Talk:Christianity and violence/Archive 1

Including Christians != Christian
If you punch me in the face and I punch you back then I failed to follow Christ's exhortation to turn the other cheek (though there is a limit clearly if you weight Scripture against itself). The violence I commit is not Christian violence but violence by a Christian. Nor is the fact that I'm a Christian pertinent to the violence committed, self defence is not inconsistent, say, with The Golden Rule. Several example, like the Cedars example for the Palestinian conflict fall in this category. Palestianians and Lebanese (according to this same article) are fighting and both sides have Muslims and Christians (by which I think they mean members from families with a tradition of Islamic or Christian faith; there are no atheists on either side???) so how is this Christian violence, answer it's not it's a territorial conflict which happens to involve Christians. This would be a reasonable illustration if the article were discussing whether it is consistent for Christians to fight in a war, but it is not. Pbhj (talk) 03:25, 20 July 2009 (UTC)


 * "I apologize for the horror of war and what I did in this civil war in the name of `Lebanon' or `the cause' or `Christianity'... I apologize because while defending what I thought was Christianity I was not practising any kind of true Christianity which is the love of others free from violence." - clearly, Shaftari is a religious man who fought because he believed it was the right thing to do as a Christian, and who later repented partly due to his Christian beliefs. Josh Keen (talk) 10:33, 29 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Pbhj, I understand your general argument but think it an instance of no true Scotsman. As C. S. Lewis says in the preface toMere Christianity any attempt to "spiritualize" the word 'Christian' will reduce its usefulness. After all who am I to judge who is a Christian and who is not? Indeed, C. S. Lewis addresses your concerns explicitly--and I agree with his analysis wholeheartedly--when he says: "When a man who accepts the Christian doctrine lives unworthily of it, it is much clearer to say he is a bad Christian than to say he is not a Christian."...That said, I've yet to read the article in its entirety and therefore can't judge issues revolving around specific content.


 * Glancing at this page I see many similar arguments. I think my objection applies to a majority. Frayr (talk) 17:41, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
 * The problem is Frayr that some people are not Scotsmen. In your quote he says: "When a man who accepts the Christian doctrine; but, for example only those being purposefully obstructive would consider the "Sons of Freedom" to accept the Christian doctrine. Pbhj (talk) 00:07, 3 August 2009 (UTC)
 * You tried to call Cromwell's actions "Jewish violence"...this isn't about the "Sons of Freedom". Maybe if you made more focused arguments on particular sections instead of trying to spin Cromwell, and as many other instances as possible, you'd actually make progress. Frayr (talk) 00:20, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Could we not keep discussion of Cromwell in that section, I said "If Cromwell modeled the invasion on the Book of Joshua then the action would be at best Jewish violence.". I'd stand by that, unless the point about it being modeled on Joshua is moot, in which case there needs to be some other justification for the entry. The example of Sons of Freedom above is an example of a group who are clearly not Christians who are included in this article for some reason. Basically it seems any group with pseudo-Christian language, emblems or religious activities appear to be included. The least definition of "Christian" is a hard question for purposes here I'd say a person/people who believe in
 * triune creator God,
 * deity and bodily presence on Earth of Jesus Christ,
 * authority of the Bible,
 * death of Christ as a propitiation for sin, His resurrection
 * belief in the Holy Spirit,
 * belief in eternal life
 * The nicene creed might be a better reference to base the definition on though I suspect people would find that too tight a definition. Groups that don't meet the agreed definition of Christian should be removed; perhaps to an article on "Sects and violence" or "Religious groups and violence" or the information could just be re-merged with the individual groups articles. Pbhj (talk) 01:36, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Christian sounding name !
Christian ==

Just because a group has a name that mentions "God", or even Jesus, it doesn't mean that group is Christian. None of the groups in the section [|Other_national_groups] is a Christian group, even by a large stretch of the term Christian. For example "God's Army" was formed by guerrillas fighting against being ethnically cleansed, they're from the Karen people who have a mixed religious background including elements of Animism, Buddhism and Christianity. Pbhj (talk) 03:38, 20 July 2009 (UTC)


 * If a reliable source identifies them as Christian, then Wikipedia can too. Josh Keen (talk) 10:34, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Sons of Freedom is most easily analysed as it relies on one citation, Time magazine calls them "religious anarchists" and doesn't mention the word Christian in the article.
 * LRA is harder to analyse quickly, there are about 10 sources mentioned, BBC and The Guardian don't mention Christianity, NYT says it's spiritualism mixed with Christianity. Matthew Green, the main source of early reports is in The Times [of London] article Editors would call him from London to demand, “Get the bit about the Ten Commandments up high.” Even when he travelled to northern Uganda to talk to victims it was just for a few days to write the stereotyped story of “rebels in an obscure corner of Africa doing awful things to innocent people”. . That is the only 'christian' part was emphasised to sell papers. The FT article is by Green, he talks to the child hood friend of Joseph Kony the central figure of the LRA (described in more than one article mentioned here as maniacal or just mad) who describes Kony as a witch-doctor. Yes Green gives a quote showing Kony misquoting and misapplying a single New Testament scripture. So, does quoting the bible make someone a Christian? Green doesn't call him a Christian, he seems best placed, he calls him a "mystic" one of several Acholi mystics that started the LRA by abducting kids and turning them into fighters by threat of violence. On the point of the Ten Commandments he (Green) says Ugandan newspapers described him as a self-styled prophet who wanted to rule according to the Ten Commandments.. Green seems to think that the 2005 press conference was the first time Kony spoke to journalists.
 * None of the major news outlets describe Kony or his followers as Christians (in citations) he's not on record as claiming to be a Christian or talking about Jesus it seems. The only reference made to the teachings of Jesus is him quoting the bit Jesus says not to do as something to do. "You have heard that it was said, 'Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.'[g] 39But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. (NIV).
 * Which reliable sources did you mean, some uncited ones presumably? You should really argue for LRA to be described as Christian rather than syncretic first, then when you've demonstrated that you can mention their atrocities here. Pbhj (talk) 02:12, 3 August 2009 (UTC)


