesar (talk • contribs) 20:57, 9 April 2007 (UTC).

Yes excellent. Both are most important. We must mention the conflict between scholasticism and hesychasm. The first heresies like gnosticism and its condemnation, for embracing speculation, it's hatred of the Jewish people's God of the Old Testament (see Sethians and Ophites) as well as any creator God, and laying claim to tradition simply because it maybe documented it first. It's labeling nature or the material world as evil. We could include the cold war between the Neoplatonists Julian the Apostate and the Orthodox. Also that the first schism was a by product of the fall out between Byzantium and Alexandra starting with Arianism and culminating into monophysiatism (although they are our brothers and we do love them). Just this is probably a good nice overview and would qualify as plenty enough. We could also include the Holy Fire and it's Pascha significates. LoveMonkey 15:42, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

History of the Eastern Orthodox Church

OK, I created the above article by copying the "History" section out of the Eastern Orthodox Church article. The Eastern Orthodox Church article was getting too long anyway (79kb). We should start mining History of the Eastern Orthodox Church to see if what should be incorporated into this article and how.

--Richard 18:43, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Ugh... the beginning portion of the History of the Eastern Orthodox Church article is a mess. I have done some preliminary reorganizing but the article still needs more work. Lostcaesar, if you have time to take a look at it, I think you could really help on the portion of the article that deals with the history of the church from 313 to about 800 AD. The original text was a mish-mash that dealt with things out of chronological order and mentioned the seven ecumenical councils in two different places.

--Richard 19:33, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Most excellent editing. Thank you so much. LoveMonkey 15:45, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

You're welcome. However, I have to say that I think this is only a very modest start. I am left feeling that the History of the Eastern Orthodox Church is still quite deficient. It is difficult for me to believe that the current text of that article is all that there is to say about the history of the Eastern (Greek) church. Coverage is scanty up until the fall of the Ottoman Empire and then there is a huge hole between that point and the 20th century. Now, it may be the case that, after the fall of the Ottoman Empire, there is no longer a "History of the Eastern Orthodox Church" per se but rather histories of individual national churches such as the "Greek Orthodox Church" and the "Russian Orthodox Church" etc. But, if that is the case, then it should be stated explicitly. Also, I wonder if these various "national" churches have continued to interact with each other over the centuries. I confess that my ignorance of this topic is a huge gaping hole. I would expect Wikipedia to fill this gap.

Secondly, although it is good to have a History of the Eastern Orthodox Church article to parallel History of the Catholic Church and History of Protestantism, the fact remains that this article is History of Christianity. Since the Eastern Orthodox Church is one of the major branches of Christianity, it deserves to have a much more substantial treatment in this article than it currently does.

To address these two issues, I suggest that we start by fleshing out the History of the Eastern Orthodox Church article and then determine which portions of that article to include in a summary here. Since my knowledge of this topic falls far short of adequate, I hope that other editors will step forward to fill the gap.

--Richard 15:17, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Doing my best. LoveMonkey 03:37, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

query

Can people who know much of the history of the canonization of the Gospels comment here? Thanks Slrubenstein | Talk 18:02, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

POV concerns

A few things I wanted to propose rewriting unless someone can justify the way they are written now.

• "Julian the Apostate ... sought to reinstitute paganism as the state religion"

This is not really consistent with the article on Julian and, regardless, I do not believe it is accurate. Although Julian certainly favored paganism Julian's handling of religion was generally more tolerant than most of the so-called "Christian" emperors. Some of his motives may have been questionable but to the extent that he weakened the Imperial Christian Church he mostly just brought it down to the same level as other Christian sects and brought paganism up to the same level (and perhaps a little higher). The viewpoint that he was an evil guy who tried to wipe out Christianity entirely is ancient propaganda by the Church which hated him for taking away the prestige it had gotten from Constantine.

• Early heresies

Even though most modern churches do consider these alternative beliefs to be heretical to their own beliefs this section is nevertheless POV in how it presents these topics. That is, it presents these heresies as though they were outlandish ideas seperate from the mainstream thinking. This, of course, is revisionist history (revisions that have existed for centuries, of course). For example, some (perhaps most?) historians argue that the Christian community was originally predominantly Arian and that Trinitarianism was a minority view that gained favor later (the reasons that it "won" are a whole other matter of debate). What was going on in the early Church, culminating during Constantine's reign, was that the different scholars/bishops were arguing over different interpretations of the faith. But it is POV to characterize these debates as a bunch of "heretics" trying to pull the mainstream away from its roots. The "mainstream" is simply the set of beliefs that finally won out during the Councils. The beliefs that lost were, of course, declared heretical and anybody who subscribed to them was given all sorts of ugly labels and banished.

This section needs to be neutralized (and perhaps retitled).

• Church of the Early Middle Ages

This entire section is biased toward the West virtually ignoring what was going on in the East (which during this period was the majority of the Christian community)

• Church of the High Middle Ages

This section mentions the East a little but is still too biased toward the West.

• The article also tends to ignore a lot of the Christian history outside the core Roman Imperial Church. Among other things, Christianity was significant in the "barbarian" tribes outside the Empire long before they were converted to the "orthodox catholic" faith. This bears mention.
• An additional concern: The article mentions up front the three main "branches": Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Protestant. Certainly this is a traditional attitude in the West but it is POV. There are a variety of churches (which predate Protestantism) that do not fall into any of these categories, the Oriental Orthodox churches being a particular example. For the sake of neutrality it is worthwhile to rephrase so as not to slight the significance of any particular group. --Mcorazao 14:01, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

--Mcorazao 16:34, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Good comments

Re: heresies - I understand your point but this is controversial. Please wait a few days before making any major changes. In particular, I would like to hear what User:Lostcaesar has to say on this topic.

Re:Eastern Orthodox Church - Please consult History of the Eastern Orthodox Church and History of the Russian Orthodox Church and bring over appropriate summaries of those articles for inclusion here.

Re: "barbarian" tribes - I know nothing about this topic. Feel free to add information on this topic provided that it is verifiable and adequately sourced.

--Richard 16:46, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. Honestly it would probably be preferable if somebody who is more directly involved with this article makes edits since, as you say, some of this is controversial. I was not necessarily suggesting I was about to make any edits, just suggesting that some should be made. But if I can I help ...

Regarding the barbarian tribes (e.g. the Germans) I think the amount of info actually available is limited since in the earlier times their writings were not prolific. But the history of those Christians still bears mentioning for the sake of completeness and to keep the article from being slanted.

BTW, I added a very brief history section to the Christian Church article which mostly covers this same material (others contributed too). It may give you an indication of the viewpoint I'm coming from. Also, if you find anything there that is not right please do feel free to edit.

--Mcorazao 18:27, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Since I'm not seeing any of the main authors offering revisions let me suggest specific rewrites.

.

Removed text here since it has been inserted into the main article (with edits).

.

--Mcorazao 21:34, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

I've inserted a copy-edited version of the above text. I'm not knowledgeable enough to write the text that you ask for and the other primary editor of this article has left Wikipedia. I will insert other text as you write it but you are also welcome to insert it yourself. --Richard 22:57, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

I've inserted modified versions of the text that you suggested. Please add any new suggestions below to make it easier for me to determine what has been inserted and what has not. Thanx.

--Richard 17:08, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Alright. I was simply keeping the edits in one place with the intent of inviting discussion on all of them before inserting them into the main text. But since you're putting them in directly I'll just start editing the main page.

Thanks for the help. --Mcorazao 18:43, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

The problem with discussing edits is that the discussion sometimes takes a life of its own and it takes a long time to get things done that way. Better to put in edits and see who objects unless there are clear indications that your proposed edit will be controversial. (see below)

So, yes, I think it's best if you edit the main page. Be bold. I don't see myself as the arbiter/owner of this page.

However, please be aware that the "Early heresies" section has been the subject of much controversy among Wikipedia editors. In particular, this bit about "minority view" is an attempt to mollify those who strenuously object to such an interpretation. To understand this, see the first three sections of this talk page entitled "Some scholars", "Christian heresy" and "Early heresies".

I accept that there might be issues in the particular wording of the "minority view" sentence that I preserved and you deleted. However, I think it would be useful if you can help think of a neutral wording that indicates that this is the subject of continuing controversy. I think it is an emerging but still minority view. For example, I seriously doubt any of the pastors of my church would accept it and we're not a particularly conservative or fundamentalist church (Presbyterian Church USA). —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Richardshusr (talk • contribs) 19:51, 7 May 2007 (UTC).

In writing articles it is best to refrain from using terms that are germane to a specific topic. For example, your proposed language regarding the church having two "communions" is foreign to non-Christians as well as some Christians. I think if you reduced the language down to more fundamental terms you would gain a greater understanding from readers. --Storm Rider ^(talk) 19:28, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

So to respond to these comments:

• Yes, I'll be "bold". :-)
• On the "minority view", I realize this is controversial as are a variety of topics in religion. I have taken the attitude that I will try to help with NPOV but accept when I'm simply overruled by the majority even when I disagree. But to address the point at hand ... The key here is "Christian theologians" and "Christian scholars". I find a bias in some of the religiously-related discussion pages (not just Christianity) toward saying that the members of religion X are the only valid experts on X. Everyone else's opinion doesn't matter. And certainly it is often the case that secular scholars tread lightly about commenting on X because nobody likes to be seen as treading on anybody's religion. Nevertheless, although scholars WITHIN X are certainly valuable sources of information about X, calling them unbiased resources doesn't make a whole lot of sense. And to argue that because the X scholars are the majority of writers about (which is usually the case for any religion) means that their opinion is the "consensus" is not really NPOV either. My philosophy in general is to be careful about rendering judgements about what is "right" or "wrong" in any religion unless you can genuinely say in a fairly universal sense that all the experts (either inside or outside the religion) agree. On this particular issue although obviously the Christian scholars would tend to agree with this, I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a lot of other expert sources (other than those blindly quoting the Christian scholars) that would agree with this characterization. So to summarize: In the absence of an unbiased consensus to the contrary, all viewpoints should be considered equal regardless of the majority. I know many will disagree. FYI: I'm Presbyterian too but what my pastor believes or even what I believe or even what my Muslim friends might believe is beside the point.
• On the "communions", ok I'll try to pick different wording. I chose this only because it seemed to be the most specific and concise phrasing without requiring qualification.

--Mcorazao 22:14, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Early heresies (redux)

Question on the following addition in the "Early heresies" section:

The New Testament itself speaks of the importance of maintaining orthodox doctrine and refuting heresies, showing the antiquity of the concern.

This statement is entirely redundant with the the statement in the previous practice and seems out of place where it is placed. Why was this inserted? --Mcorazao 02:45, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Although your intention seemed to be to replace the existing text with your new text, I took the approach of trying to merge your text in with the old text. I agree that the sentence in question was awkwardly placed in the merged text. I have moved it to the beginning of the section. I disagree that the sentence was completely redundant with the previous paragraph because it quoted different Bible passages. It may be that the current text could be improved upon and maybe the sentence should be removed as extraneous. However, I wanted to be conservative initially to give other editors a chance to comment.

--Richard 05:06, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Richard, I appreciate your efforts to find a common ground. Your latest version however is still redundant (citations aside) and now makes a little less sense since it doesn't really clarify terminology before using it. You seem intent on maintaining this particular sentence with its particular phrasing rather than trying to merge the text. Is this a quote (i.e. does this need to be cited)? --Mcorazao 13:46, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

The meaning of scripture is often debatable. It would be best to quote a reputable source that supports the positioin of orthodox theology rather than just a scripture. In doing so we reduce the possibility of ongoing edits from future editors.

