Talk:Baptist beliefs

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Confusing
"Baptist denominations cannot directly enforce any kind of theological or practical orthodoxy among their constituent congregations. The denomination can choose not to accept the money or participation of congregations whose beliefs or practices are outside whatever norms the group has established. Likewise, they can refuse to recognize the ministerial credentials of clergy (which negatively affects the ability of chaplains to be accepted into the military), and set boundaries for orthodoxy for institutions, such as universities, seminaries, schools, and hospitals) owned or operated by the denomination."

This section confuses me. What entity is being referred to here as a "denomination"? Wouldn't "convention" be more appropriate? If there are no objections I'll change it.

66.11.174.77

merge

 * The following discussion is archived. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

As far as I can tell, "Baptist Distinctives" is a synonym for "Baptist beliefs". So I think one of them should be converted to a single redirect to the other. The current content of both articles seems to support the idea that they are synonyms -- both articles are almost entirely made up of a detailed examination of the "BAPTIST" acrostic. --68.0.124.33 (talk) 05:06, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

I strongly disagree! They should be kept separate! "Baptist Beliefs" refer more to theological perspectives. Many of these beliefs may be synonymous with other Christian denominations' beliefs. "Baptist Distinctives," on the other hand, refer to interpretations, doctrines and organizational principles that are "distinctively" Baptist. One example is the "autonomy of the local church." This distinctive emphasizes the unique authority of the local church to govern itself. This Baptist understanding is not exactly a "belief" - but more accurately a "distinctive" way of interpreting scripture and of defining relationships within the Church. Revtcb (talk) 18:50, 2 April 2008 (UTC) RevTCB

Don't Merge. Yes I believe that the Baptist Distinctives are synonymous with Baptist beliefs but I believe that there is a practical reason for keeping them separate. When someone hears the term "Baptist Distinctives" and wants to know what they are they can simply search engine "Baptist Distinctives" and they can quickly find out what this simple list of distinctives is rather than digging thru all the possible compilations of "Baptist Beliefs". A link would be appropriate though. Josh Davenport, Spencer, Iowa —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.199.213.69 (talk) 00:46, 9 August 2008 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.
 * Because the former Baptist Distinctives article was largely copied from a website, and the only other material was already entirely included within Baptist beliefs, I have redirected Baptist Distinctives to Baptist beliefs. If anybody disagrees, please provide a reliable source that supports treating this concept as two distinct articles. This redirect satisfies the point raised by the second objector above. The first objector offered no support for their position. Novaseminary (talk) 02:21, 7 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Strange that you would do this on the basis of a closed discussion. Regardless, did you add the source from the other article to this one? Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:42, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

picture
An editor has deleted a picture with a vague reference to policy. He or she should bring it here first. The picture directly illustrates what the text of the article says, and therefore improves the article. If the editor feels that text in the article is unverified, he should place a citation needed tag, where appropriate. Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:57, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Targeted redirect until this article can be fixed
Would eds oppose redirecting this article to Baptists for the time being. This article is nearly unsourced and full of OR and essay text. The section of Baptists I would redirect this to is not good, but at least maybe this subject could grow in one place, with sources, until it is ready for splitting and then condensing to summary style in the main article. Otherwise, culling out the unsourced material from this version of this article will leave it not much more than a stub (which is not necessarily inherently bad, though it would be more likely to grow from a main article, I think). Novaseminary (talk) 01:05, 4 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Oppose. Is this article great? No. Not many are.  Nonetheless, there is no point in throwing it all away.  It does have over twenty footnotes and other sources.  Besides, you don't start erasing articles under most circumstances without tagging for improvement for a very long time. Generally, only challenged, or likely to be challenged material needs cites (the rest just needs to be verifiable).  So, if you need to heavily tag OR go ahead and try that to see if it really is OR, or just some less than diligent editor.Alanscottwalker (talk) 01:48, 4 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree with Alan that while the article could use improvement and better sourcing, it's not in such a dire condition that it needs to be reduced to a redirect. Angr (talk) 05:38, 4 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Okay. I'll tag everything in the near future. Since this has been top-level tagged since 2007, I am not too optimistic. In the event the tags are not addressed, I'll then address them by adding sources, resording, or removing text. Novaseminary (talk) 16:09, 4 October 2011 (UTC)
 * You may wish to also contact prior editors involved here, on their talk pages, to see if they want to improve this (I left a note on this at the project page) but you are right this article is pretty poor. You could also contact individual editors from the project page.  Although, I hate to see knowledge wasted, I agree at some point this article needs lot of TLC, or it should die.  But the right way to do that is by a wide community consensus process, partly because this is not an unimportant topic. Wiki should have an article that covers this.Alanscottwalker (talk) 18:52, 4 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I added a see also to the 1911 Encyclopdia Britannica, which could help some. Alanscottwalker (talk) 19:32, 4 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Oppose. I suggest keeping it. It is of questionable quality, but redirecting it will most probably be a one way street: it will never get fixed that way. A redirect amounts to an Afd, so if you want to redirect need an Afd really. History2007 (talk) 17:20, 5 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree that an Afd would be the way to go. However, because of the notability of this topic, it seems to me, the proper outcome would be to reduce sections and the article to a stub, not redirect (assuming no one steps up to improve in the next several months.)Alanscottwalker (talk) 18:31, 5 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes, an Afd will quickly establish that it deserves to be an article by itself, regardless of the serious shortcomings of the current content - over 50% of which needs to get axed. Interestingly enough, during the Afd help may arrive - I have seen that happen. History2007 (talk) 08:53, 6 October 2011 (UTC)
 * That might bring help, but I wouldn't go that route. My proposal was not offerred as an alternative to deletion, but rather as a roadmap to fix it in Baptists first and then expand it appropriately here. But I would be satisfied stubbifying this. I do think this should be cut to a stub (or really more an outline) soon, not months from now. It wouldn't be wasting knowledge, since a good deal leaves misimpressions, some is presented as universal when it represents a subset, and none of it is sourced sufficiently for an article on a potentially sensitive religious topic. Novaseminary (talk) 15:01, 6 October 2011 (UTC)