 * " the Lord's Resistance Army is a group of militant Christian fundamentalists" The scars of death: children abducted by the Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda‎ - Page 61
 * From "The scars of death: children abducted by the Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda" by Human Rights Watch, http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=7u593EKw-ngC, p.61-62. [Note this is my retyping and so E&OE] Here's the full quote that you excerpted from, it's clearly presenting a contrary view to yours and says that calling them Christian fundamentalists is misleading (ie wrong).
 * "To the limited extent that the conflict has received foreign press coverage the media has presented the Lord's Resistance Army in straightforward, if disapproving terms: to the media, the Lords' Resistance Army is a group of militant Christian fundamentalists [... some quote all taken from articles which probably rely on Green to some extent, all from articles years before Kony had spoken to the press ...]"
 * "[p.62] This presents us with a familiar story; after all, the violence of 'religious fanatics' appears, at first glance, to offer an explanation for the violence in northern Uganda. But as the children's testimonies demonstrate, to view the Lords Resistance Army as 'Christian fundamentalists' is a misleading oversimplification."
 * The Acholi are syncretic spiritualists, ancestor worshippers, who have adopted some Christian (and Muslim) dogma and trappings. Page 66 is a good review of their spiritual position.
 * "[p.72] By May 1997, when we conducted most of our interviews, the testimony of the children we met suggested that many of the rituals common in Lakwena's time had been abandoned or were only sporadically followed. Many children also reported rebel practices that appear to have been adopted from Islam: for instance, the rebels pray while facing Mecca, respect Friday as a holy day, and forbid the keeping of pigs."
 * Kony is supported by the Islamically minded Sudanese government, which is probably why the changes in this last para have come about. Still convinced these are Christians? Pbhj (talk) 01:23, 26 March 2010 (UTC)


 * "the cuting off of people's lips, ears, or arms by the Christian fundamentalist Lord's Resistance Army represent either a return to exceptionally medieval violence or something new" The arms dynamic in world politics page 148p
 * This is a simple repitition of the "mistake" made in the media that your above citation alludes to. There is no analysis of the position and nothing mentioned in the excerpts (pp 148-151) that I read that speak towards the Christian faith that you allege Kony is acting out.


 * "In order to explain the conept of the Holy Trinity, Christian priests introduced a new concept, tipu maleng, the Christian version of the Holy Spirit." and "his church is decorated with an eclectic gathering of Christian and Acholi symbols" and "Kony can be defined as an amalgamation of social functions. He defines himself as the mouthpiece of God, reinforcing the Ten Commandments and acting as a political oracle in a time of profound crisis introduced by foreign forces. He is not only the spokesman of the Christian God..." African Affairs
 * See "The Scars of Death" book, tipu is a familial ancestor spirit. This is syncretism of ancestor worship and other religions (Christianity and Islam at least) - it's Christian in the way that cake is egg.


 * "Kony's LRA is an outgrowth of the Holy Spirit Movement, a Christian cult that ravaged northern Uganda in the late 1980s." Los Angeles Times
 * The original is at LA Times site.


 * "An extreme and violent Christian cult, the Holy Spirit Movement, sprang up in poor northern Uganda in the late 1980s. Many hundreds of believers died in suicidal attacks, convinced that magic oil would protect them from the soldiers' bullets. Its successor, the Lord's Resistance Army, is still pursuing a guerrilla war. It claims it wants to rule the country on the basis of the Biblical Ten Commandments" Center for studies on new religions


 * "The former Catholic altar boy Joseph Kony, head of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), is generally seen as a Christian madman who communicates with spirits and wants to turn Uganda into a theocratic state based on the Ten Commandments." The Times
 * Did you read that, it's the story of Green and refers to his book making it clear that the author of the article was completely naive as to the situation except for what they'd read from Green and other news sources: "What we do get is Green maturing as a journalist to discover that the reality is far more complicated than the tinpot god he set off to seek". If Green states categorically and without contradiction that Kony is a Christian in his book then I'll let it lie.


 * "Christian Rebels Wage a War of Terror in Uganda" The New York Times


 * "The Christian guerrilla army's aim is to establish a theocratic state based on the Ten Commandments" The Guardian


 * "More than 25,000 children have been abducted to serve the rebel army -- motivated by a fanatical Christian doctrine -- as foot soldiers and sex slaves." The Washington Post


 * Enough reliable sources for you? Robert Tyson (talk) 12:20, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Cromwell
If Cromwell modeled the invasion on the Book of Joshua then the action would be at best Jewish violence. The battle of Jericho is hardly Christian. Cromwell it seems was a Christian, but how does that make the English invasion of Ireland a Christian invasion as opposed to violence by [a] Christian[s]? Show that Cromwell was motivated by his relationship with Jesus Christ and/or His teachings and then you have a point worthy of inclusion. Of course it should probably be included in one of the articles on Cromwell, but hey. Pbhj (talk) 03:48, 20 July 2009 (UTC)