Also, as I was reading this again I was struck with how the artice speaks of schisims. Schisim assumes that there already exists an orthodox position. Current academic research (White and Ehrman come immediately to mind, but there are a myriad of others) state that the beginning of Christianity resembled more closely congregations of different beliefs, but still focused on Jesus Christ. For a schism to take place there must be a rejection of one another; this did not take place until much later in Christian history. The first 300 years was a period of disparate beliefs among locations throughtout the Christianity. True belief is one thing, but orthodoxy is something different. At best there was a proto-orthodoxy, but not an Orthodoxy. It took time for Orthodoxy to develop. Is this making sense? --Storm Rider ^(talk) 16:36, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, so I think this was the point of debate. Apparently some of the contributors have felt that, because the theological community disagrees which that interpretation of history, it is wrong. I have argued that, since, as you point out, there are many scholars that argue there was no "mainstream" in the early Church then one can argue that there is no true consensus on the other opinion. In the absence of a consensus of modern experts I say go with a bland interpretation (not original research but in the center of the expert opinions) that does not assert that any group in history had a more valid interpretation than another (which is what I tried to do with my edits). In my mind that is NPOV.

--Mcorazao 18:37, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Discussion of "uniqueness"

Rereading the text it strikes me that the discussion of what made Christianity "special" or "unique" at the time it came about is missing. Specifically,

• Jesus' teachings were unusual in that he was an extremely selfless and humble figure and preached so strongly preached self sacrifice. Even in the Jewish world his teachings were unusual but it was especially so in the Greco-Roman world.
• Monotheism and evangelism: In most of the known world at that time the philosophy was that the universe was filled with gods and that each tribe had their own "patron" gods but this did not invalidate the beliefs of any other tribe. So in general there was a philosophy that all religions were compatible with each other (this is oversimplifying a bit but still). Judiasm was somewhat unusual in that it specifically dictated a rejection of other gods, and this was a factor in the particular conflicts between the Romans and the Jews, among other things because they refused to worship the emperor. Nevertheless, at least the Jews "kept their faith to themselves", so to speak. The Christians, however, by the nature of their faith attempted to convert everybody they encountered. In other words, from the perspective of the Empire, they were a group specifically bent on convincing all of the subjects to reject some of the basic tenets of Roman imperialism (in the sense that politics and religion were, even then, intertwined). This whole issue is IMHO rather a important point to bring out in terms of understanding the persecution in the Empire.

Comments? Is any of this overly controversial (other than needing to base any edits on authoritative sources, of course)?

--Mcorazao 16:34, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

I like this direction and I also believe it is easily supported by sources. I can't believe it is too controvesial. Excellent comment! --Storm Rider ^(talk) 16:38, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I'd say that Judaism and Christianity were alike in that they both rejected worship of Roman gods or the Roman emperor, but were different in that Christianity was spreading. Their separation from each other was somewhat gradual though: in I think the 130's during the Bar Kochba revolt, Jewish Christians were in favor of the revolt, but stopped short of acknowledging Bar Kochba as the Messiah and thus were rejected by Bar Kochba's more faithful supporters. And even in the 300s, John Chrysostom had reason to preach against Christians attending the Jewish festivals in Antioch. Christians didn't just decide they weren't Jews overnight. Wesley 16:48, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Mcorazao's characterization of the difference between Judaism and Christianity is the standard "party line" preached in Catholic and Protestant churches. I've never been to an Orthodox worship service so I don't know what they preach. But the standard party line makes the Christians look good and marginalizes the importance and success of the Jews. This is standard revisionism. The winner writes the history to make them look good and the loser look bad. There are alternate views in the scholarly community that paint a different picture.

While this is an area that I know only a little bit about, I do wish to point out that, just because Jews don't proselytize now, doesn't mean that they did not proselytize in the early part of the Common Era. In fact, Judaism was growing quite a bit in that time. This growth was part of the Jewish Diaspora. Jews did not simply spread out through the Roman Empire "keeping to themselves". What they did was spread out "keeping their identity" and bringing in converts. Judaism was attractive to the Greeks for the more rational structure and foundation of their religion. Greek philosophy and logic were attractive to the Jews. Modern-day Judeo-Christian belief is founded on the cross-fertilization of Judaism and Hellenism. This is where the concept of "the Word" (ho logos) came from. This is why the Jewish Bible was translated into Greek (the Septuagin). It was for Jewish congregations that could no longer read Hebrew or speak Aramaic. They read and spoke Greek!

One view of early Christianity has Judaism spreading throughout the Roman Empire (especially the northeastern part) and cross-fertilizing with the Hellenic civilization and culture that existed in much of the northeastern Mediterranean. Much of the anti-Christian sentiment on the part of the Jews of the time and anti-Jewish polemic on the part of early Christians was due to the fact that they were competing both for the "soul" of the Jewish religion and for the same pool of converts from Greco-Roman paganism. Jews were becoming Greek (in culture) and Greeks were becoming Jews. From the point of view of the Greeks, the main difference between the Jews and the Christians was that the Christians did not insist that converts follow the Old Testament Law in the way that the Jews insisted they had to. They could eat pork and they didn't have to have that unmentionable thing done to their private parts.

Why exactly Christianity won out over rabbinical Judaism is a long and controversial discussion. I would argue that Christianity won out because, ultimately, it was more flexible in adopting pagan rituals, customs and, yes, even beliefs. Of course, this would come back to bite it in the butt with groups like Jehovah's Witnesses arguing that "Christendom" had deviated from the "true Christianity" of Jesus Christ.

Anyway, the key point that I want to make is that we should not accept uncritically Mcorazao's characterization of early Common Era Jews as "keeping to themselves" and Christians as proselytizing and evangelical.

--Richard 17:37, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Man, I think you are reading a whole lot more into what I said than is there. I don't disagree with anything you have said other than the insulting tone and the twisting of my words. I think you need to reread the policies on assuming good faith and not jumping to conclusions. --Mcorazao 18:46, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry if what I wrote seemed to be insulting or "twisting your words". I didn't mean to be insulting although I admit there was a certain amount of condescension towards what I see as the "standard party line" which, in my view, is a Christian polemic against Jews that has lasted for 2000 years. I hear it at least once a month from my Senior Pastor who professes to have a great friendship with the Jewish synagogue in our community. And yet, he is able to preach sermons defining Christianity in contrast to Judaism using the standard anti-Jewish polemic.

I admit that I got on a bit of a soapbox and that what I was responding to was only part of what you wrote and even then I was criticizing not only what you wrote but what I perceive to be the wider context from which it is drawn (that is, the anti-Jewish polemic in Christianity).

I'm not sure what you perceive in what I wrote to be "twisting of your words". If it's important to you, you are welcome to be more specific in your complaint either here or on my Talk Page. I will respond as best as I am able.

--Richard 18:59, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Paganism in Constantinople

I had a concern about the statement

Between 324 and 330, Constantine built ... a new imperial capital at Byzantium on the Bosphorus (it came to be named for him: Constantinople)–the city ... had no pagan temples.

I found a BBC article (see this link) that states

Constantine founded a new city named after himself: Constantinople. Christian writers played up the idea that this was to be a 'new Rome', a fitting Christian capital for a newly Christian empire.

But they had to find ways to explain the embarrassing fact that in this new, supposedly Christian city, Constantine had erected pagan temples and statues.

This is contrary to what I've always read but this is the BBC saying this. Interesting point to clarify. Can anybody comment on whether the BBC is simply in error or whether there might actually be some truth to this?

--Mcorazao 07:03, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Please explain deletion of truthbeknown.com

I think I agree with the deletion but, at the same time, I think it only courteous to the editor who inserted it if the editor (User:Tom harrison) who deleted it would explain his rationale for doing so.

--Richard 21:09, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

As the original editor who added the truthbeknown.com link, I concur with Richard in wondering why the link was removed. I feel the article provides a very important POV that is not represented here. I am new to editing Wikipedia and find it confusing, but that's no reason for terming my edits as "vandalism."

--Humanitarian22 01:57, 2 June 2007 (UTC)--Humanitarian22 01:57, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

• The repeated addition of DO NOT DELETE with the link suggests that it is spam. That is not helpful. Any editor faced with a statement like that is much more likely to delete very quickly. DarkAudit 02:03, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Sorry but that reason is incidental to the issue. Assuming that there was no "DO NOT DELETE" on the link, would it be deleted? If so, why? --Richard 04:10, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

I can't answer that. The first time I saw it was with the big "DO NOT DELETE" next to it. I did what most editors on RC patrol would do when confronted with that statement, I reverted it. DarkAudit 04:20, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

This is relevant information to Christian history *NOT* spam. If you actually give the link a good going over you would quickly see that. Please stop deleting www.truthbeknown.com

No, I was mistaken in my original comment. This link is obviously spam. Please do not re-insert it.

--Richard 06:05, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Lenin on religion

I believe some comments in this article are a distortion of Lenin's views on religion, see this article where he argues against a "war on religion". PatGallacher 14:49, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

I wonder if you really are doing a balanced form of research on this. The link you have is to a webpage that does much to demean anyone who speaks of the atrocities of communism. They actively shame themselves by denying mass murder like the Harvest of Sorrow happened. So much so that I dare say the site is not worthy of mention unless one is a tool to their cause. As for Lenin and Stalin and the athiestic regimes of Russian. You have ample sources but you activity should seek them out. I sourced this from Aleksandras Stulginskis biography.
President of Lithuania: Prisoner of the Gulag a Biography of Aleksandras Stulginskis by Afonsas Eidintas Genocide and Research Center of Lithuania ISBN 998675741X / 9789986757412 / 9986-757-41-X pg 23 "As early as August 1920 Lenin wrote to E. M. Skliansky, President of the Revolutionary War Soviet: "We are surrounded by the greens (we pack it to them), we will move only about 10-20 versty and we will choke by hand the bourgeoisie, the clergy and the landowners. There will be an award of 100,000 rubles for each one hanged." He was speaking aout the future actions in the countries neighboring Russia.

Also
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,150718,00.html
LoveMonkey 19:00, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Ratings change

I've been asked to explain why I have changed the rating from GA to B by User:Richardshusr. The reason is that it clearly states here that for an article to rated GA it has to have "passed through the Good article nomination process and been granted GA status". Since this article has not been granted GA status, I changed the rating. --Peter Andersen 19:43, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Constantine and the Nicene Creed

I'm new at this, please go easy on me...

In the section on Constantine the Great, I have two disputes re: this sentence: "More significantly, in 325 [Constantine] summoned the Council of Nicaea...to deal mostly with the heresy of Arianism, but which also issued the Nicene Creed, which among other things professed a belief in One Holy Catholic Apostolic Church, the start of Christendom."

1. The implication (conveyed by the phrase "but which also") that the Nicene Creed was something different or separate from the Council's attempt to deal with the heresy of Arianism. In fact, the Creed was the centerpiece of the Council's attempt to deal with the heresy of Arianism, as its final anathema makes clear.
2. More seriously, the Creed as it was issued at Nicea didn't contain a profession of belief in One Holy Catholic Apostolic Church - this phrase was added to the Creed at the 1st Council of Constantinople in 381, long after Constantine's death.

