Talk:Christadelphians
|
|
| Contents |
History, stuff about Logos
A lot of the focus on magazines is just a little bit weird; magazines and their editors simply do not have a big role now. As a historical point, it's probably fair enough to make a statement like "the editor of The Christadelphian has held a unique position within the sect" but it's really rather meaningless. For the last 50 years, any authority has been moral.
The Logos is a dead letter: it has very little influence at all in Australia, a small following in North America, and a few ecclesias in the UK. It might warrant a subsection in its own right for historical interest value, but I think that any comment along the lines of
- (There have always been several magazines circulating among the world-wide body of believers. Perhaps the only other magazine to rival "The Christadelphian" in influence is The Logos, based in Adelaide, Australia, though its current influence is very limited. The Logos was always generally regarded as extremely conservative, and some of its critics maintain that it places too great an emphasis upon the personalities of the founders Thomas and Roberts.)
is basically out of place on a general article on the Christadelphians. (It was in a paragraph on John Thomas and Robert Roberts.) DJP 11:42, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)
History about schisms
I have made quite a few amendments to this section. It's only fair to state that I am a Christadelphian, but have tried to be impartial. I have corrected some factual errors, added some clarifications, and attempted to explain the current situation.
User:RJB, 12 October 2004
Restructuring article
I have attempted a bit of re-structuring of the article, as there was a fair amount of overlap between the sections, and the opening paragraph was a bit on the lengthy side. In the process, I've only edited or removed text to improve the flow of the text. RJB, 15 October 2004
Statement of Faith
I have moved this from the "Beliefs" section to the "Organisation" section. The most commonly used Statement of Faith is the basis of ecclesial interaction, but outside of this, it is rarely referred to, and almost never used in evangelisation work. RJB 19:30, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Roberts' Autobiography
I have removed the following sentence, as it didn't appear to add anything of relevance and is tangential to the article on Christadelphians. "Perhaps the most moving passages of Roberts' autobiography are those describing how he dealt with the conviction that his former colleagues would have no part in the coming Kingdom of God." RJB 19:35, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Article at www.religioustolerance.org
I have removed the link to the religioustolerance.org article as it contains several inaccuracies which have not been corrected, despite repeated requests over a period of 9 months.
I would be happy to replace the link as soon as they update their material.
Minor editing.
I have added a few external links to the article. I hope that readers will find them useful. I have also clarified a few points (eg. our conscientious objection is not based on pacifism) thrown in a few facts and figures (Christadelphian population worldwide) and edited the section on the three main doctrines that we reject.
I have added a bit in the History section (and in the Also see section) about the Church of the Blessed Hope (CGAF), and I have also added the word described in the following sentence (about the BASF): Anyone who publicly assents to the doctrines described in this statement and is in good standing in their "home ecclesia" (if they have one) is generally welcome to participate in the activities of any other ecclesia. LJB
Additional changes.
I have reworded a few paragraphs.
How many Christadelphians?
I have amended the figures for the number of Christadelphians. 10-15,000 in the UK is a generally agreed figure; and 6,000 in Australia. Higher figures are sometimes quoted (for example 10,000 in a religious survey of Australia) because children and family members of Christadelphians are included. However, Christadelphians only view as members those who have accepted Christadelphian beliefs and have subsequently been baptised.
Based on the above figures, the figures published by the Christadelphian Bible Mission organisations, the 2001 Canadian Census, and anecdotally from North America, it would seem the worldwide membership of Christadelphia is currently around 50,000.
The focus on ecclesia size in England and Australia seemed a little irrelevant, and comparison with the congregations of other denominations is also problematic due to large variation in congregation size both in Christadelphia and other denominations.
RJB 17:03, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)
- You say: "Higher figures are sometimes quoted (for example 10,000 in a religious survey of Australia) because children and family members of Christadelphians are included." But the Australian figures are taken from a national census, and therefore based upon the personal responses of Australian Christadelphians to the government survey.
- Since, as you correctly observe, "Christadelphians only view as members those who have accepted Christadelphian beliefs and have subsequently been baptised", the 10K figure can only be rejected on the assumption that the Australian Christadelphians have skewed the figures by including unbaptised children and family members on their census forms. However, I do not believe that they have done this (and I speak as an Australian Christadelphian who participated in the national census.) So the figure should be accepted until proven disproved by objective evidence.