 * A Christian used a story of genocide from the Christian Holy Bible to justify invading a nation and killing its people. Those facts stand - trying to twist them to blame the Jews, or demanding evidence that Jesus Christ personally told him to do it, seems bizarre. Josh Keen (talk) 10:22, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm not at all trying to blame any Jewish people. The article says the invasion is modeled on Jericho's invasion, this being in support of it being an act of Christian violence. Whilst that story is part of the Christian Bible, it's also part of Jewish Torah (as well as other religions who accept the Bible as a holy text, Rastafari, say). So you could, on this basis alone, also describe the invasion as an act of Rastafari violence. Christian action is defined by relationship to God through Jesus, by definition, if Cromwell was a Christian then the actions he made were certainly made by a Christian. If those same actions were inspired by his personal relationship with Jesus then the violence was Christian violence. However, it appears that it was common [in earlier times when the ruling elite were still able to keep the actual text of the Bible a public secret by using Latin translations unreadable to the masses] to use the injunction of the name of God to persuade the common man to line up in battle for a cause. In summary it's nigh impossible to know if Cromwell was motivated by faith in God or simply using the name of God in order to manipulate those under him. Pbhj (talk) 00:36, 3 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Cromwell was Christian not Rastafarian. Cromwell used the Christian Holy Bible to justify invastion and genocide, not the Jewish Torah. Your entire argument makes no sense and is WP:original research. Daniel Chirot, Jackson School of International Studies, University of Washington, is a WP:reliable source. That is why he can be quoted in the article. Robert Tyson (talk) 12:30, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Cromwell may have been Christian rather than just living in a Christian influenced society, gotcha. How is Joshua any more the Bible than part of the Torah, or any more Christian rather than Rastafari. But yes, your appeal to authority works here. Please add some detail about how Cromwell supported his invasion based on Christian doctrine using your source.
 * Perhaps an analogy will help with your [claimed] inability to understand the point - if a person were to read in the Koran about Muhammed consumating marriage with a child, and then went and did the same would that make the paedophilia Muslim/Islamic? Surely it requires that the motivation for teh activity was the persons particular beliefs. Even is the person committing the act were a Muslim it would not be a Muslim act unless they were acting out their faith by that action.
 * A less extreme example, because I'll admit it's subtle and one might find it hard to grasp: I make you supper, lets say it's some loaves and fish, if I'm a Christian does that make the supper a "Christian supper"? I contend it does not. If I'm not a Christian (I affirm everything in the Nicene Creed except the existence of the Holy Spirit, say) but I know that Jesus made a supper of bread and fish for his apostles at the lake-side and thought that sounded nice - is it now a Christian Supper, I contend not. Now if I make the same supper and declare "I made you this supper as it's good Friday" or "I made this supper to remind us of Christ's feeding on the 5000" then the supper is a Christian Supper as it was made as an outworking of my Christian belief.
 * So, assuming Cromwell to be Christian, use your source(s) to show that it was because of his beliefs as a Christian that he performed the actions that he did. Not that he was merely modelling his actions on an ancient Jewish battle, nor that he was a Christian performing those actions but that he acted out of his beliefs. It would be wise to allow the POV of the Irish to be represented by noting that (I'm making an assumption here, but a pretty safe one) when England invaded Ireland some Christians on the Irish side didn't perceive the invasion to be unusually ordained by God and indeed probably were pretty convinced that it was wrong. That is if it were shown to be motivated by Christianity that it were not a consensus of a majority : and state the contrary if that's what sources show. Pbhj (talk) 15:46, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
 * The rules for inclusion in Wikipedia are well documented: WP:VERIFIABILITY. You call quoting an expert "an appeal to authority". You should read WP:VERIFIABILITY and WP:RS - quoting experts is standard Wikipedia policy. Cromwell was Christian. He used a story from the Bible to justify invasion and genocide. You appear to have three arguments:
 * That because the same story appears elsewhere apart from the Bible, then it can't be said that he was quoting the Bible, he might have been quoting the Jewish Tanakh. I find this argument highly unlikely, and unsupported by the quoted (reliable) source.
 * Your other argument is that because the violence was against people of another Christian denomination then it can't be called Christian violence. This is like saying that the violence of Al-Qaeda can't be called Islamic terrorism when it targets Muslims. Most people would disagree with that.
 * You have an argument that someone could use a Holy book to justify an action without it being religiously motivated; again, I find this argument strange, it's like saying that Al-Qaeda could justify an attack on the U.S. using passages from the Koran and yet somehow the attack wouldn't be religious in nature. Robert Tyson (talk) 22:57, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
 * It is interesting that you bring up the issue of whether rape could be religious in nature, since the Islamic terrorism page actually mentions religious rape several times. Robert Tyson (talk) 23:23, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Split/Categorize?
Would anyone have any objections to splitting off or categorizing sections 2-6? If not, how should we determine what stays and what goes in what could become an amazingly long list? -- Explodicle (T/C) 14:34, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
 * First, thank you for renaming and templating the page, all very helpful and appropriate. And I think the closing decision for the AfD was the correct one, including the need for those of us who supported keeping to fix the page, as you have started to do here. Now, to your question, I do think we clearly need to do some splitting off and shortening. But please let me suggest doing things in a different order. I suggest that the first step should be to find some reliable sources for the synth and coatrack issues that have been raised, reliable sources to help tie the page together. That will be a slow process, hopefully starting with some of the sources that Anarchangel found during the AfD. Once we have more sources like that, they will hopefully point the way towards which parts of the page to keep, and which to cut. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:06, 23 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Actual research is one of my weak points. There's no reason we can't tackle this from multiple angles, though. If you have any suggestions for how to handle this based on sources, I'll defer to your judgement. -- Explodicle (T/C) 16:56, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