It seems that the author here is attempting to establish the point that Constantine inaugurated the concept of Christendom - that may well be the case, but there is nothing in the Creed itself which supports that point. I'd have edited it myself, but I felt couldn't do it without reworking surrounding passages to fit and keep the flow of the section, and didn't want to do that when I don't know the original author's mindset.

Kriegj 07:30, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

The Nicene Creed does not have "I believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church," but it does have, "The holy catholic and apostolic church anathematizes those who say, There was a time when he was not..." So its irrelevant that it didn't contain the line, "We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church." (from The Ecclesiastical History of Socrates Scholasticus, I:8, c. AD 375).

ShammahRCV 23:53, 26 September 2007 (UTC)ShammahRCV

Someone had changed the article since Kriegj's note above. It now said that the Nicene Creed professed belief in one holy apostolic and catholic church, thus establishing Christendom, which is simply ridiculous. Constantine, somewhere around Nicea, put bishops on the public payroll, and after Nicea it was common for emperors to appoint and depose bishops. This is a drastic change, leading to policital rather than spiritual leaders,but to suggest that "Christendom," an undefined word, began then is not an objective comment. I deleted it. I also made the article say that the Council of Nicea was an attempt to end the Arian controversy, the result of which was the Nicene Creed. Of course, we know it only fueled the Arian controversy, which wasn't ended until much later in the century, maybe even not until the Council of Constantinople.

ShammahRCV 00:02, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Russian Orthodox Church in the Russian Empire

I feel the picture is somewhat misleading as the imperial capital was St.Petersburg, not Moscow and the churches depicted were built much before the imperial period.--Dojarca 10:33, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Heresey section

I reverted Shammah's edit; I viewed it as more POV than the previous section and narrowed the approach to the identified heretical views.

In doing so I read the section and realized that there is more work to do. First, we do not use Bible verses to support a position; those either need to be deleted or use a theologian who interprets those scriptures in the proposed manner. First, history does not support a single, monolithic, catholic church prior to the 300's. Second, yes there was a catholic church/movement/group, but it competed with a host of other groups/movements; orthodoxy was fluid prior to major Councils and to present or intimate otherwise is POV. Third, I can see where some may want to include more references than Chesterton and I would encourage that action. Thoughts? --Storm Rider ^(talk) 01:53, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

I understand why you reverted the text that suggested that the Nicene creed was somehow different from the attempt to address Arianism.

The assertion that there was not a "single, monolithic, catholic church" is POV. I happen to agree with that POV but we need to present both POVs i.e. both the "single, monolithic, catholic church" POV and the "no single, monolithic, catholic church" POV. It is clearly the position of many if not most Christian churches that there was a "single, monolithic, catholic church" from which heretics deviated. It has also been asserted in academic circles by a number of scholars that there was no "single, monolithic, catholic church". The text should make these points clearly.

I don't understand why you reverted the text that discussed Gnosticism and Novationists. What was wrong with that text? (I think it could have been written better but I don't understand what was wrong with the content.)

--Richard 06:41, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

It may have just been too hasty a revert given the quality of the writing rather than a issue with content. Generally, when I see what I perceive as a radical change to an article, I revert and seek discussion rather than accept the edit.

I would say that we are on the same page. Wikipedia does not state a position, rather we report what experts have stated. What is important is that these positions be documented from reputable sources. Good comments; thanks. --Storm Rider ^(talk) 07:57, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

I am cool —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.70.158.174 (talk) 13:17, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Assyrian Church of the East

This article should bring up the Assyrian Church of the East a bit more, and how it spread Christianity to almost all of Asia. It used to be the largest Church in the world. — EliasAlucard (talk · contribs) 00:10 02 Nov, 2007 (UTC)

That is entirely something that can and should be dealt with in the section dealing with the "Assyrian Church of the East." --Squonk64 (talk) 20:23, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Persecution of early Christians by the Jews

There is a proposal to move Persecution of early Christians by the Jews to Persecution of Christians in the New Testament. Please express your opinion at Talk:Persecution of early Christians by the Jews. --Richard (talk) 22:35, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Apostle/Disciple switch

I noticed in the first paragraph, 'Apostle' and 'Disciple' were attributed to the wrong groups of people, so I took the liberty of switching them. It should be noted that anyone (in the case of the Jesus story: seventy) can be a disciple of something, but "Apostle" specifically refers to the twelve individuals given divine authority in the New Testament. The two words are not synonyms. 76.93.65.34 (talk) 08:22, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

earliest christianity

why is there nothing on christianity in egypt? which started much before it did in europe? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.238.225.38 (talk) 23:00, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

well meaning but lacking

This entry is well-meaning, however, there are serious lacunae. Although there is significant space given to Byzantine (Eastern Orthodox and Byzantine Catholic) history, the Armenian, Alexandrine, and Antiochian/Syriac (Eastern and Western) Traditions are hardly mentioned. There are also some serious POV problems, especially in sections such as the Primacy of the Roman Papacy.

The article virtually ignores institutional Christianity that existed outside of the Roman Empire. An understanding of these Churches is particularly vital at this time in history, as Middle Eastern Christians, in specific, face unprecedented challenges. Futher, the encounter of Western European Roman Catholics and Protestants with Eastern Christians during the Crusades (RCs) and the "Age of European Conquest of the World" (late 15th - 20th centuries) (RCs, Anglicans and Protestants), as well as the striking difference of Russian Orthodox missionary work with that of the other European powers, is of great importance as the world seeks to navigate through multiculturalism.

Further, there is a simplistic understanding given for the development of even Western Christianity in the post-Apostolic and early medieval periods. See Imperial Unity and Christian Divisions: The Church, 450-680 AD by John Meyendorff for a more impartial view.

Unfortunately, I am severely lacking in time at the moment, but when I have a chance, I will work to try to balance some of this, esp. with reference to two excellent scholarly books in this area: The Eastern Christian Churches by Roberson, and History of Christianity in Asia (Part 1) by Moffett.--StevenAArmstrong (talk) 22:02, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

General Criticism

This is a great overview, but the section "Life of Jesus" is too short. It does not need to be expanded much, lest it become an articicle unto itself, but some mention needs to be made that Jesus was a Jew, and that the entire foundation of the this religion is based on the fact that he died on the cross and rose from the dead as a sacrifice for human sins. The "Life of Jesus" section needs to be expanded without creating a new article, unto itself. No more than four or five paragraphs would do. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Squonk64 (talk • contribs) 20:21, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

I made the changes I suggested. I don't know how to reference Mary, maybe someone can fix that.

I am also sorry, folks, but you can't end a discussion of "a brief history of Jesus" in the context of the "History of Christianity" without saying why Jesus is historically important, without getting into theology. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Squonk64 (talk • contribs) 21:13, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Inaccurate portrayal on Christian Images

"Christian art only emerged relatively late, and the first known Christian images emerge from about 200 AD.[30] This early rejection of images, although never proclaimed by theologians, leaves us with little archaeological records regarding early Christianity and its evolution."

This is rather untrue, since archeologists have recently found a church dating back to 70 AD filled with images. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.234.171.207 (talk) 16:39, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Defiinition of Christianity

Carlude insists on a POV definition of what Christianity is. I deleted the following statement from the introduction:

Christianity is the trinitarian monotheistic religion which is based on the revelation of Jesus Christ.

The reason I deleted it is because it is only a definition supported by a group(s), but it is certainly not the definition of historians of yesteryear or of today. If one read the Christianity article (for starters) one would realize that Christianity does not just include Trinitarians; the scope of Christianity is broader than that. Carlude, what you are trying to say is the the Orthodox view is..., but you cannot put Wikipedia in the position of stating a fact that is only an opinion. Does this make sense to you? --^StormRider 19:40, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

But it is the definition of historians of yesteryear and at least some historians today. There is not (nor ever been) any interdeonomination Christian statement or interdeonomination Christian orgainization that that reputiates or even leaves open the possiblity that Jesus is not fully God. All the forms of non-Trinitian "Christianity" reputiates all other forms.

Trinitianism and non-Trinitianism could and should talked about somewhere-- lower down in the article, but the biggest trouble with StormRider's deleation is that the Trinity is an awfully big issue to just leave out of the introduction. There is no other trinitarian (not tritheisian) religion and it would be a worse and more POV introduction to cut out all mention of it.--Carlaude ^(talk) 21:14, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

What you have done is place Wikipedia in the position of stating an opinion as fact; that is not acceptable. As I have stated above, it is perfectly acceptable to say, "According to Mr. Expert that orthodox Christianity is ... Do you understand the need for a reputable source in this situation and that is my only point? If it is the definition of Christianity then you should have no problem producing an excellent source for the statement you wish to make.

The history of Christianity during the first 400 years was not of an homogeneous movement; it was fractured and without a uniform doctrine. That is a fact, which I can provide numerous references to support if you need them. Do you?

I don't know why this request causes problems. I understand that religious topics attract zealots of all stripes, but this is a request for a a reputable source. I have never stated nor do I think it appropriate to have no information on the evolution of doctrine in the introduction. --^StormRider 00:25, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Storm Rider that the definition quoted above is not the best and accurate definition of Christianity (and it is not "the Orthodox view"). Non-trinitarians might be heretics but they are Christians nonetheless. However, that doesn't mean that the Trinity should swept under the carpet in the intro. Str1977 ^(talk) 20:54, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree that a major component of the history of Christianity will include a discussion of the Trinitarian doctrine; the earliest Councils all focused on this specific topic. Carlude, if you would like assistance with creating some wording I would be happy to help. --^StormRider 21:49, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

I have changed the lead to read "Christianity is one of three Abrahamic religions distinguished by the claim that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. The vast majority of Christians believe in a triune God consisting of three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. There have been significant theological differences among Christians regarding the divine and human natures of Jesus and the triune nature of God. These differences continue to this day."

I would guess that even those who disputed the divinity of Christ did not dispute the claim that he was the Son of God. Further details about disputes regarding the divine and human nature of Christ, the trinitarian nature of the Godhead, etc. etc. can be left to article sections and subsidiary articles that can provide fuller expositions of these controversies.

I do feel that it is a bad idea to make any assertion as to what "orthodox Christianity" holds unless the context provides some definition and qualification of the term "orthodox". "orthodox" (with a lower case "o") is a POV term that suggests "right" as opposed to heretical (which is another POV term). Characterizing a belief as "non-orthodox" is POV. Stating that the vast majority of Christians believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ and the triune nature of the Godhead is a statement of fact that is far less POV than stating that this is the "orthodox" belief. I know this is splitting hairs but I think it is important to maintain this distinction.

Hope this helps.

--Richard (talk) 00:00, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Proposed work group

There is currently discussion regarding the creation of a work group specifically to deal with articles dealing with this subject, among others, here. Any parties interested in working in such a group are welcome to indicate their interest there. Thank you. John Carter (talk) 18:08, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

This page may be too long to comfortably read and navigate.

I am (or have) creating(ed) articles on each the centuries of Christian History. The plan is— in due time— to cut out some excess from this article (and maybe others, History of the Roman Catholic Church is also over 100 KB) by linking/hat-noting certain sections to each new Christian history article.