- The comparison with Australia and the UK came about because another wiki user had claimed that Christadelphian ecclesias abvove 100 member are extremely rare. I simply wished to correct this categorical statement by qualifying it - and the simplest way to do that was to contrast Australia (where ecclesias are usually large) with the UK (where ecclesias are usually very small.) --Teutonic Knight 10:31, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)
- Apologies, TK, I hadn't noticed your reply - you should have mentioned it when I saw you the other week.
- Regarding the number of Christadelphians in Australia, I was aware that the 10,000 figure came from the national census. The 6,000 figure I used (2003) came from the Christian Research Association of Australia, who state: "...for the purpose of this account, an estimate has been made that there are approximately 6,000 adult Christadelphians in Australia. If the children of Christadelphian families are included, the total number of Christadelphians and their children is likely to be around 10,000, a number similar to that provided by the Australian Census". If the 6,000 figure does not include baptised Christadelphians who are under 18, then it is probably an underestimate.
- Christadelphian statistics is a problematic area, since there is no central organisation. Estimates may vary according to how 'Christadelphian' is defined and how the question is asked. For example, the figures from the 2001 UK Census are certainly an underestimate.
- Sometimes those born to Christadelphian parent(s), but who have never joined the community themselves, ask to be recorded as 'Christadelphian' for official purposes. Those who have left the Christadelphians, or never joined but largely share their beliefs have also been known to identify themselves as 'Christadelphian'.
- The removal of the information about size of ecclesia in the UK and Australia was simply because this seemed to be tangental to a general article on the Christadelphian community worldwide. It is also something very difficult to demonstrate statistically, and consequently comments tend to be based on individual experience. The only estimates I have for average ecclesial size are approx. 38 in the UK, and approx. 47 in Australia. RJB
External links
I have removed a number of external links. Please remember that Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia, not an advertising site. While there may be relevant and interesting links, these should usually be confined to the External Links section, not appended to words or phrases in the article. For more information, please see the Wiki style guidelines relating to links. RJB
I have also edited the External Link section, leaving only one link per site, and removing links to sites that were predominantly for Christadelphians, or where the information contained was largely similar to that on larger sites already linked. RJB
I have added some external links to Bible reading companions, etc. Please feel free to remove them if they are unsuitable for an encyclopedia entry. LJB
Major edit
I have completely rewritten the Beliefs section, tinkered a fair bit with the Organisation and History sections, and removed the duplicated posts from the Talk page. RJB
Well well well
- I've just deleted some antique stuff from this talk page... when you chaps have finished with your extensive conversation about the numbers of Christadelphians in Australia etc, could you please delete it?
- It looks like the "History" section is rather disorganised and also blown out of proportion. The beliefs and organisation are more important, and should be longer. If the tiny splinters are so important, they should maybe get separate sub-sections, maybe separate articles. DJP 12:03, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)
- Alright, I had a go at it myself. If anyone is miffed that I chopped their finely crafted prose, please get it out of the "history". I really do think it was much too long.
- The conscientious objection thing is now a bit odd. But I can't think what to do with it. DJP 12:26, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Another major edit
Good to see things moving forward. I don't know what others think, but I reckon we're making progress. Still a lot of work to do, though.
I've done another major edit to try to accomodate some of DJP's suggestions, and a few other things that were bugging me. Here's an extensive summary, so that people know the reasons, and don't simply revert or amend to previous versions:
1. Removed the opening sentence about Christadelphians believing in the literal return of Christ, etc, and included most of that information in subsequent paragraphs. This was to remove unnecessary repetition, and start at "the beginning" (i.e. faith in God and the Bible).
2. Restored the word "claim" to the sentence about Christadelphian beliefs being based solely on the Bible. As a Christadelphian, I believe that Christadelphian beliefs are based solely on the Bible, but if this article is to have credibility, it has to be written from an objective perspective. Many other Christian communities could write in articles about themselves, that "their beliefs are based solely on the Bible", a claim that we might disagree with. Let's make sure Christadelphians contributing this article don't make the same mistake of adding things which would be seen as subjective.
3. Restored the two paragraphs moved from History to Organisation. "After Roberts' death..." didn't make much sense when Roberts hadn't been mentioned.