 * No problem, thanks. Hopefully other editors are paying attention too. I'm working on a lot of pages simultaneously, so I won't get to it right away, but I'll help when I can. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:58, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Lead quote
An IP editor has been repeatedly removing the Sam Harris quote from the lead, and I would like to explain why I have been reverting. This is an article about an unattractive side of some of Christianity, and, as such, it is not unexpected that some people will find it an uncomfortable subject. However, the lead of any article must present, among other things, the ideas on which the article as a whole is based. For this article, that inevitably means the ideas of critics. Harris is identified, accurately, as a "critic of religion", so the reader knows his point of view and can assess it accordingly. The comparison made in one edit summary to David Duke is an invalid comparison, in that Harris (regardless of whether one happens to agree or disagree with him) is regarded as an intellectual thinker, whereas Duke obviously is not. Now, that said, if someone has a better quote for the lead, that would be fine, but simply deleting it is not acceptable. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:10, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Pacifism links
A section on Christian pacifism in this article makes as much sense as a section on Christian terrorism in the Christian pacifism article... that is to say, none. I have pruned appropriately. Groupthink (talk) 01:46, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm going to partly, but not entirely, revert you, and I want to explain my thinking. Of course issues about WP:NPOV are often in the eye of the beholder, and I think that is the case here. Please take a look at the deletion discussion linked to at the top of this talk page. Without some balancing material, the page is subject to valid criticism as being UNDUE and as being an attack page. I would just as much argue that a Christian pacifism article that makes it sound like all Christians are pacifists would need balance as well. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:17, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I will do so, and I await your revert with interest. Thanks for the heads-up. Groupthink (talk) 18:22, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
 * It occurs to me that I may have made an unfounded assumption, and I'd appreciate some clarification. Is this article meant to be on the subject of violence by Christians, or the relationship between Christianity and violence in general?  If the latter, then it might be worth splitting this article into Christian violence and Violence against Christians. Groupthink (talk) 18:35, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
 * The history of the page is that it was originally created as Christian violence, and one of the outcomes of the AfD discussion was a rename to Christianity and violence, so I guess that, historically, it has been about violence by Christians. That is not to say that the subject matter cannot evolve over time. It also is not to say that the page has to be purged of everything that is not, exactly, violence by Christians: indeed it may be of interest to readers to be directed to other, see-also pages. There's also nothing stopping anyone from creating a new page about violence against Christians. What would be a problem, however, would be making pages as content forks, with pro- and anti-Christian versions, and that was very much a concern at the previous AfD. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:42, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I think this article should be about the relationship between Christianity and violence in general. That means, IMO, that we should discuss the tension between Christian pacificism ("turn the other cheek", "love your neighbor") and militant Christianity (e.g. the Crusades,"Just War Doctrine").
 * If there is a need to discuss detailed examples of "Violence by Christians", then let's start that as a separate article and move some of the more detailed examples out of this article into the new one. However, we will need to make sure that the article focuses on "Violence by Christians motivated by religion" rather than just violence by people who happen to be Christians.
 * We will also need to differentiate between violence that is more or less sanctioned by Christian churches and violence that is not. For example, the killing of abortion doctors is not generally considered acceptable by most Christians although some Christians seem to think it is OK.
 * --Richard S (talk) 18:46, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I can make the observation that Richard's perspective and Groupthink's recent edits approximate the two disputing sides in that AfD debate, and I can suggest that the current version of the page is an attempt to find consensus between them. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:49, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Tryptofish, I moved the section titled "Christian opposition to violence" to the top of the article. Groupthink deleted it and you restored it but at the end of the article rather than the beginning. Was this intentional? I think it belongs at the beginning because Christian violence must be set in the context of Christian pacificism. My thesis is: "Much of Christian doctrine leans towards non-violence. Thus, violence might seem at first blush to be antithetical to Christian doctrine.  Some Christians such as Augustine of Hippo have struggled with the question of when violence is justified (i.e. "Just War Doctrine").  Clearly, violence has been committed by Christians in religious contexts (e.g. Crusades, European wars of religion, etc.)  Much of current Christian thinking tends to consider such violence as having been wrong and misguided." --Richard S (talk) 18:55, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
 * (ec) In my opinion (and of course it's only one person's opinion), it works better near the end. Again, I see this as a matter of compromise. The page is, after all, about violence. Thus, the section in question appears to me to be like a "criticism" section, in this case "criticizing" the thesis that Christians are violent, as opposed to being a "background" section that would explain why those Christians who are violent, are violent. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:09, 4 February 2010 (UTC)


