Talk:Love of Christ

Love of Christ was a Philosophy and religion good articles nominee, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There may be suggestions below for improving the article. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
February 4, 2012	Good article nominee	Not listed

A fact from this article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "Did you know?" column on January 16, 2012.

The text of the entry was: Did you know ... that Saint Benedict wanted his monks to prefer nothing to the love of Christ?

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Thank you

for writing this important article, and Conratulations on making the main page with it! Amandajm (talk) 10:38, 16 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. The Thorvaldsen image really brought the article together. As for making it to the main page, as they say "all one needs is a heartbeat and a modem"... But thanks in any case. History2007 (talk) 10:54, 16 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Love of Christ/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: InTheAM (talk · contribs) 03:41, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The article is written well and should not take too much more work to be a good article. I moved some quotes around and changed some punctuation so check that and decide if that is okay. Let me know if you have questions about that. My review is below.

1. Well Written

(a)Prose

"John 1-11" in Love of Christ for his followers section - This is chapters 1 to 11, correct? Maybe it should read, "the first eleven chapters of John."
In John 13:34-35, during the Last Supper, after the departure of Judas, and just before the start of the Farewell Discourse, Jesus gives a new commandment to his eleven remaining disciples: "Love one another; as I have loved you" and states that: "By this shall all men know that you are my disciples." — There has to be a better way to do this than to have two colons in the sentence.

(b)MOS

Lead and layout are good.

2. Factually accurate and verifiable

This quote: "God loves Christ, Christ loves God, God loves humanity, and Christians love God through their love for Christ". needs a reference right after it. I'm guessing it's the next one, but direct quotes need to be referenced.

Sources seem good. I cannot tell if there are any copyright issues because I cannot access the sources.

3. Broad in its coverage

Unsure

4. Neutral

Unsure

5. Stable

Article is stable. No edit wars.

6. Illustrated

Images are tagged, appropriate and relevant. Captions are good.

I have asked for a second opinion on the article. I am not sure about the Neutrality and the Broadness of the article. The writing and references seem good, though. InTheAM 15:47, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Second opinion from He to Hecuba

Prose - prose quality is good, but you should correct the problems described above. Minor thing: I would link to the NIV if you have to use a modern translation of the Bible. I personally would link to the Greek, because there are significant disputes concerning the translation of many passages in John, but I understand that for Wikipedia's audience this may not be ideal. If you can find a way to link to Greek/NIV or KJV parallel text this would be ideal.

Factually accurate and reliable - the sentence "These two aspects are not distinct in Christian teachings—the love for Christ is a reflection of his love for his followers." needs a citation if it is to be kept in the article. I would strongly suggest removing this sentence, because it is potentially contentious. Some theologians would argue that the love of Christ is categorically different to any human love. Generally reliable otherwise.

Broad in its coverage - if I had been the initial reviewer, I'm afraid I would have failed the article immediately on this. No mention of the Gospel of St. Matthew (!) - the synoptics need to be covered properly in the article. There is no content on the non-canonical Gospels and other such texts either (although this is less important, it is still significant). You also need to cover the theological history of the concept, and provide decent coverage of all the most significant commentators - the article, for instance, doesn't cover Aquinas at all. Differences in interpretation of the love of Christ between different forms of Christianity and in non-Christian religions where Jesus is a major figure (Mormonism and Islam probably should have a paragraph each). I would split the article into sections per author and not conceptually. At the moment the article is very bitty - I suspect a comprehensive article would be about five times longer at least. Please don't be disheartened, though, because what you have done so far is really excellent. I suggest you move parts of the introduction into the main body of text, and write a more general introduction to the topic. Sources can be easily found over the internet.

Neutrality, Stability and Images are all fine. Good luck in your further work on the article. --He to Hecuba (talk) 22:15, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your comments He to Hecuba. But sorry the article is on love of Christ, and mostly explores the basic Christological themes which excludes Islam (which does not consider Jesus as the Christ) and some of the Mormon views, so that can not be done and is a separate issue. As for the synopics, the article states that word "love" appears more times in the Gospel of John than in the other three gospels combined. Indeed the synoptics do not have a great deal of Christology on that. I can expand that a little but John and Paul are the key players here. And as a side comment, I could not care less about a GA mark, it may just take work and it means nothing to me in the end. History2007 (talk) 01:40, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Well, obviously the focus is going to be on Christology. But we should include all relevant views, whether strictly Christian or not. The synoptic gospels need to given greater coverage than they currently are (yes, John and Paul contributed more significantly than the synoptics, but we musn't give them undue weight), and there are some really major thinkers (such as Aquinas) who go unmentioned. Sure, it's a good basic summary, but a good article on the topic should go more in depth. This isn't a simple subject which can be done in a few hundred words. --He to Hecuba (talk) 01:46, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, this is an article on Christological perspective and the lede says it is about "Christian belief". I see no reason for bringing Islamic views into it. "Love of Christ" is a specific term and a specific concept in Christology that needs a treatment on its own. There is no Islamic Christology, obviously. The point on Aquinas, yes, a book for it is referenced at the end but I have now added Aquinas related views anyway. History2007 (talk) 10:15, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the second opinion. I had similar reservations about the broadness, which is why I asked for another look. The article will not be listed at this time. InTheAM 15:11, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Multiple issues?

This page has been tagged as having "multiple issues" - most notably, a lack of neutrality. However, I can't see a great deal of bias in it; most of it is well-sourced and explicitly attributed to various past theologians, rather than being original research by evangelicals. Can anyone see any obvious examples of destructive bias? Michaelmas1957 12:19, 26 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. The neutrality and conflict of interest tags seem off. If you look in the GA Review above, I thought the neutrality was fine then. So did the other reviewer. As far as general cleanup goes, I think the article is pretty well-written. InTheAM 13:06, 26 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]