Talk:Church (Christian)

Preparing for page moves

Previous discussion seems to indicate that there is some consensus to have separate articles on church qua building, church qua gathering of worshippers, and several other senses of the term. Before any changes are made, I think it would be a good idea first to hammer down exactly how we're going to do this. Here some synthesis of the proposals from above, which I personally find favorable:

• church (building) for what the present article currently describes.
• church (body) for a body of worshippers
• Church will serve as a disambiguation page and also contain information on the senses of the term that do not yet (or likely never will) have articles. From Nowhither's list:
  • A local community of Christians who meet together regularly, often having clear standards or rituals for membership ("I belong to this church."
  • The primary regular, usually weekly, meeting of such a group ("I'm going to church.")
  • The legal/corporate/organizational structure of such a group ("The church has title to 3 acres.")
  • A Christian denomination ("My church has local congregations in 20 cities.")
  • All followers of Jesus, worldwide ("The invisible church includes people in every nation.")
  • All Christians (or just those of a particular denomination) living in or near a particular city ("The Pope is theoretically just the bishop of the church in Rome.")
  • The leadership hierarchy of a Christian denomination, esp. of the Roman Catholic Church ("The church has repressed the laity for centuries.")
  • Clergy work, as a profession ("The younger sons inherited no land, and so found other professions; the second went to the army, the third, to the church.")
  • A building whose primary use is as a meeting place for a Christian congregation ("My church is on 3rd Street.")
• Church (disambiguation) will redirect to church or be deleted (I assume the former is more likely to happen).

So what does everyone think? Simões (^talk/_contribs) 00:02, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

If we must have two articles, then the disambiguation plan you mentioned will work quite nicely, I believe. It won't necessarily be a problem if there are some duplicate definitions (e.g., explaining in both building and community the origin of the word church), as people will usually only be looking for one article anyway. Even if they read both, a little bit of duplication is not a problem, and is quite common on Wikipedia. -Patstuart^{(talk)(contribs)} 00:13, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

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The suggestion:

• church (building) for buildings and those lovely photos etc.
• church (body) for a body of worshippers
• Church will serve as a disambiguation page and also contain information on the senses of the term that do not yet (or likely never will) have articles.

Sounds very agreeable to me. Psalmuel (talk)

I do not think church (body) is very clear. The use of "body" in this sense is technical and is not likely to be understood by readers who are not already familiar with the subject. It is likely to be misunderstood as referring to the human body, as if "church" was a name of a bodily organ. I suggest church (group) or church (organization). --FOo 01:06, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree with this comment. Perhaps church (congregation)? I think Church (organisation) might be more appropriate for the church as an institution (vis state) or as a corporation. Then I am unsure of the relationship between the concept of Church (body) and Ecclesia (Church) which I haven't seen mentioned here. I agree with Church as a disambiguation page, and Church (building). -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 01:20, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

I just saw that "Church (congregation)" pretty much already exists as the stub congregation (worship). I suppose the disambig page can point to that instead of a new article. Simões (^talk/_contribs) 01:26, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

I get the impression that 'congregation (worship)' is related to a more specific gathering than the 'church (body)' we are talking about here. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 19:08, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

In order to retain the page histories we are going to have move the article currently at Church Buildings to Church (building), which is currently a redirect. There appears to be consensus for that much. The article at Church (disambiguation) could also be moved here to Church (this also seems agreed). We just need to decide what to call the page about church community/bodies/groups, so we can move this page to the new name. Perhaps someone could elaborate a definition so we can determine a suitable name. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 19:08, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

update, User:Psalmuel has decided to create another article at Church (Origin) to make his point. This will obviously have to be renamed. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 20:28, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Or deleted. There's no content in that mess worth keeping. We can create the new article just as easily once a consensus is reached, so I went ahead and prod'ed it. Simões (^talk/_contribs) 20:50, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Initial page moves

I moved the contents of Church Buildings and its talk page to church (building). I think a better course of action would have been to have an administrator delete church (building) and then move Church Buildings to it so the talk page history will follow, but I guess this will do well enough without getting an administrator involved. I've come to the conclusion that page moving is way too powerful of a tool for regular users to have.