Please feel free to join me and help now. --Carlaude ^talk 01:29, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

I understand the motivation to chop up this overly long article into smaller ones but I think the effort to divide the history of Christianity by centuries is a bad idea. History doesn't obey century boundaries and so the resulting articles are likely to fragment major trends while combining stuff that is only related by virtue of having happened in the same century. --Richard (talk) 04:57, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

"Growing Tensions Between East and West"

This section is couched in extremely biased terms in favor of the Eastern Orthodox, no reasonable attempt at objectivity or neutrality is being made. For example it matter of factly refers to the notion of Petrine Supremacy and the Filioque as "theological novelties", without indicating that this is a matter of opinion. Don't have time to fix it at the moment, but why is this the case? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ben-T (talk • contribs) 21:15, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

The text says

"Two basic problems — the primacy of the bishop of Rome and the procession of the Holy Spirit — were involved. These doctrinal novelties were first openly discussed in Photius's patriarchate."

Of course it means..

"Two basic problems — the primacy of the bishop of Rome and the Filioque — were involved...

but someone must have changed that. I am fairly sure that Filioque is not found in the New Testiment, so then it is just a mater of how new they are... that is the point of the statement. If you think they date earlier than during Photius's patriarchate... in being openly discussed with the East, then then just lets know when-- if you can cite it.

This is the same with primacy of the bishop of Rome. While Catholics see suport for it in Mathew 16 now, it took them a while to even develop the doctrine and then see it in Mathew 16. And you have to wonder why Peter "to the elders among you" only appealed "as a fellow elder" (1 Peter 5:1) if he understood the events in Mathew 16 the way Catholics do now? My only point here is that at some point the primacy of the bishop of Rome was new. It could very well be less new than the Filioque.--^{Carlaude:Talk} 01:22, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Well firstly, as even the Orthodox themselves admit, there has been a notion that the Bishop of Rome had primary above others since the very beginning. They just construe this as a ceremonial, rather than an administrative, primacy.

But secondly, the word novelty contains connotations of being a passing fad, something which is impermanent. As in: This singing fish statue has lost its novelty. -- Ben-T.

Well, I'm sure that the Orthodox hope that the Filioque becomes a "passing fad" which will fade into the mists of ancient Church history in the "fullness of time". However, since Wikipedia is not a crystal ball, I have changed the wording to remove the POV characterization of these doctrinal developments as "novelties". --Richard (talk) 17:52, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

{{split section}}s

{{split section}}s anyone?

Splits could be: Early history of Christianity (1 Life of Jesus (6–4 BC to AD 29–36) to 3.8 Monasticism); Classical history of Christianity (4 Growing tensions between East and West to 12 Church and the Italian Renaissance (1399–1599)); Modern history of Christianity (13 Protestant Reformation (1521–1579) to 17.2 Restorationism); Contemporary history of Christianity (18 Contemporary history (1848-present) to 20.4.2 Ecumenism within Protestantism).

Any opinions? J. D. Redding 00:28, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

But note well that Early Christianity and History of Early Christianity both exsist-- and era-based subsets there of.

See also my comments on my efforts at Talk:#This page may be too long, not far above. ^{Carlaude:Talk} 01:02, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Independent Source

What and when was the earliest independent source to talk about Christians. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.164.208.19 (talk) 08:10, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

You should be able to find that under Christian. One problem is that the term got confused with Chrestian and Chrest which were names associated with slaves in Rome. 75.15.201.136 (talk) 21:04, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Why do we have all of these? Early Christianity

Why do we have all of these? Anythoughts of merging some?

• Christianity in the 1st century (until 100 AD)
• Apostolic Age "the Crucifixion of Jesus (c. 26–36) until the death of John the Apostle (c. 110)."
• Ante-Nicene Period "late first century to... 325"
• Early Christianity "1st, 2nd, 3rd, early 4th"
• History of early Christianity "about... 30 to... 325"
• List of events in early Christianity "First century... Second century"

^{Carlaude:Talk} 18:09, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Apostolic Age and Ante-Nicene Period

Certainly :) There already seems to be some copying of bits. Apostolic Age and Ante-Nicene Period are the shortest and have the most specialized titles. The list can be left i think. The "History of" and Early Christianity take rather different subjects. I think the 1st century deserves its own article, so merging the two first mentioned where appropriate seems the way. Johnbod (talk) 18:52, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Okay... if we did merge Apostolic Age and Ante-Nicene Period together, it will cover 30 to 325. How will it not become a fork (or mostly a fork) for Early Christianity, etc. ^{Carlaude:Talk} 10:26, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

That's not what I'm suggesting. They should be merged into the other articles where appropriate, piece by piece. Not all will be needed. Johnbod (talk) 21:25, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Okay. That will be better. Yes, not all will be needed, due to their repetition. ^{Carlaude:Talk} 02:20, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Apostolic Age should stay, that's a standard topic. Early Christianity should also stay, that's also a standard topic (Christianity before Nicaea). First seven Ecumenical Councils should stay, that's another standard topic. I think the List of events in early Christianity (probably not an accurate name, read the article contents) was originally spun out of Early Christianity because that article is so large, so it probably should stay, it would get lost if merged into Timeline of Christianity which also is already large. The rest of the stuff is optional, though there already is a huge series of "Christianity in the xth century", most recently created, what do you propose to do with them? Christianity in the 1st century could easily be a redirect to Chronology of Jesus and Apostolic Age, but the rest are not so simple. 75.15.201.136 (talk) 21:00, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

The series of "Christianity in the xth century", needs to stay because all the other history articles are so over large. The best way to cut down the size of these large time-period articles is to be sure martial is in the short time perions articles before it is removed.

I fail to see how "Christianity before Nicaea" is any standard topic... unless it is the history of that time and covers between the Apostolic Age and Nicaea.

I fail to see any need for a List of events in early Christianity-- even it could get lost. Let it get lost. It sure is not a "standard topic".^{Carlaude:Talk} 20:34, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Early Christianity was the parent article. History of early Christianity was spun-out due to length, according to standard practice and the topic's ability to support a distinct article. Apostolic Age and Ante-Nicene Period were spun out from "history of Early Christianity" for the same reasons. So long as the cited material justifies the increasing length and expansion, I do not see what concerns there should be. Vassyana (talk) 20:53, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Maybe Early Christianity and History of early Christianity just need to be cut down to size better with directs to the sub articles. The child articles should be more detailed than the parent articles but did not seem to be last time I looked. ^{Carlaude:Talk} 23:37, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Breaking Early Christianity into periods of centuries is artificial. Some items will get lost or duplicated across the century barrier, the dating of some items are vague and could be in either century, etc. The crucifixion is one hard point (c.33), the Nicene council is the other (325), in between there are no hard points, only a varying continuity. Even the transition from Apostolic Age to age of the Apostolic Fathers is vague. 75.14.215.179 (talk) 05:36, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

While your concerns about periods of centuries are unfounded-- I primarly ment that material from the articles on Early Christianity and/or History of early Christianity be moved into the articles on the Apostolic Age and Ante-Nicene Period-- whereever this is sutable. If they are real sub-articles they should cover some things in greater detail than are covered in the parent article. ^{Carlaude:Talk} 14:31, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

List of events in early Christianity

Also since we also have the events of early Christianity listed as part of Timeline of Christianity, I think List of events in early Christianity needs something done with it. Unless someone wants to make it into a (non-list) article on the split between Christianity and Judaism, it should be just merged into Timeline of Christianity. Even if we kept it, the the years 1-200 only is a strange time-frame to cover.--^{Carlaude:Talk} 19:25, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

If I remember correctly, it was originally split out of Early Christianity, so it could be remerged back into that article, except that article may be too large already. 75.15.201.136 (talk) 20:53, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

I am sure it is over large.

Just because it was there in Early Christianity doesn't show any benifit to returning it there. Again, I can see the the benifit of splitting out text on the "split between Christianity and Judaism" and making that a separate article. Of courese an article of that sort does not necessarly need a large timelime section, but that just means that we do not have to keep the timeline in its current form. ^{Carlaude:Talk} 20:16, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

There is a page called Early Christianity and Judaism (presumably on the model of Christianity and Judaism), which is currently a redirect. 75.14.223.180 (talk) 16:45, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Example of bad grammar being pushed by User:Carlaude

"Christianity began spread initially from Jerusalem to throughout the Near East,"

[4] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.14.219.223 (talk) 17:37, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, it is fixed now. ^{Carlaude:Talk} 11:05, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Split section, contd

Yep. see above ...> J. D. Redding 01:12, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Sections still need to be split. J. D. Redding 03:26, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

Have created separate Medieval and Modern articles: this will be Early history of Christianity.--Felix Folio Secundus (talk) 05:00, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Having received an objection to the radical change the earlier section has returned to its old title. However I welcome more opinions on whether three shorter articles or one very long one are preferable. The three articles would work best with a summary article covering the whole 2000 years but compiling this would not be easy.--Felix Folio Secundus (talk) 05:38, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

I had objected. First I think the summary article needs to made first, and have begun triming out parts of this article to that end.

Second, we already have loads of articles on the "Early history of Christianity" -- but articles on Medieval and Modern Christianity would be good things to have. ^{Carlaude:Talk} 07:15, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

"Modern Christianity" is Christianity in the 21st century. 75.14.219.223 (talk) 17:44, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

That is Contemporary Christianity: Modern Christianity can be understood in more than one way e.g. from the late 19th century onwards or as roughly equivalent to Modern History from the mid 16th century.--Felix Folio Secundus (talk) 10:51, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Sure

So, Felix Folio Secundus, how about moving History of early Christianity to Early history of Christianity, and then recreating Medieval history of Christianity and Modern history of Christianity , but sure leave this page intact (except you are more than welcome to help cut its lenght and add links to the new article.)

It would seem best to me to let the Modern history of Christianity cover the time after that covered by the Reformation/Counter-Reformation articles. ^{Carlaude:Talk} 11:19, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

I have a suggestion as a third party 'outside' observer: I would find distinct periods of the history of Christianity and divide them by more than three, as we have done in History of the Eastern Roman Empire. I know it will take time and a lot of hard work, but in the end it will be an awesome thing to behold. I created the template in that article based off of the "History of" template, which works well. Good luck! Monsieurdl ^{mon talk} 14:04, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

created Medieval history of Christianity and Modern history of Christianity

BTW, I have now created Medieval history of Christianity and Modern history of Christianity.

We need to cover c. 313 to c. 500 sometime, by either including it in History of early Christianity (it could also be moved to Early history of Christianity) or creating a new article for just 313-500 with a name like Late ancient history of Christianity or History of Christendom. ^{Carlaude:Talk} 08:10, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Christianity and Worldly Governments

From my general reading of the history Christianity in Rome, the combination of religious and political powers that had been invested in the person of the emperor, under Christianity was separated into two realms. The worldly power, held by the secular apparatus, and the spiritual power held by the ecclesiastical apparatus.

Under the new arrangement, which had fully matured by medieval times, the spiritual powers gave their sanction to the worldly powers. And in turn the worldly powers protected and favored the spiritual powers. It appears to me to be an arrangement that began to develop around the time of Constantine, and didn't start to unravel until the Reformation and the Enlightenment. But it came completely undone in the United States by the disestablishmentarianism in the first clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.

In general, the relationship of the Christian Church in its various iterations to contemporaneous political sovereignties seems to be little explored, to date, in any of the articles that cover the religion. I'll see what I can reference adequately to be able to contribute along these lines, but thought I'd bring up the subject here in case others want to break open their books. --ô¿ô 00:23, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Use periods?

Most books on Christian history will use periods like these below (thou many of these are offten split in two as well.)