 * (Reset indent)I respectfully disagree that Christian violence must be set in the context of Christian pacifism, that seems like a non-NPOV to me. I still think clarification on direction is called for.  If this page is going to be about the relationship between Christianity and violence, then I would argue that there is in fact not enough material on violence against Christians, and the article should be reworked as a compare-and-contrast of Christianity as a violence magnet (e.g. Romans and lions) versus Christianity as a promulgator of violence (e.g. the Crusades).  Thoughts?Groupthink (talk) 19:07, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I guess there could be lots of room for adding material. My concern was about deleting the material that I then restored. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:11, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Proposal for deletion
I propose that this article be deleted because it is redundant, based on a false premise and quite simply an attack on Christianity.


 * Violence is perpetrated for a variety of reasons, and people give a variety of reasons for why they perpetrated violence. But just because an individual or group claims Christian justification for their acts of violence, it does not necessarily mean that this is uniquely Christian or even representative of Christian ideology.
 * There are already articles about Christian terrorism, the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition etc. This article is redundant in that it simply repeats the information already written in these and many other articles. There are better ways to document violent parts of Christian history and there are already many well written articles documenting it (in addition to the ones I've listed above).
 * To further show that this is a specific attack against Christianity, I would like to point out that there are no articles titled Islam and violence, Satanism and violence, Antitheism and violence, Atheism and violence, Racism and violence, Homophobia and violence, Communism and violence, Nationalism and violence, Greed and violence, Resources and violence, etc etc. These are all reasons individuals and groups have given for committing acts of violence, yet it would be frivolous to create articles compiling all the times these various ideologies and reasons have been given regarding acts of violence.

This article is redundant on Wikipedia, it is an attack on a certain ideology, and it is based on a false premise. All of these things go against Wikipedia guidelines (WP:NPOV, WP:NOR, WP:SOAP, WP:REDUNDANT) and make this article inappropriate as an encyclopedic work.

I strongly urge that this article be deleted. Yaki-gaijin (talk) 02:03, 5 April 2010 (UTC)


 * I agree with the premise stated above. This article is clearly anti-Christian. Sections of any redeeming value can be added to the Christian terrorism article. There is absolutely no reason to keep this biased article. รัก-ไทย (talk) 04:58, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Yaki-gaijin's reasoning but that is not, IMO, a reason to delete the article. The revision of this article prior to the second AFD nomination violated WP:SYNTH and WP:COATRACK. I have deleted the sections titled "Acts of violence by Christians", "Historical cases of Christian violence" and "Notable incidents". The two remaining sections "Theological justification of Christian violence" and "Christian opposition to violence" still have problems but can serve as the basis for writing a good article. --Richard S (talk) 13:43, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree with Richard that the correct way to go forward is to make corrective edits, rather than to delete the article. However, I disagree with the extent of deletions that Richard has made. I think they come close to gutting the article, without really justifying why the material should be deleted, and having the effect of removing encyclopedic and well-sourced material that gave substance to the page. However, I am only going to make note of my concerns here, while the AfD process is in progress, rather than getting into a pattern of reversions, in order that we all may better assess consensus before reaching a decision. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:39, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Tryptofish, thank you for not edit-warring. Can we discuss why you think my deletions are too radical?  I deleted all the examples of Christian violence because, by and large, I think this gathering and presenting this sort of material is POV.  My vision of the scope of this article is that it would be about Christian teachings regarding violence and non-violence (e.g. pacificism, "just war", etc.).  I don't see how we can build an encyclopedic article from a coat rack of violent incidents perpetrated by Christians.  How is that not synthesis?  Can we find reliable sources who assert that Christians are more prone to violence or that there is something unique about the nature of violence committed by Christians?  If not, then we are guilty of synthesis in pulling together events that are only related because we say they are. --Richard S (talk) 00:33, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks for bringing up WP:SYNTH and WP:COATRACK Richard. I think you are on the right track for making this a valid encyclopedic article. Yaki-gaijin (talk) 04:53, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
 * And thank you, too, Richard, for discussing this in a helpful way. Please let me begin by responding specifically to a few things you said towards the end of your comment. You raise concerns about assertions "that Christians are more prone to violence or that there is something unique about the nature of violence committed by Christians". In fact, I (and I suspect most of the other editors who are arguing to keep the article) would very strongly support removing any such claims from the page, and I would agree that such claims cannot be made (or, at least, made without refutation) in a properly NPOV page. As we go forward with whatever comes in the future of editing this page, I am very supportive of working with editors who have concerns about these things, to make sure that we correct anything that I and other editors have previously overlooked (and this can be done without completely deleting the page, obviously).
 * But I really don't think the page is making those claims, on the whole, or as an essential nature of its content that can't be fixed by corrective editing. The page does not say, to my knowledge, that Christians are more prone than other groups of people to violence. It does not say that most Christians are violent. It makes it clear that there is also a Christian tradition of opposition to violence, and that, in fact, this opposition is the mainstream tradition, whereas violence is something of an atypical subcurrent. (By the way, it lacked any information about Christian nonviolence at the time of the first AfD, and it was me who wrote the section about it when I became aware of the page via that AfD.) It also does not say that that Christian violence, when it has occurred, is fundamentally different in its nature than violence by other groups of people. It does say that there are some recurrent features that have been associated with acts of Christian violence over the years, and that these common features are shared among different events at different times in history, but not that these features are unique to Christianity and never seen in violent acts by other groups.
 * I strongly suspect that people who have seen this page and felt that it ought to be deleted have seen the lengthy information that you deleted recently and inferred from it that the very existence of the material was an implied claim that Christian violence is prevalent and/or unique, but that inference is logically flawed. The "see also" section of the page, as well as some comments in the AfD discussion, have pointed to other articles about violence in other religious populations. The existence of those pages means that this violence has occurred, but not that anyone is claiming that these religions are violent while other religions are not. Please take a look at Category:Violence by country and some of the subcategories and pages within it. The fact that particular acts of violence took place in a particular country's history does not mean that people from that country, as a group, are all violent or prone to a particular kind of violence. There are a lot of articles about violence in the U.S., but that does not mean that all people in the U.S. are violent. I can easily understand that persons who are proud of Christian traditions of nonviolence could look at the long list of violent episodes that have been on this page and be taken aback by seeing them all at once, but that, in itself, does not make them unencyclopedic, and obviously does not mean that they didn't happen.
 * Now what does relate to whether the material is or is not encyclopedic, or whether the page should or should not be deleted, is, as noted, SYNTH and COAT. The way Wikipedia decides these things rests very much on whether editors decided that "X" and "Y" are related (that's SYNTH, and, for multiple Xs and Ys, COAT), or whether secondary sources say that "X" and "Y" are related, which is encyclopedic. At the present, still very imperfect, state of the page, there are secondary sources cited in the lead that say that there have been, over the years, repeated and related instances of Christian violence that are connected by certain recurrent features. (Almost no such sourcing was on this page when the first AfD happened.) I just noticed yesterday that if you click on the Google Books and Google Scholar links at the top of the AfD page, there are a whole bunch of more sources that really need to be added to the page that are specifically about Christianity and violence. With such sourcing, there is no SYNTH and no COAT.
 * So, to the question of why I think that too much material was deleted: I agree with you that Christian teachings about violence and nonviolence are properly part of what this page ought to include. And I'm starting to think that the section on nonviolence should be moved up higher on the page, so that it would be part of the section on theology/teachings near the top, instead of being isolated at the bottom. However, I would also argue that an important part of what makes an article encyclopedic is having specific facts, specific events in history and current affairs. By and large, the material you deleted was sourced. As such, I think it is an important part of what makes an encyclopedia article an encyclopedia article. So I hope to see it come back. But I, for one, would be very happy to work with you and other editors to correct any ways in which the wording of specific passages was POV, and to prune out any specific sections that really are SYNTH, that really are not placed by secondary sources within the history of Christianity and violence. I just don't think that deleting all of it was the best way to go. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:31, 7 April 2010 (UTC)