What's left is to move the contents of church (disambiguation) to church. I'd do that, too, but I don't have time at the moment to fix all the double redirects it would create. Simões (^talk/_contribs) 21:16, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Update: zzuuzz has pointed out on my talk page that by WP:MOVE we should always consider it worth getting an administrator involved in this type of fiasco. I'll go ahead and revert my own changes (if someone else doesn't beat me to it). Simões (^talk/_contribs) 21:21, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

• This mess needs to be cleaned up. Totally agree with Church as disamb page, and Church (building) containing the current info in Church Buildings. I'm not sure why we need a Church (body) article, can't this definition just be one sentence on the disamb page? --JW1805 (Talk) 01:32, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Hi, I'm an admin. I've gone ahead and moved Church Buildings to Church (building). I'll be offline for the next three days, but after that, please let me know if I can help any more - there seem to be a number of moves necessary? Cheers. -GTBacchus^(talk) 06:27, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

I think all remains to be done for now is to delete church (Origin) and move church (disambiguation) to here. From there, we'll work on fleshing out the disambiguation page and anything else that needs to be done (and can be done without the assistance of an administrator). Thanks for your help! Simões (^talk/_contribs) 19:38, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Sounds good. Move the disambiguation page here. Where shall we put the content that is currently here? How about church (group)? -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 22:33, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

church (group) sounds acceptable to me. Is there enough salvagable content on this article to warrant it being kept there, though? Simões (^talk/_contribs) 22:55, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm going to suggest that the material currently in this article is merged into the article at Ecclesia (Church). The content repeatedly mentions εκκλησια - ekklesia, and seems to be about nothing much else. It would expand the historical element to that article. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 19:29, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree. We need two more pages from Nowhither's list.

* "church" as a local group/gathering, of which there is more than one, as distinct from the global Church. This is used both in everday speech and has biblical basis (e.g. Acts 14:23, Rev 1:11).

* "the Church" as a political or historical entity in civil society. This is important even in contemporary thought - eg. The separation of church and state. -- nigelhenry ^(talk) 11:14, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

I think we've put off finishing this task for long enough now. What were we trying to do again? ;)

Okay, so we're:

• merging this page with Ecclesia (church).
• moving church (disambiguation) to here.

With each article having its own talk page, this should be nice and messy. How should we begin? Simões (^talk/_contribs) 07:41, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Agree to merging existing page here with Ecclesia (church) but keep merged article here and keep disambiguation where it is User:itohacs Itohacs 13:07, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

The merge effort seems to have petered out. Anyone ready to get it going again?--Editor2020 (talk) 03:08, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Deleted Change

My recent edit was reverted, and Simoes said to see the disambiguation page. I did, and it says that "Church" is a body of people who share a faith, and points to the page I edited. Thus, it is not only Christian. Suggest page "Church (Christian)" to replace this page, and page "Church" for all organizations which call themselves churches. And, edit the disambiguation page to say: Church a body of people who share a faith Church a body of people who share the Christian faith

But if this page is just about a body of people who share a Christian faith, then my edit should stand. Will wait a while and change it back.

Also, a church is a legal thing, isn't it? This general "chruch" page has to have a general definition, like the one I supplied.

Maybe you are fixing this, but putting "Church" into the search and hitting GO, takes me right to the page I edited.

No, I'm gonna revert to my edit, till this is straightened out. People don't need to be told, even for a moment, that "Church refers to the group or body of persons who share faith based in Christianity."

Ok, now there exists *Church (Christianity), a body of people who share the Christian faith.

Which has of now the same text as

• Church, a body of people who share a faith.

Martinphi 22:21, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

P.S. This should be seen as an emergency POV edit, due to the rather extreme nature of having "Church" refer only to Christianity. I'm sure it will get changed to another organization when all this is straightened out.