• Ante-Nicene Church, 1–313
• Christian Empire, 313–590
• Middle Ages, 590–1517
• The Reformation, 1517–1648
• Reason & Revivalism 1648–1789
• Modern Age, 1789–present

While every system of periodization has problems, these longer periods above have the difficulty of not leaving room to cover much depth. The only one written is the one on Early Christianity and it is also already over 100 KB (it is 144 KB and thus even longer than the History of the Roman Catholic Church).

These articles would have other problems too-- like the fact that their start and end points will not be understud the same by different editors. and that some events will always over lap time periods. None the less these would be good articles to create in due time. That said, I also think it would be easier and better to make them from the Christianity by centuries articles than making them into Christianity by centuries articles.

Of course most of the longer term events-- e.g. the Crusades-- already have their own articles, but feel free to create suitable articles as you see fit by the larger time periods. --Carlaude ^talk 02:32, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Hmmm... well, if it were up to me, I'd delete the Christianity by centuries articles but nobody else seems to care at the moment so I won't push my position further. Wikipedia is not paper so there's no real harm in having the Christianity by centuries articles even though I think they are ill-advised. I personally think we should work with the periods you mentioned above and create those articles first. --Richard (talk) 16:12, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Along the lines of what I posted below (in conjunction with a comment above) ...

• Ante-Nicene Church and 1–313 Christian Empire 313–589 >> Early history of Christianity (and {{merge}} or subordinate, the latter may be better, the Early Christianity and History of Early Christianity articles to this article) [BC, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th]
  • Early Christianity [BC, 1st, 2nd, early-3rd]
  • History of Early Christianity [late-3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th ]
• Middle Ages, 590–1516 >> Classical history of Christianity [7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th]
• The Reformation, 1517–1647, Reason & Revivalism 1648–1789, Modern Age, 1789-1944 >> Modern history of Christianity [15th, 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th , early-20th]
  • The Reformation, 1517–1647, Reason & Revivalism 1648–1789 >> Early modern history of Christianity [15th, 16th, 17th]
  • Modern Age, 1789-1944 >> Late modern history of Christianity [18th, 19th , early-20th]
• Late Modern Age, 1945–present >> Contemporary history of Christianity [Late-20th, 21st]

Opinions? J. D. Redding 01:13, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Well for one, to make "Early Christianity" and "History of Early Christianity" cover different periods is confusing, and for no reason I can see-- and of course they cover the same time period now. I have also never seen anyone group the Reformation period with up to 1944. A break at mid 3rd-century also make very little sense. Every author sees Constantine as a major turning point. What do you think, Reddi, of the periods I wrote above.^{Carlaude:Talk} 02:22, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

The Contemporary, modern (early and late), "Classical" [aka., medieval], and Early [aka., ancient] are conventional historical timeframes overlaps.

I just mention the 3rd century break to be used if needed [depending on the amount of information]. The break at 1945 is at the WWII end and Cold War begin [borrowed from general history, not specifically from "'christian' history"; this is a general turning point] ... again all this is suggested as a convenience ... if a division isn't necessary, then don't use a division; also, if there is a better break point, use that ...

The Reformation ends the early modern period in general history; but specifically for "'christian' history" i would suggest that the "Reason & Revivalism" period would end 'early modern period'. Though a division of early and late in a 'modern period' may not be necessary at this time ... it is only a suggestion if needed ...

Ultimately, the main timeframes are 'Contemporary', 'modern', 'Classical', and 'Early' would allow editors to {{split section}}s. The secondary timeframe subdivisions can be ignored. Now as to how I would map these unto your cited ones is:

• Ante-Nicene Church, 1–313 >> Early history
• Christian Empire, 313–590 >> early classical history
• Middle Ages, 590–1517 >> late classical history
• The Reformation, 1517–1648 >> early modern history
• Reason & Revivalism 1648–1789 >> late modern history
• Modern Age, 1789–present >> Contemporary history

But these don't fall within more general historical timeframes ... Again, the Reformation ends the early modern period in general history. Marking 'post 1789' as 'contemporary' would be a stretch to me; Contemporary should mean more within 50 to 75 years (around the Fourth Great Awakening), not 200 to 250 years ago (around the First Great Awakening) ... J. D. Redding 05:16, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

General opinion: 1. in the choice between a uniq subdivision and a conventional subdivision, we should most usually prefer the conventional one to unrisk doing WP:OR; 2. when a scheme is shallow and have too long time span, nothing forbid us from doing own subdivisions, uniq or conventional. A mature article prob converge towards conventional because of adaption to other articles that are already conventional, so a temporary uniq scheme should be considered a transitional state. Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 08:12, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Missiŋ Þiŋs

• gnosticism (just a short sentence, no need to bloat the article),
• alleviate russian orthodox church a little (avoiding bloat) as the main orthodox church after the fall of Constantinople

Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 08:47, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Christian History

The one thing I noticed in the first paragraph was the statement of Christian History starting at the time of Jesus Birth to present day.....I hope there can be someone who can fill in the gaps pre-Jesus because Christian History predates even the Old Testament and to really comprehensively write about Christian History, these truths about the origins of Christianity and the cultural realities surrounding the time just before the Old Testament are crusial in compiling the complete Christian History.....so if anyone can put in reference material realted to pre-New Testament Christian History that would be great.....

High Hopes!!!

Kenneth R. Livingston

There are other articles for Jewish History, and there are no doubts whatsoever that Judaism is the predecessor of Christianity. This article is about the Christianity as a movement independent from Judaism. There is no way in universe that Christianity preceeded Judaism, such statements are contrafactual and untrue. Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 15:39, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Why the title "Trinitarian Christianity made the state religion of Rome"

At the time that this decree was promulgated, there was indeed a long simmering dispute within the Church between Arians and Trinitarians. This decree settled that dispute. Therefore, it is only logical that that title be used. Scott P. (talk) 19:10, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

No. It's too long, so it's logical to shorten it. Thanks for the note though. Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 15:46, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Moved 'Christianity in India' to Apostolic Period

Moved 'Christianity in India' to Apostolic Period

Thomas the Apostle arrived along the southern Indian Malabar Coast in 52 AD and from this came Thomasine Christianity. It is incorrect to place 'India' under Post-Apostolic Church. User:Rahuljohnson4u (talk) 09:00, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

• That Thomas himself came to southern Indian himself is clearly disputed by some. There is not even any evidence here that it (Thomas coming to southern Indian himself) is a majoity view-- but even if it is the majoity view, it is not necessary or desirable to put this under the "apostolic period," because the text certainly discusses events after Thomas. Indian Christianity is more than Thomas Christianity, and Thomas Christianity developed its distinctions after Thomas.
• I do not know what you ment by "This is not an article in favour of them."
• Also-- stop reverting even if you disagree. Following WP:BRD means leaving the text as it was while we discuss.^{Carlaude:Talk} 14:42, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

• The main reason you give is that 'it is disputed by some'. So what?? Why should you give so much importance to those 'some'. Don't you know the fact that there are lots of historians who confirm the fact that St.Thomas landed in South India. Moreover the Saint Thomas Christians belong to various denominations and all of them share the same opinion that Thomas landed in South India. Also several Popes have asserted the origin of south Indian Christianity from the Apostle Thomas.

• This is not a contest to see who knows more people that agree with their positions. This is giving a WP:NPOV. ^{Carlaude:Talk} 20:53, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

• This clearly is not a neutral point of view. This is in favor of the people who dispute the arrival of St.Thomas to South India. How can that be neutral!

OK let me make a suggestion. Move the text to 'Apostolic Church' with minor edits. Instead of saying "Christianity arrived......." change it to " It is believed that Christianity arrived along the southern Indian Malabar Coast by Thomas the Apostle in 52 AD and from this came Thomasine Christianity. These Syrian Malabar Nasranis kept a unique Christian identity untill the arrival of the Portuguese in the 17th century."User:Rahuljohnson4u (talk) 13:30, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

• Moreover the text was originally under 'Apostolic Church'. Somebody changed it without any discussion. So there is nothing wrong in reverting it and keeping it back under the 'Apostolic Church'. Please do not revert it just because you are not in favor of it. And please do not give silly reasons like 'it is disputed by some'. I am only moving it to its original position. User:Rahuljohnson4u (talk) 18:00, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

• No, the original state was like this— with none of this text. Stop reverting even if you disagree. You may remove the text entirely while we discuss, but I didn't think you would mind leaving it in the article somewhere— where it has been most of the time since being added. These corrections were made without "without any discussion" mainly because the text was added in the first place without any discussion. If you do want it removed entirely instead, go ahead. ^{Carlaude:Talk} 20:53, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

• Rahuljohnson4u, you seem to be muddling the reasoning I use here and at History of early Christianity-- for example you posted the same reply on both pages but it only seems to make real sense here at History of Christianity. I propose we work on just one discussion first (either you chose) and then the other (if it is still called for) later. ^{Carlaude:Talk} 14:34, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

• Even you had been doing the same i guess..! You were also posting the same replies on both pages. Anyways let us discuss in one page at a time. We will discuss in this page.User:Rahuljohnson4u (talk) 20:00, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

• This is not an area of expertise for me but it seems to me that, where a dispute exists in the real world, one way to address the dispute is to specify who the parties to that dispute are. Which is the mainstream view and which is the minority view? Is it the case that "most Christians accept that Thomas brought Christianity to India and a minority dispute that fact" or is it the case that "a minority assert that Thomas brought Christianity to India while the majority of Christians dispute that fact". In either case, who exactly is this minority? Presumably, Thomasine Christians believe this assertion as, I assume, do some historians. Who are they? Who are the historians who dispute the assertion? Can either side be characterized as "mainstream" or "minority"? --Richard S (talk) 16:58, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
• As for "Apostolic Period" vs. afterwards, what do the historians say? For those who dispute that Thomas arrived in India around 52AD, how do they explain the arrival of Christianity in India? When do they think it arrived there? I am inclined to mention Thomas in the "Apostolic Period" with appropriate caveats that indicate that this narrative is not universally accepted as historical fact. --Richard S (talk) 16:58, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
• Finally, I would like to note that both of you have used up your three reversions for today. Moreover, WP:3RR does not give you the right to three reversions a day. You could still be blocked for edit warring which you have been doing today (especially considering the previous reverts in past days). Please stop. Resolve the issue here on the talk page and then edit the page accordingly. Further edit warring may lead to protection of the page and/or blocks. --Richard S (talk) 16:58, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

• I am in favor of placing Saint Thomas Christians under Apostolic Period. The majority does accept that Thomas brought Christianity to India. If there are people disputing the fact then as i suggested we will add the line "It is believed that....". It will be a neutral point of view. I think it is acceptable to all. User:Rahuljohnson4u (talk) 20:00, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

• Rahuljohnson4u-- There two was to stay NPOV (at least two). One is give statement to both/many/all sides to whatever degree. The 2nd is to just limit statements to thing all sides agree on... a much better way (unless the issue is a major part of the subject of the article, and thus there is room left within the size limit that is not better spent on other facts of the subject.
• There is also no NPOV gained in stating "It is believed that Christianity arrived... via Thomas the Apostle..." because that is not a statment that he came all the way to Indian Malabar Coast in person. It leaves open the view that he may have came East and diciples of his came the Indian Malabar Coast in his name.
• But if it seem to clarify something to you, we can also look at adding in a explainitory footnote on the differening views.
• This is a neutral point of view as it is, because

• the text itself is limited to statements that all sides agree on,
• and while even if you and I agree that Thomas came to southern India himself, the placement of the text here only indicates that some of the events are postapostolic, short of spliting the text into two bits in two part of the article.