 * I think the deletion of so much content was wrong. "Acts of violence by Christians", "Historical cases of Christian violence" and "Notable incidents" are all appropriate topics for this article. Listing historical examples of the specific article topic is not a COATRACK violation. It is the exactly the same as:
 * Islamic_terrorism
 * Anti-Christian_violence_in_India.
 * Militant_Hindu lists loads of historical incidents.
 * Persecution_of_Christians lists many incidents of historical persecution of Christians.
 * I do not see why historical incidents of Christians carrying out violence in an appropriate Wikipedia article is considered a COATRACK, when historical incidents of violent events associated with other religions are listed in similar articles. I do not see why historical incidents of the persecution of Christians can be listed, but historical incidents of violent persecution carried out by Christians can not be listed. Is Wikipedia in the English speaking world really be so biased towards a Christian POV that it must treat Christianity as a special case? Josh Keen (talk) 10:40, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
 * The persecution of Christians is a completely different issue. It can be clearly defined as follows "The persecution of Christians is the religious persecution of Christians as a consequence of professing their faith." This article is weasly because it has an ambiguous title that leads to all sorts of coat-racking. I have already countered your "special case" argument by saying that there are not "**** and violence" articles for most other major ideologies or religions of the world. Yaki-gaijin (talk) 01:38, 26 April 2010 (UTC)
 * AND there already is a Christian terrorism article, so I don't see your point here... Yaki-gaijin (talk) 01:40, 26 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Please let me make a suggestion. I'm going to try to add more sourcing to the introductory parts of the page that I think will make concerns about coatracking obsolete, insofar as there are secondary sources that treat the various incidents over history as part of a whole, and some of these secondary sources are from pro-Christianity POVs. After we have a sourced basis for the overall subject matter of the page, my hope is that we will be in a better position to agree with one another as to what specific incidents to add back, or not to add back. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:17, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Renovating the page
I moved the "Criticism...." section down because criticism sections are always at the end of articles. There is already a short section on Christian opposition to violence, so I would assume that there should be a "Christian promotion of violence" section or something. This article isn't very useful, and it's going to be hard to get rid of its WP:COATRACK issues while staving off original research... Yaki-gaijin (talk) 05:05, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
 * That's a very POV analysis. We will work this out in time. --Tryptofish (talk) 14:19, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I hope I haven't biased the article in some way. I'm just trying to visualize some kind of framework for this article; what sections are necesary? what kinds of information should be posted? etc. Yaki-gaijin (talk) 02:09, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Thank you for saying that. I'm in the process of reading more sources, which is taking me a while, so I've been a little slow about actually editing this page, but I am paying attention to it. Let me please point out one thing about the "Criticism" section. On first glance, one might think that a section describing Christian justification for violence might be the "Criticism" section, because it appears to be a criticism of Christianity. However, this page, obviously, is not the Christianity page. Therefore, the actual criticism, or more precisely in this case, rebuttal, section would be the part about Christian opposition to violence, since it rebuts the "primary" theme of the page. As I said, we will work these things out over time, and I'm confident that as long as we discuss the issues here, we will be able to work things out to everyone's satisfaction. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:21, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
 * You know, there's an article titled Christian pacifism in which this Christian violence article could be a "criticism" section. Maybe we can consider merging the two. Making Christian non-violence subordinate to Christian violence implies a certain bias that Christian violence is the status quo. Oh, the complexity of it all... Yaki-gaijin (talk) 00:23, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
 * An advantage of keeping both pages, with each linked to the other, is that we do not have to, collectively, take a stand as to what is ultimately subordinate to what. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:05, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Flawed Premise - What is Violence
This article is written as if any killing or use of force is "violent". However, the definition of violence is given in most dictionaries as:


 * an unjust  or  unwarranted  exertion  of  force  or  power,  as  against  rights  or  laws:  to  take  over  a  government  by  violence.