Martinphi 22:30, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Hi Martinphi. Your edit was just bad timing. This page is currently at a critical point in terms of what it will contain in the future, and several other articles will be affected by what happens here. If you see the above discussion you will notice that we were just about to have this article moved. However, for my part anyway, I have changed my view. The content of this article has changed a fair bit since we started this discussion, and it has also become apparent that nobody is really quite sure what this article is about, least of all me. ISTM it may be best to expand this article to fully disambiguate the different concepts of 'church', including any secular uses of this concept. A lot has already been written about the origin of the term in the bible. There is some prime copyfodder in the Ecclesia (church) article which could be merged here to supplement it. There could be short sections on the relationship between churches and church buildings, and non-Christian churches (eg Church of Scientology), something about church and state or organised churches, the relevance of church services or meetings, etc all leading off to other articles. But all in relation to this group of people known as 'church' (Christian or otherwise). We seem to already have a few section suggestions from previous discussions. The current disambiguation page is probably OK where it is, as long as the full article on church (building) is prominently linked from somewhere, I think this article will trump a diambiguation page here through its coverage of the primary uses of the term, church. My view is now that we should keep and expand this article. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 22:46, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, thanks for your kind reply Zzuuzz, I thought later I might have been stepping on toes a little too much in that edit, since I'm new to this page. Is there any real alternative to having "Church" be a general article and a nexus point for other articles, since this is the page people hit first? The Origins part works well for a general page.

Martinphi 00:22, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure that this is the primary usage of the term. The context I hear it most often is actually referring to buildings. Webster's dictionary also supports this, listing the building definition first[1]. So by this standard, Church (building) should be here. On the other hand, it is true that at least a couple different senses of the term have enough currency of usage that many looking up the church article will find that it isn't referring to the sense in which they're interested. These considerations, I think, warrants going with the original plan of moving Church (disambiguation) to here and merging the present content with Ecclesia (church). Simões (^talk/_contribs) 20:29, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Church (Christianity)

• I don't get it; Church (Christianity) is identical to Church. I'm making church (christianity) a redirect. —EdGl 03:28, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

etymology needed

I see - oddly enough - no discussion about the etymology of this word. It is not a Greek word but Saxon-Nordic or perhaps Germanic. (kirk). Should at least be mentioned.Brosi 22:42, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Should there not be a citation for the article's statement that the word church is of pre-Christian Teutonic origin? All the dictionaries I have seen derive the Old English cirice from the Greek κυριακον (δωμα), that is, "the Lord's (house)", although they offer no explanation for English's having preferred to borrow this term rather than εκκλησια ("summoned meeting," whence ecclesiastic). Bro. Neal 18:22, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Merge "Ecclesia (Church)"

I've proposed merging Ecclesia (Church) into this article. They are discussing the same topic (although each article has some unique content). Given the philosophy that a "word" is not in and of itself a topic these two should not be separate topics (to the extent that the individual words deserve discussion those discussions can happen in one article).

Comments?

--Mcorazao 14:26, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Actually, let me extend commentary here. Although both articles ostensibly can be construed to discuss individual church congregations they both devote a lot of attention to discussing the Christian Church as a whole. As such they are both largely redundant with the Christian Church article. I would argue that there is some merit in distinguishing betweent the Church as a whole and a church congregation. But if this is really the intent then this article needs to be rewritten/refocused or else both of these articles should be merged into Christian Church. Perhaps that means that this article should be retitled?

--Mcorazao 14:34, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

don't merge The Church article is the main article and explains other usages such as church as a building church (building) and church as a universal collection of people church universal. Ecclesia (church) article should be about the greek concept as it applies to the church. MPS 20:59, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback.

I'm not sure I understand your points.

• Are you saying that Church is intended to be a disambig page. There already is a disambig page for Church. Regardless this page has too much content to be a disambig.
• Are you saying that Church is a broad summary of different senses of the word Church? I would say that this is inappropriate in that this is just masking a dictionary entry (which violates Wikpedia policy) as an encyclopedia article.
• What sort of "Greek concept" are you referring to? The Ecclesia (church) article does not discuss any "Greek concept". It provides a short etymology of the word Ecclesia but that, by itself, is just dictionary content and not an "topic". The subject matter as it stands is redundant. If you're saying that the article should be rewritten to discuss something different can you elaborate on that "something"?