• You have claimed "majority does accept that Thomas brought Christianity to India" but I see no reason for this claim. You just seem to "know" it to be the case.
• Richard-- I do not think we have (or need) information of which is the mainstream view and which is the minority view. Such a thing can be hard to measure, but Rahuljohnson4u may be more mainstream, or they may both be about the same. Details on this should be in Saint Thomas Christian tradition but not this article nor in other Christianity in genral articles-- except some detail could work in the new Early centers of Christianity article I made. This article is way overlong.
• I am not sure way the "other side" says but it would seem that have to at least agree that Thomas played some part, per above. I guess some may have a simple "we don't know" view.
• My last three edits were at 02:23 AM, January 6, 2010, 10:04 AM, January 7, 2010, and 3:58 PM, January 7, 2010. Since the 1st two rvts were more than 24 hours apart, it was not 3 a WP:3RR issue quite as you seemed to think.^{Carlaude:Talk} 13:43, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

• Carlaude, you may be right about your edits not being a 3RR issue, but an edit war is still an edit war even if it spans several days. In truth, it gives me pause to make edits which I know to be edit warring even if the edits span several weeks or several months. You know when you are reverting somebody else's edits and you should try to engage that other editor in discussion rather than just revert them. Of course, this dictum cuts both ways and it takes two or more editors to engage in an edit war. Bottom line: please don't edit war, it's bad for the project.
• That said, I disagree with you about sticking with mutually agreed on assertions. It seems obvious that we should mention the existence Thomasine Christians and their spiritual heritage via Thomas. At the same time, if some people doubt the tradition of Thomas going to India, we should indicate that as well. If there is not an easily ascertainable "mainstream" position, then why can't we say something "According to the tradition of the Saint Thomas Christians, Christianity came to India via Saint Thomas. Some historians dispute the historicity of this tradition." This makes no assertion as to whether the historicity of the tradition is mainstream or not. It simply states indisputable facts: (1) the Saint Thomas Christians believe Christianity came to India via Thomas. (2) Some historians dispute that. Provide citations for both assertions and you're done. If it's needed, you can expand on the dispute in a Note.
• --Richard S (talk) 17:12, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

• The reason this would be ill-advised (or the main reason), is that this article is already way way over-long. We should be coming up with ways to shorten this article, and adding any important info to the sub- and other related articles-- not making this page even longer. ^{Carlaude:Talk} 21:11, 12 January 2010 (UTC)
  • --So you're saying that you oppose the two sentences that I proposed primarily because discussion of Thomasine Christianity is too much detail for this article? In other words, they would be OK for Christianity in the 1st century or History of Christianity in India but it's not important enough to mention in this article? I don't think I agree with you but I also understand that these are judgment calls where reasonable people can differ. --Richard S (talk) 23:52, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

• I think it should be in the articles: Saint Thomas Christian tradition, Thomas the Apostle, History of Christianity in India (if there were one), and probably Christianity in India, and maybe Deaths of the Twelve Apostles and others.
• As for Christianity in the 1st century, that is a surprisingly long article (too long), for such a new article. This is because so many impotant events happened for Christianity in that century. I expect we should have something in that article on Thomas the Apostle and/or Saint Thomas Christian tradition, but the text in there now is much to long, and I expect a multi-sentence "debate" on the different views should not be in there. Maybe once we see what else is better removed, it would be fine, but even long books on the "History of Christianity" do not normally say much on it.
• Unlike Christianity in the 1st century, this article is about twice the size it ought to be. That means removing half of all the sentences-- so yes we should clearly not put these "two sentences" in what it can be put in other article and removed from this one. Long articles grow mostly a few sentences at a time.^{Carlaude:Talk} 02:20, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

If you are against adding the two words in the beginning then I think we should move 'Christianity in India' to Apostolic period without any change. It suits better there and not under Post Apostolic Church. It is widely accepted that Christianity spread in India in the first century and it comes under Apostolic Age. User:Rahuljohnson4u (talk) 20:30, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

If it is "widely accepted" then you should no trouble finding and quoting a WP:RS stating that it is "widely accepted" and not just "accepted" by that particular source. ^{Carlaude:Talk} 11:41, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Which particular source? You will get lots of sources once you search the internet. Just because you are against it doesn't mean that it should be placed under post apostolic church. Only you are arguing for it without any reason. And you are not willing to add the extra two words if needed. Now please stop this.User:Rahuljohnson4u (talk) 13:30, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

It does not matter what I think or what you think. Wikipedia reports what WP:RS think. It is your burden to source your facts that you claim.

I don't know why you would be happier to add those two words. They would not be false so much as unnecessary. Even if added, the two words would be no reason to change placement of this section. ^{Carlaude:Talk} 13:43, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Here is a WP:RS saying Apostle Thomas died in India. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/592851/Saint-Thomas

So no more arguments on this topic. The section has been moved to 'Apostolic Age'. User:Rahuljohnson4u (talk) 18:30, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

This is not how Wikipedia uses WP:RSs.

If people... even experts, disagree on something, sources can and do dissagree. Just because one says source says "X," does not make other sources claiming "not X" unreliable. To take something as the "one true source" is POV.

Of course, even if we did know for sure he "died in India," it does not prove he made it all the way to Malabar Coast in the south. -^{Carlaude:Talk} 04:57, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Please see the link. It says that St. Thomas died in Madras (near Mylapore) in the South. It is a continuation of the Malabar Coast and there are lots of Saint Thomas Christians and Syrian Churches there. And please understand that a very large majority does believe in the fact that St.Thomas is the founder of the Syrian Churches in India. Almost all the prominant denominations including the Roman Catholic and the Oriental Orthodox Churches accept this. In the period of time we are talking about most of religious history, across most religions, is certainly based on tradition. The foundations of most beliefs in general tend to be tradition. Unfortunately CNN wasn't around back then to chronicle the happenings of the day. There are some people who are skeptical about this. Typically, such arguments are due to a combination of ignorance of history plus post colonial mentality that can creep in. We are talking about a community that existed in Southern India who kept their records in palm leaves. If you look at the evidences there are plenty but u wont get anything similar as you can find in Rome or West. That’s simply because people are different and their culture for maintaining records are different. User:Rahuljohnson4u (talk) 07:40, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Just too long

• Ugh. I was really going to argue that those two little sentences would provide a good NPOV summary of the controversy. However, if you are going to argue from an "article is too long" position, then, yes, it is arguable that we could drop all mention of Thomasine Christianity from this article. I checked to see if we mention the introduction and later suppression of Catholicism in Japan and I see that we do not. I would think that both stories (Japanese Kirishitans and Thomasine Christianity) would be important to include in this article but I can see arguments for omitting them as well. However, if we do omit them, then there are almost certainly other topics to remove from this article. One that just crossed my radar screen just now is Devshirmeh which I copied here from History of the Orthodox Church some time ago. That is almost certainly less important than Thomasine Christianity and so, if we don't mention Thomasine Christianity, we should not mention "Devshirmeh" either. So, my question to you now is: How do we go about shortening this article? Surely, we will slaughter some "sacred cows" in the process of doing so. Should we just pull out our knives and start hacking away at it, debating specific issues if and when other editors squawk? --Richard S (talk) 02:37, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

• Here is my take on it.
• A. When and if you have a time, look at the whole article and use some consitencey to delete spam, moved what is best moved, and split into new article whatever section(s) are suitable (but spiting also requires replacing it with a short summary there-of). It seems best to me to "scrape the surface" of many topics (so they are links) than to cover a few things well, but that is sort of a judgment call. But it takes time and drive to do this...
• B. In the mean time, don't add things to long article without some clear need (and there is rarely a clear need).
• C. Also in the mean time, delete/move/split whatever you run across that seems good to do so. Then WP:BRD as need or want too. This sort of depends on how well you know the subject, how clear the benifit/need of the edit is, and of course how over long the article is, but it is easier to talk about your edit after I have seen it.
• Keep in mind, everyone has more fun adding to articles than removing from them, but we should still edit the long ones down. ^{Carlaude:Talk} 03:08, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

• Fine... you and I think along the same lines. I have fought the "article too long" battle on other articles and it seems some editors just don't understand that "the encyclopedia anyone can edit" doesn't mean that "anyone can add anything as long as it's sourced". I will get started and we will see how much flak I get. --Richard S (talk) 03:25, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
• I like how long this article is; there is no way that an agry fundamentalist or common nonshelant goof can say this article is not thoroughle enough. This is a terrific article; clear and detailed. --Wolf of mystery (talk)

It's technically too long according to the rule of thumbs for article size, 133 kb when 100 kb is due size to consider splitup, meaning that it will pose problems when loading, reading and editing the article on quite a few web browsers. Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 16:13, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Spawning idea...

I think that the article, which by far is technically too large (133 kb), should be spawned thusly: from the fall of the West Roman Empire, the Rome Catholic Church becomes organisationally independent from the Head of the Church which is the East Roman emperor, and the Constantinople Catholic Church under the emperor. Therefore the histories of the

• West Catholics (today the Roman Catholic Church) and the
• East Catholics (today the Greek Orthodox Church)

are essentially separate and follow different time schemes. As it is now, the article needs both expansion and shrinking, which must mean something like spawning subarticles. I propose splitting the article into History of the East Orthodox Christianity and History of the Western Christianity, after some preparative edits to make the sections to-be-spawned-off coherent. Ideas, opinions? Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 17:38, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Wrong! Forget it. Considering History of medieval Christianity, I must rethink. Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 17:42, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

The article History of Christianity and History of medieval Christianity contains some duplicate text, that I'm going to rewrite/compress in the former article. Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 18:00, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Invoking WP:BOLD (not very much) I'm going to replace the duplicate sections Irish and Irish missionaries, Anglo-Saxons, English, Franks and Frisians of the Low Countries with a shorter reviewing text in this article. Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 18:35, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

I didn't save very much space. 1h editing shrinked it by 2 kb! 31 kb remaining!! I must rethink again!!!! Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 19:47, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

(ec) A split at the point of formal separation in the 11century would make more sense in terms of both length and perhaps also content. Despite growing apart, the Churches shared much until the last two centuiries of formal union. Johnbod (talk) 17:44, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Yes, except a common history. I think 11c is too late. The theological communion matters, but I think the split must be earlier than 11c, but prob centuries later than the "official" fall of the West Roman Empire at 476. Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 18:00, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

End of 2nd Paragraph in 'Structure and the episcopacy'

The statement "and in that century, and this structure was supported by teaching on apostolic succession where, a bishop becomes the spiritual successor of the previous bishop in a line tracing back to the apostles themselves" appears to have be carelessly tacked on. It contains grammatical error and provides no citation, and is redundant because the the same subject is treated sufficiently in the following paragraph. Aposl3pol (talk) 18:45, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Imperial bias

Observation: The section titled Church of the Roman Empire is, by its name alone, very biased. First, it implies that the Christian community was almost entirely ruled by the Romans which is patently false. There was an extremely large Christian communion centered in Persia that stretched into India and other parts of Asia. Additionally the Germanic Churches were independent of the Roman Empire and its churches as well. Even apart from all of that, though, the Roman Imperial Church never even represented all of the Roman Christians. A very large portion of the Roman Christians (perhaps the majority?) belonged to the Oriental Orthodox communion.

I would recommend:

• Retitle the section. Perhaps Christianity in late antiquity.
• Broaden the focus to be more balanced based on the sizes of the Christian communities at that time and their significance during that period.