4. Removed the italicised part of this sentence: "Hell is understood to refer to the grave, rather than a place of eternal torment, in this sense it is more in line with the Old Testament description of Hell as Sheol." Not the clearest English, and I'm not sure how we can say that hell is described as Sheol? However, the link to the Sheol article would be good. Perhaps someone would like to have another go and making a connection?
5. Transferred most of the information about John Thomas to the John Thomas page. Now he has his own page, he doesn't need a biography on the Christadelphian page!
6. As DJP suggested, I have significantly cut the History section. I'm largely responsible for its former length. In an effort to be conciliatory, I tried to include most of what had been written by others, but this required a lot of padding, in order to correct the impression that Christadelphian history consisted solely of divisions, and that nothing much has happened since the death of Robert Roberts. However, much of the Christadelphian history covered is of little relevance to the average Christadelphian today, or for an encyclopaedic summary.
7. Revised the section on factions/fellowships. Terminology such as "clean flesh", "resurrectional responsibility", "Birmingham Central" was removed. These mean next to nothing without further explanation, and a wiki article really isn't the place to discuss these details.
8. Removed several links - see Wikipedia:External_links for some useful advice. LJB, I removed the Bible reading links, as I felt they would be better suited to an article on Bible reading, than one on Christadelphians. I did include a link to "The Bible Companion" from a mention in the article itself, but then removed this in further edits. I also removed a) the Christadelphian magazine link - this doesn't really provide any information that the other links don't, and had less relevance once the mention of the magazine in the article had been removed. b) the Australian Old Paths site. Seeing the Old Paths fellowship is mentioned in the article, it is valuable to have a link to an Old Paths site. However, the Australian Old Paths did not appear to provide much information that wasn't already on the other linked sites, such as the UK Old Paths site. It appeared to be mainly for one ecclesia, whereas the UK Old Paths site already directs readers to Old Paths ecclesias worldwide.
9. Finally, I merged the History and Organisation sections, and substantially edited them. This has resulted in a long section, but several points such as the adoption of the name Christadelphian, and the position on conscientious objection fitted well under both sections, and would result in unnecessary overlap. I have done this as a separate edit, so if people don't agree they can reverse it without reversing most of the edits mentioned above.
On a general note, it's helpful if users sign in and put a note about reasons for major edits on the Talk page, rather than just amending to previous versions - it makes it easier to incorport. As DJP says, it would also be good to see more work on the Beliefs section. As most of the contributors to the article seem to be Christadelphians, I'm sure we'd agree that the most important thing we want to communicate (though objectively please!) is our distinctive beliefs. Rather than tinkering with the sections about fellowships or external links (or in my case, arguing about how many Christadelphians there are in Australia!), I'm sure the article would benefit from a concerted focus on the Beliefs section. RJB 195.184.168.227 18:21, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)
- Jolly good work. You're a good talker aren't you. :) Teasing. I think it's pretty good as is. Still pretty peculiar, but if I died now I would not be unhappy that the Christadelphian Wikipedia article was incomplete. DJP 02:09, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)
The last revert
No offence to whoever added the old paths info, but it seems to me that this article should deal primarily with mainstream christadelphianism, and if additional details are needed for differing 'flavours' they should break out to other articles and then link to them. It seems to me that if we started including a history of every group of ecclesias that split and/or rejoined and the reasons why, and where they are, etc, etc it will dilute the point of the article. If a separate article is created and linked to, then there is ample room for as much detail as is desired.
Some more editing
I've been editing some recent edits :D 1. New para about the acceptance of Christadelphians in Church of the Blessed Hope congregrations seemed more relevant to the CBH article, to which I moved it. 2. The Carelinks publications link seemed more suited to the Christadelphian Books section. 3. A contributor made one americanization (or americanisation), to I consistificated the whole article to Americanese (I'm not a native speaker so please correct if necessary). 4. I restored the 'claim to' in the first paragraph. Please see the reasons I gave above. I don't like the sceptical connotations of 'claim to' either, but I can't think of a reasonable alternative. Perhaps the whole sentence needs rephrasing. RJB
Suggestions re external links
It would nice if people actually contributed to the article rather than just adding further external links. I've tried to edit links as I saw fit, but there seems to be some disagreement about what links are suitable. If you disagree, please discuss here, rather than simply repeatedly adding links that have already been deleted. RJB