For sanity's sake, let's forget for a moment what any of the articles are titled and focus on what specific topics are being covered by each and what is the rationale for having separate articles.

--Mcorazao 14:51, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

I would support a merger of the two articles. I think what one editor is suggesting with regard to the "Greek concept" of "ecclesia" is perhaps the desire for a word study, relating "ecclesia" to its use Greek/Roman governmental term, as well as its use in the Septuagint as a translation for "congregation" (as specially used in the Pentateuch). Whether or not this is what the editor is referring to, I think the articles on Church and Ecclesia should be merged, and the concept of "ecclesia" could be fleshed out either here or in the Ecclesiology article. Timotheos 17:41, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

On further checking, I see that what I was talking about is indeed discussed in the Ecclesiology article, and I think that's the best place for it. Regardless, I still support a merge of the two articles in question. (And I would probably support a merge of both into Ecclesiology if that were proposed.) :-) Timotheos 17:45, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

• Don't Merge The articles deal with similar, but still seperate subjects. Merging the two articles will not improve Wikipedia, but simply make things more complicated. --TotesBoats 05:03, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Grammar is not there

The first sentence of the main body of this article has been edited so much that it has lost most meaning. Someone has thrown in an ending parenthesis, some dashes, and there are two main verbs (both of them 'is'). Can someone who knows what the point of the sentence is supposed to be clean it up?

The Christian word "Church" is used erroneously for the Greek "εκκλησία" — ekklesia, ref. Strong's Concordance — 1577, Bauer's, Thayer's, and Moulton's) is mentioned in the New Testament.

Atreys 15:03, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

basics

High-importance. Start-class. I'd like to help. I'm adding some basic information to get started. Let me know if I should keep going along these lines, or what. Jonathan Tweet 03:51, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Irony of the article

The article stresses the original meaning of the word church as people but fails to notice the ironic titles under photos of buildings as churches ie the modern meaning of the word. 82.18.179.158 (talk) 15:10, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

 Done. I've removed all images of buildings. -- Lea (talk) 00:36, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Etymology

From the Etymology section: "meaning "of the lord" and later began to replace the Greek ekklesia and basilica within English-speaking Christendom, c. AD 300,"

Not meaning to quibble, but there was no English-speaking Christendom in AD 300.--Editor2020 (talk) 03:14, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Since no one has posted a reply in 11 days, I'll change this obviously untrue statement, which conflicts with the reference given.--Editor2020 (talk) 02:43, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Split

This article does not talk about "Church" in a non-Christian anywhere, nor do I think that would add benefit to the article. It mostly deals with it as a word and as a Christian Church idea.

We should split it into Christian Church, Church (disambiguation), and Church (building).--Carlaude (talk) 14:26, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

This article (Church) is almost entirely about the Christian church. As church almost always refers to the Christian church, shouldn't the existing content of this article be merged into Christian Church, Church (Christianity) be made into a redirect to Christian Church (or viceversa), and the Church article be a very short non-Christian-oriented article comprising the existing introduction and etymology and some links and references? Quite possibly other articles are entirely about the Christian Church and should also be merged. Pol098 (talk) 16:45, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes-- existing content of this article be merged into Christian Church or (the etymology) on a short disambiguation page. --Carlaude (talk) 17:58, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Against The article is specific and gives important information on differences between 'church' in christian denominations. 'Church' in non-christian denominations is something completely different. The better the difference is illustrated, the more encyclopedic the article become. --Stijn Calle (talk) 16:40, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

But this article does not give information on differences between 'church' in christian and non-christian denominations... have you looked at it? --Carlaude (talk) 16:47, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

After a week, this looks good consensus to me. --Carlaude (talk) 20:19, 28 May 2008 (UTC)