--Mcorazao (talk) 16:25, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Since nobody is clamoring to respond I took a stab at this. The section still needs a lot of work but the scope is at least broadened a little bit. In particular I added sections on the Nestorian/Persian Church, the Miaphysite churchs, and the Gothic churches, 3 major communions of the era which were not previously given any real focus --Mcorazao (talk) 17:49, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

James the "successor" of Jesus?

Although he was clearly a leader among the early Christians, I've never heard of such a concept that he was the "successor of Jesus" and I'm sure that certainly among Christians at least, most would object to such a description. In Christianity, Christ has such a central and unique place (being the only begotten Son of God, the unique Redeemer and Savior, even the incarnated God Himself, etc.) that it would be ridiculous to claim any one individual as a "successor."

Unless it can be backed up with some evidence via citations, I say that that phrase should be removed. The Cabbage (talk) 05:59, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

First sentence is a doozy

"Christianity has impacted all other religions[citation needed] and changed the course of human history."

Hasn't everything that's ever happened changed the course of history!? And, yeah, need MAJOR support for the idea that Christianity has impacted ALL other religions. How about religions that might have existed and disappeared before Christianity existed? These kinds of rhetorical statements do not belong in an encyclopedia article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.167.49.116 (talk) 22:44, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

Isn’t it all about Politics and power? - The concept of Jeremiah - more about it and a side article about it?

I think the political thread is not obvious enough in this article.

Who really cares about the state of the Holy Ghost? I really don’t think common people did in the past as well. So how come so much blood is spent over it? Such questions needs to be explained?!

We can read about "Western Schism (1378–1416)": "The conflict was political, rather than doctrinal, in nature." Isn’t it the general aspect of the topic of the entire article, a lot of politics? Was the politics before or after religion, is also a general question?

Any history of Christianity, Islam and Judaism without a thread of basic political religious concept, are odd random tails of stupid people, quarrelling and killing each other for no obvious reasons. That religion makes people stupid is another odd conclusion that is not right. We can’t understand large portions about today’s events without understanding the political layer of religion. How understand Al-Qaida without a political thread? We can’t see that the Templars were seen as Al-Qaida today when dissolved, a political and military power that must be exterminated or incorporated in the regular society of them own, of political reasons. The Templars were exterminated by King Philip IV of France. It has nothing to do with faith, only politics, power and money.

History is always written by them in power afterwards, history has since dawn of civilisation been a mean of political propaganda often in a sense that would make Goebbels look pale? If history ever should have any scientifically credits it can't be described without a political layer that follows the entire topic, else we are talking about tails and not history in a scientifically sentence?

In fact there is religion in the earliest archaeological civilisation findings, and not just a detail but a main feature. One of the interesting questions is, if a city is there for the fun, for the religion or to organise a political society that is based on political power? As soon as there is money there is politics and power. So the general question is, Is politics a part of religion or religion a part of politics?

For certain if not earlier, religion became a part of politics from Jeremiah, actually forming Judaism and in fact the Jewish nation on a firm distinctive political ground. If you did not believe in Jeremiahs statements you ceased to be a Jew, and are still the basis of Judaism, and in practice the state of Israel. If Jeremiah wouldn't have been there, or actually nobody would have stated the statements, there would not be a Jewish people today. They rather would be regular Iraqis or Palestinians (or whatever would have happened without Jeremiah (long time long history in another dimension)?

On the other hand the political layer of religious history is not the entire history of a religion or religions. People like Jesus, Paulus, Muhammad or Luther were not most likely on a mission from somebody else (but God). But even in their lifetimes what they did became immediately politics. And it was politics when created. And the reason is the concept of Jeremiah, those who are not accepting the Creed, are not among us. And the importance of the Creed is pure politics, not mainly faith in a scientifically historical point of view. But in an individual perspective certainly the Creed is pure faith.

The concept of Jeremiah is what made Christianity interesting for Roman emperors like Constantine and Theodosius as a tool to govern the empire and glue it together as a unity not disintegrate into nations and tribes. Before the army and the lute made everything go around and politically the Roman Empire looked like Bolivia in the 70ies, one military take over after another. The basic idea was that nations, tribes or other identities in the multiethnic empire did not matter, the identity was the faith and the creed. It meant that everyone that did not just accept the creed but also the entire theological package, was condemned and normally sentenced to horrible convictions. Horrible not because they were evil bastards but for the cause of the empire. The faith identified the Byzantine Empire as it. And so did Zoroastrianism the Roman/Byzantine arch enemy the Persian identity.

The other aspect of the Jeremiahan concept, at least in Constantine/Theodosius version, it became impossible to make the creed to the official Christianity not admitting the rights of the Patriarch and the Byzantine Emperor. It meant two things, you have to deny the official creed to not be a belonging to the Patriarch and the Emperor and the empire must demand absolute acceptance of the creed. The totalitarian state of the empire became extreme in Constantinople and is also a direct result of this concept. It also explains the ruthlessness in the relations to Arians and others. And that is why Nestorians were accepted in Persia, they did not have a creed of faith to the Emperor and patriarch in Constantinople. The Persians were not Christians, and they accepted them as refugees being only a threat to their arch enemy Byzantium. Without it the empire would soon look like Yugoslavia during the 1990ies or Britain during the 400ds after the Romans left. Christianity was to the Roman empire like if the Serbs would have invented a new political tool to reunify Yugoslavia (that they obviously didn’t) or like the Saxons came and took it all over (the real occupiers of Britain?) and introduced an entirely new concept.

Without understanding this, the entire history of Jews after Jeremiah, the Western world and Middle East after 323 AD is impossible to understand.

It also explains why some neighbouring empires became Arian and not Orthodox to Constantinople, it was a way of politically using Jeremiahs concept, what Constantine did in a version without the Byzantine emperor or the Patriarch in Constantinople, where the local king was free to govern his own way, without need to be a part of the empire.

From this perspective the main events of history after 323 AD makes a lot of sense. The Islam is created after a number of test probes the centuries before of theological debate in Byzantium of for instance Jesus appearance as a God of human etc. It was then obvious an enough radical different version of the religious faith had to be created. Denying so much it was not a bargainable anymore, but also such a complete political package to attract local force withstanding a (weakened from Persian war) Byzantine army assault, to politically get free from the Patriarch and the Emperor in Constantinople, by a million of good reasons. Note what Machiavelli wrote about Byzantium in the Prince? But also note the free will conversion demand of Islam is a direct reaction to the political Byzantine demand of the Creed. Islam in ex Byzantine areas was sold as a revolution of political end economical freedom, not mainly a matter of faith. Because of the Byzantine demand of the Creed the matter of faith of Islam was included in the freedom package, must change or be a Byzantine subject.

An interesting aspect is that so large portions of Islam are directly related to Byzantine politics that Sunni was not that fitting and understood in Persia, so they needed something slightly else.

So later the Persians needed to free themselves from the Caliphate, continue the Persian identity in a new dress and the Shiite Islam became the tool. Developed to a large extent from the basic Persian dualistic basic concept, us against the world (where not necessarily in that perspective the world need to be seen larger than Persia), to the Persian Shiite form we know today. Also a perspective if not understood, it is impossible to understand Iran and Iranian politics today.

Much lesser was needed for the Pope (and the Frankish emperor) to get politically free from the Patriarch and the Emperor in Constantinople. It was a small to us completely stupid question of the exact words of the basic creed. But the difference was the Carolingian army. The Southeast did not have such an army but the opportunity came after a bitter and devastating war to the last resources, between Persia and Byzantium. Else there wouldn't have been any Islam, the Persians and the Byzantines would have let their armies have quickly finished Islam off else. There was in fact even lesser war in the West, because the Byzantine army had no chance getting the Pope or the Carolingians. Else the Pope would never have done it.

The same scenario happens by reformation after a few centuries of political power competition between kings and popes. The kings became strong enough, to deny Rome. A lot of people agreed with Luther, but the main thing was that Luther suited the king’s needs. Luther was protected by princes and most likely shared perspectives and made Luther the choice of kings rather than Zwingli or others. And describing is the case of Henry VIII (that has nothing to do with divorces). That he first criticised Luther, and hoping for support from the Pope against the Spanish political ambitions. Writing (or in any way let publishing in his name) a book denying Luther. After failing getting the support of the Pope he had to cut with Rome of the same political reasons other kings and nations became Lutheran. He couldn’t then become Lutheran, so Henry had to invent his own protestant church of England, the Anglican church. Without the book England would have become full proof Lutheran because it was a full working royal package. And so to a large extent the Anglican Church was created as a political necessity to relate to Spanish foreign politics, and to get free from the obvious papal political chains. The pope made Charlemagne emperor and the conflict has been ongoing until then, since they payment for that imperial service made the Pope impossible for kings.

Bishops were very rich and political powerful people in the past and non-Episcopal movement must also be seen as a political movement. The Presbyterianism dominance in Scotland and strong growth in England must be seen in the light of the struggle between king and parliament and the English power over Scotland. And the Reformed churches in Germany because to govern the bishops there must be a strong king, most principalities in Germany could not perform that. After Prussia took over many of the principalities in the 1800ds the Episcopal matter did not stayed as a main issue. And the tries of making a unified protestant church of Prussia, was made in streamline with the new strong central power and government in Berlin. Unification has always been a hard issue to complete because faith is not just a political issue, and the church had less political importance in the 1800ds.

The issue is how strong violence that were politically justifiable. After 1600 in Sweden it was justifiable to send all Catholics abroad and execute a hand full of them after the battle with Sigismund. In the 1800ds being a catholic in Sweden was no more an issue. In Byzantium the imperial political issue of Creed was worth blinding and disable people (when theologically hindered to execute them), it was in fact not mainly a matter of faith.

In the aftermath of the reformation the counterreformation became a political mean to keep national identities in some neighbouring countries like Poland, and later even stronger against the triple occupation in the 1800ds and the Soviet powered communist regime. Faith is of much lesser importance in Poland today because the only remains are the backside of the catholic faith like of rigid family politics that are not smooth in a country with great past liberties, make Catholic politicians quick loose later elections.

It can seem to be a dry tail to describe Christian history as mainly politics, but it is impossible to understand else? Who really cares about the state of the Holy Ghost? I really don’t think common people did in the past too. So how come so much blood is spent over it?

I think this article must have a general political comment and there should be an article like, Christianity (political) or something. Ok, I have no references here, I have no time to get them, but I hope someone share my view and get them and write something good.

We can’t go on telling tails because most of the explanations are politics and even politicians today hate people talking about the political layer explanation of history or present events, counter saying do you think the world is so conspiratorial? Well the flaw to most conspiratorial theories is the stupid factor and the randomness/opportunities in the reality. The presence and the history is woven by many threads, where many of them are hard to control and each are driven by so many individual perspectives, that conspiratorial theories normally are impossible to have been performed. But the political thread is in many cases very strong and influential and explains many contradictions in tails that are set up to replace history.

I think the political thread is not obvious enough in this article. Please do something about it! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 37.247.9.228 (talk) 22:17, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

The perspective of time, past life conditions and identity, independence, who developed and who is orthodox

There is another perspective that this article I would say completely fail in, getting perspectives in time, way of life and identity of churches. But also understanding the rules of life in past societies. Especially countries with long religious freedom, like in the USA have hard to get.