Essentially, violence is unlawful deadly force.

Given that different worldviews/religions have widely differing laws, an article about violence will be highly subjective, depending upon the author's worldview. For example, a Muslim who believes in Shariah law will not view the 15,000 fatal attacks in the name of Islam as "violence" because the attacks were, in his view, lawful. It is impossible to write this article from a neutral point of view - the author has to take a definition of law in order to define violence. The article then becomes a propaganda piece for whatever worldview the author writes from.

Since violence is by definition "unlawful killing", and since religions teachings essentially advocate a system of moral law, it doesn't make any sense to judge a religion's teachings on the ethics of killing from a different ethical standard.

It would be better to change the title to "Christianity and Killing". Then outline the Bible and church father's teachings on the right and wrong use of deadly force, and then follow with a brief history of religiously justified killing.

Cadwallader (talk) 02:04, 20 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I've been trying to fix up this page after it was kept at the most recent AfD, and I apologize for being kind of slow at fixing some of the aspects to which your comments apply. But I think that your arguments about the word "violence" are WP:OR. Violence does not necessarily mean only unlawful violence. War is violent but not necessarily unlawful. Injuring or maiming someone is a violent act, even if there is no killing. If one assumes that violence, by definition, is unlawful, or ethically or morally wrong, then there would be POV problems, but the very fact that there is a theological position of justifiable violence means that this assumption is a faulty one. Anyway, I need to add more material that will include, in part, non-lethal violence, and I will get to that when I have time. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:36, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

Lots missing from this article
I've read through the April 2010 AfD and subsequent reduction of this article. However, under any definition of this article, some material is missing, such as the Inquisition, witch-hunts, and (an entire section on) the crusades. I understand that there are dedicated articles on those topics, but this should be a WP:Summary style article that provides readers of the encyclopedia with "one stop shopping". And, no, the WP:Coatrack essay does not apply because (1)  numerous sources discuss a wide-range of Christianity-related violence (e.g. new atheists); and (2) Coatrack only applies when an editor groups material together to from an original thesis, but the thesis "Christianity promotes/justifies violence" is an old, widely discussed thesis. Also, I see that there used to be quite a bit of content on persons that used Christian principles to justify violence (although the violence not necessarily endorsed by authorities of a Christian church) ... such relations should be mentioned in the article, with the appropriate balancing text that "such violence was not endorsed ..." etc. Also, the "peace" section should be at the bottom of the article, which is more logical, as a response to prior material on violence (the article is not named Christianity and peace). On the other hand, I do concur that perpetrators of violence who merely happen to be Christian do not belong in this article (the religion, or its doctrines must be involved). --Noleander (talk) 14:31, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Hi Noleander. Here, I really, really have to plead guilty! Following that AfD, I started systematically re-referencing the page so that it would not be a coatrack, in preparation for restoring the massive amount of material that had been, wrongly in my opinion, removed from the page. Alas, I got part way into it, and then got diverted to other pages that seemed to be more insistently demanding my attention, which has tended to be a Wiki-habit of mine that I need to work on. But I do have a bunch of sources that I still want to add, and it remains important that the page not be assailable as a coatrack. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:17, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Okay, that sounds good.  I don't have a  lot of time to spend on the article, but as long as it is a work in progress, that is okay.  --Noleander (talk) 18:27, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Im working on a new section on the Crusades ... it is clearly within the scope of the article, based on the sources. In addition, there are several sections from the "old" big version of this article that I think should be restored.   Before I do, I just want to confirm what the scope of this article is, namely:   material can be included in this article if reliable secondary sources make a direct connection between Christianity (its doctrines, texts, leaders) and violent acts or attitudes.  I think it is consistent with the approach taken in Mormonism and violence, Islam and violence, and Judaism and violence.  What should not be in this article are violent acts/attitudes held by people who just happen to be Christians.  Comments? --Noleander (talk) 00:20, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I think one of the reasons that this article is criticized for being a coatrack is that people start hanging coats on it, even legitimate ones such as the Crusades, and eventually everyone who has even the tiniest scrap of fabric wants to hang it on this article, too. The way to address this problem on a more permanent basis is to use reliable sources to determine which topics belong in this article.  In other words, it would be better to consult books and articles whose topic is specifically "Christianity and violence" than to simply consult books on the Crusades in general.  Instead of just citing examples where Christians have engaged in violence, we should be discussing whether certain elements of Christianity (doctrines, texts and leaders) have resulted in violence which would either not have happened or been smaller in length, magnitude and severity.  I think this is what Noleander wants to do.  If so, I fully support it. --Richard S (talk) 02:36, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree that the article must be based on secondary sources that make the association between Christianity and violence, rather than an editor making that association. So, yes, I agree that the sources must have the topic "Christianity and violence" (although that topic may only account for a single section or chapter of the book). --Noleander (talk) 04:12, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I guess I agree with you both. As for the Crusades, as I see it, they are something that should be addressed here in summary style, with links to more specific pages. I haven't yet gotten around to figuring out what, specifically, should be restored to this page, so I don't have a very well-thought out answer about that, other than that you should just put what you think belongs on the Crusades page, and we'll work this page out as it goes along.