There is a lot we have hard to get, for instance that 70% of Stockholm apartments lacked shower or bath 1970 and all built before 1930 was with dry loo in the yard. Not very far ago. Also Christianity was very different only 50 or 100 years ago in Western Europe. We all, including the church, has to adapt to new political demands. Today the church has to accept same sex marriage, or soon cease as church, being abandoned by the society. And queer marriages were unthinkable 25 years ago. These are very strong shoifts in doctrine only the last years in the church historical perspective? And they certainly do not origin from a theological debate. They origin from a view oof the church as an institution of service to their members, but put old theological truths aside very rapidly. And it is not for the first time in Church history. Since the French revolution many local catholic parishes had to compromise between the society and the papal line, in order to survive. Last years harder attitude from the Vatican, and some highlighted special issues looks also lead to problems for the view of the catholic church in many countries, and is an issue of the future of its services. Adoptability is a genuine matter to consider and has always been.

Times have been very different. For instance in Scandinavia there was 100% Lutheran protestants between the late 1500ds and the 1800rds. And 100% meant 100% not more or less. In Sweden it was illegal to be non-Lutheran in the country without a special invitation from the king (that diplomats and special skilled people on jobs got). It meant especially Catholics were not allowed. The Jewish community was established 1772 by a special permission of the king, same rules as for the Lutheran church. The Lutheran church was owned by state, nationalised. And so all the clergy was governmental employees, like the military, the police and the postal service. In fact normally the only intellectual (educated at the state universities) representative in the local villages. There was even law to participate in church on Sundays and even to be able to read the bible, the clergy came to the farms and checked the readability (of the bible). Certainly in wealthier and more intellectual homes in cities it was slightly smoother.

In today’s standards it may sound very odd un-free society but for most people then it was an issue as if there should be one or many postal services or police forces in a country? The reason for this attitude was that the absolute unity. Paradoxingly made the question what religion a non-question. Who would be interested to talk to about it, when there was one choice and all were Ok, what was delivered served the present societies needs? What difference would the state of the Holy Ghost make? I was once in Eilat and the Palestinian receptionist asked two teenage Swedish girls on of the most normal questions in Middle east, “What religion do you belong to?” and they thought he was nuts, replied “No religion own us!”.

A very different situation from where religion still was a political struggle. Charles I drove towards Catholicism and the parliament drove it towards non-Episcopal Presbyterianism. It really matter what your opinion was, and what religion you belonged to. And to get free from the political fuzz people started go to America.

Certainly in Sweden after 200 years of wars abroad the political propaganda made Catholics among the lowest creeps ever exists, had still some effects. But not even being catholic was from the 1700rds any issue to talk about, it really had no political importance anymore so it faded. Rather home comers from the wars with Russia in the early 1700rds were seen as a problem. Being practicing Lutheranism as amateurs being without priests in Siberia for decades, having a lot of odd religious ideas of running it themselves, free religiously.

Certainly the life everywhere in the Catholic world before the reformation was about the same as in Protestant Scandinavia, go to church was natural as going to the loo or eat. And there was one church and nothing to talk about. People might have private opinions but not being organised by anyone but the pope or the king.

The same situation was certainly the case in Byzantium and there was one emperor and one church, that’s it.

This means there was no Coptic church of Egypt and so on before Islam because every church within the empire was Orthodox and that’s it. Outside the empires borders the churches could not be orthodox because then the members would be arrested for treason, because it would mean they made a Creed to the Emperor of Constantinople, that was not sovereign there. In Western Europe there were countries outside the immediate control of the Emperor, but they did not officially deny him and the Orthodox Church before 1054. But in practice they were under the pope that until 1054 was a by name subject of the Patriarch and the Emperor. This means that any church outside Byzantium must be independent, and inside orthodox.

And so we can’t talk about other ancient churches from ancient times, there were none and not accepted. Them all created slowly after the empire lost area and area, and had to get organised independently or people with other faith became refugees abroad like the Nestorians. Only a few parts like the Coptic church of Ethiopia was independent all the time.

However the main churches were developing their ways, theology and organisation to meet the society’s demand of new (political) times, like for instance the matter of same sex marriages in churches today and female clergy in the late 1900ds, certainly issues pushed hard from the outside society to be made reforms. Often the independent churches of formal imperial areas were far more conservative, because their issue is to withstand an identity in an often-hostile world.

From this perspective many Westerners find eastern churches very odd and strange, not realising that it is the West that has changed and the East that stayed the old way. The secular drive for development of society and business was not the case in Islam. And large parts of Islam have been proven extremely efficient measures of staying conservative and no change. This as a political part of woven into Islam selling it local power structures wanting to be freed from Constantinople but self stay in power, forever. A world where there was a conservative competition rather than a liberal, like in the west.

Some people are claiming they are fundamental Christians and the development of Christianity makes it quite clear that the most accurate question is fundamental of what? Somebody might say the bible, the holy book. The next question is what version of the translation to what? Even the Jesus denied the fundamental Jews in Jerusalem of his time, why are we celebrating Sundays??

Not understanding what drove the changes and the conservatism in various parts of the church makes it impossible to understand why the changes happened.

The history of Christianity might not just be the history of isms and them flying independent of themselves as ideas?

Or should this article be titled History of Christian doctrines, and this article History of Christianity have a new text? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 37.247.9.228 (talk) 01:01, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

AD 70

Given the destruction of Jerusalem and the church there and allowing for greater influence from Pauline Christians, some mention of that fall and a link seems warranted. Wblakesx (talk) 00:22, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Vandalism

There's quite a lot of vandalism on this article. Wouldn't it be wise to secure the article for a while? Marcocapelle (talk) 12:58, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

Too many articles on the subject of History of Christianity?

We have this article, so for the history of Christianity as a whole, then we have some 5 or 6 articles that bundle a few centuries (like History of Early Christianity) and we also have numerous articles that cover one century (like History of Christianity in the 16th century). Isn't that a bit too much, especially so since the texts of all these articles should be kept consistent with each other? Marcocapelle (talk) 13:39, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

You're absolutely right on the duplication, but as we can't even merge or otherwise get rid of the absurd and pointy State church of the Roman Empire there seems little chance of much improvement. But I wouldn't want too much merging of period articles, as the subject is far too big to cover properly in one article. Johnbod (talk) 14:49, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

And what about the opposite direction? I mean, why not keep the articles of the longer periods of time (like this article) very brief - so they hardly ever need to be adjusted - and maintain them primarily for the purpose of referring to the more detailed articles? Marcocapelle (talk) 19:05, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

Suggestion for a useful graph

How about a chart showing the changes in world's population % of Christians, like the [5] but for the world? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:48, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

History of Christianity vs. Ecclesiastical history

Since it is not differentiated: What exactly is the difference between History of Christianity and Ecclesiastical History? (Yes, I know the latter features catholicism, but the Church of England also prides its Ecclesiastical History.) Yotwen (talk) 18:51, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

External links modified

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Is everything in the article relevant to the article topic? Is there anything that distracted you?

Yes, I thought it was very informational and directly relevant to the article topic. Nothing really distracted me BrandiHeighes (talk) 02:13, 5 April 2017 (UTC).

Check a few citations. Do the links work? Is there any close paraphrasing or plagiarism in the article?

Do the links work? Yes, the ones that I tried did. Not that I know of BrandiHeighes (talk) 02:14, 5 April 2017 (UTC).

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Reducing the length

At 140k+ raw bytes the article is currently rather too long, though readers should expect a very long article on a subject this vast. Looking at what we have, I feel the following:

• There is a general tendency to have too much on the Orthodox world, with sections on various national conversions that aren't at all matched by sections for the Western church, let alone those outside Europe.
• This culminates in a very long section on the EO church under the Soviet Union, which should be mostly moved off somewhere else. This article is no place for: "This included people like the Grand Duchess Elizabeth Fyodorovna who was at this point a monastic. Along with her murder was Grand Duke Sergei Mikhailovich Romanov; the Princes Ioann Konstantinovich, Konstantin Konstantinovich, Igor Konstantinovich and Vladimir Pavlovich Paley; Grand Duke Sergei's secretary, Fyodor Remez; and Varvara Yakovleva, a sister from the Grand Duchess Elizabeth's convent. They were herded into the forest, pushed into an abandoned mineshaft and grenades were then hurled into the mineshaft. Her remains were buried in Jerusalem, in the Church of Maria Magdalene." It doesn't seem to be in Religion in the Soviet Union.
• There is almost nothing on modern missionary activity - a little para on RC, but nothing at all I can see on Protestant activity.
• Nothing about the falling-off off in churchgoing in recent decades, especially in the West. Nor clergy abuse issues. We have articles on all this, & at the least links to these need to be worked in.
• Far too much political history on the Crusades.
• The lead is absurdly short.

-no doubt there are many other points to make, but these were the ones that struck me. Johnbod (talk) 16:19, 22 December 2018 (UTC)

Possible copyright problem

This article has been revised as part of a large-scale clean-up project of multiple article copyright infringement. Earlier text must not be restored, unless it can be verified to be free of infringement. For legal reasons, Wikipedia cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from other web sites or printed material; such additions must be deleted. Contributors may use sources as a source of information, but not as a source of sentences or phrases. Accordingly, the material may be rewritten, but only if it does not infringe on the copyright of the original or plagiarize from that source. Please see our guideline on non-free text for how to properly implement limited quotations of copyrighted text. Wikipedia takes copyright violations very seriously. 💵Money💵emoji💵^{Talk💸Help out at CCI!} 17:46, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

@Money emoji: could you please back-up your removal of large amounts of text with quotes and sources which prove your claim of copy-violations? Thanks. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 20:55, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

Joshua Jonathan, Kind of. I don't have any specific sources I'm basing the removal off of, rather I'm basing it off of how it was added by Pseudo-Richard, a former admin who is the subject of a Contributor Copyright investigation, Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations/20100114. It is the oldest open CCI, and for good reason, as in many of his edits he inserted content from other wikipedia articles without attribution, or would copy from websites/books/journals in rather nasty ways. He also usually did not cite sources, and since earwig (the tool used to detect copyvios), scans the sources in articles and only does a limited google search, it can't find all of the violations, especially in such a big article. Not like that would really matter anyways, since earwig also can't access paywalled journals, books, and newspapers- all of which Richard copied from. This makes it almost impossible to figure out what is and isn't a violation, as I also can't access some of the listed sources. So, extremely reluctantly, (because this is such an extremely important article and clearly has been worked on honestly by others, yourself included), I decided to remove the content Richard had inserted into the article, being careful not to inflict damage on text he did not insert, which is encouraged by CCI guidelines. On the topic of the text removed being suspicious, the section on the East-West Schism was likely ripped from the lede of that article, the section about the filoque had rather suspicious wording ("could never be the exclusive prerogative of any one bishop. All bishops must, like St. Peter, confess Jesus as the Christ and, as such, all are Peter's successors."), the Russian section (Particularly the non-encyclopedic listing the family members), the unsourced slavic and Constinaple sections, and the unsourced third awkening section, all came off as suspicous to me and were therefore removed. Sorry for the essay and butchering the article, 💵Money💵emoji💵^{Talk💸Help out at CCI!} 22:00, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

@Money emoji: okay, thanks; I understand. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 04:33, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

Luther, Zwingli, Calvin

I've removed the three subsections on Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin; they are WP:UNDUE for a broad overview article on the history of Christianity. NB: the prose-section is now down to 61,334 characters.Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 09:04, 7 February 2020 (UTC)