 * As for cleaning out the coat closet on this page, what you are both saying is exactly what I have been trying (albeit slowly, sorry again) to put right. The lead and opening sections of this page absolutely must be developed from scholarly secondary sources that address the relationships between Christianity and violence. There are plenty of them, and, so far, I've only added some of them that I have found. I believe the proper criterion for inclusion of specific incidents should be whether the incident is included, without synthesis, in those secondary sources. That's why I'm trying to work on the opening parts of the page before attempting to restore any of the specific material. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:46, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I concur that - for most of the material that will end up in this page (Crusades, Inquisition, etc) - the WP:Summary style guideline will apply because there are already dedicated articles on those topics, so this article's main job will be to provide sources that make the association between Christianity and violence.  So there is no need for this article to repeat a lot of detail, although some detail will be needed so this article is somewhat self-contained. --Noleander (talk) 17:03, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Okay, I created four stub sections for the Crusades, Inquisition, New World, and witch-hunts. I'll start working on filling-them in now, but any help would be appreciated. --Noleander (talk) 17:03, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
 * For exactly the same reason that I just said in my last comment, I'm not wild about you doing that yet, but it's an open Wiki. You may also want to consult the old versions of the page. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:25, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I should have clarified that I have the reliable secondary sources already. Would you prefer that I work on the lead paragraph first?   Or am I misunderstanding your concern?  --Noleander (talk) 17:33, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Oh, OK. It's up to you, not for me to dictate. My concern was/is that adding specifics without the sourcing could set off another revert war. I don't see expanding the lead per se, so much as expanding and continuing the opening sections about Christian thought about violence. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:38, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Quick status update: I'm continuing to gather material for those new sections.  There is so much, it is a bit overwhelming.  I'm a rather slow editor, and - based on what I see so far - I estimate it will take around two months to finish writing those sections (if I am the only editor working on them).  But, of course, other editors are welcome to jump in and help out. --Noleander (talk) 15:47, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Opposition section and Reworking of the lead
Recent edits moved the Opposition to violence section to the end of the page, and then deleted it entirely, and I have reverted them, restoring the section at the top. This has already been discussed in this talk, so those edits were made against consensus. Please remember: this is a page about Christianity and violence, not about Violence by Christians. There's a difference, and it matters a lot in terms of WP:NPOV. Treating this page as though it excludes Christian views about violence unless they are views favoring violence, or as though it excludes "see also" links to violence directed against Christians, ends up making this page exactly what those editors who, perennially, nominate it for deletion claim it to be. --Tryptofish (talk) 13:33, 27 October 2010 (UTC)


 * I agree. In fact, I think the article needs a lot of work to change it from being a coatrack for examples of violence by Christians.  I have reworked the lead to put the opposition of Christianity to violence first.  I'm sure the prose could be improved but I wanted to make the point first and then work with others to improve the prose.  This article should not start with the premise that Christianity is violent.  It should assert "Christianity preaches non-violence but somehow many Christians have engaged in violence."  If someone wants to argue that Christianity inherently promotes violence, then let them provide reliable sources that make the argument.  Let us not make the argument surreptitiously by creating a coatrack and then leading the reader to that conclusion.  That would be OR and synthesis. --Richard S (talk) 17:20, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Thank you. Regarding your further edits, I need to look at them some more when I have more time than I do today, but I am concerned about a lead that opens, not by explaining what the subject is, but by setting up what it presents as a straw man, and then arguing against that straw man, and not cited to secondary sources. It reads to me like an argument, rather than an encyclopedia. As for the coatrack issue, it cannot be solved by making arguments on behalf of one POV or another, but by using the lead and introductory sections to establish what the scholarly literature says, and then relying on that literature, not editor opinions, to determine which specific examples to include or exclude. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:58, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Richard: I agree that the article can be improved.  But I'm not too sure I agree that it must follow the outline "Christianity preaches non-violence but somehow many Christians have engaged in violence."  In fact, that is the exact opposite of what the scope of the article is (based on lengthy discussions in years past).   First, the primary thrust of the article is that "Christian doctrines have  been  associated with violence", period;  the notion "but there are peaceful doctrines ..." is supplementary.  Second, material of the nature of  " ... many Christians have engaged in violence"  is explicitly excluded from this article:  material is only included if official Christian doctrines (or texts or leaders) have somehow been used to justify or promote violence.   Finallly, "coatrack" should not be thrown about too loosely: it is just an essay, and only comes into play if the list of items produces a conclusion that is the different from what the original sources intended .. and that is not the case with this article:  the sources intend to document the association of Christian doctrines with violence, and the "coatrack" in this article suggests that identical association (not something opposite).  --Noleander (talk) 22:08, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Yeh, I think I overstated my position. Could you reread the lead to see what you think?  I believe that we should simply assert that there is a controversy and not take a position on whether or not Christianity is a religion that promotes violence more than any other religion.  I have shaped along the same lines as the intro to J. Denny Weaver's essay on the topic.  He acknowledges that there are a number of reasons to assert that Christianity supports violence and that Christianity is a violent religion.  He then goes on to rebut the assertions.  It is not my intent that this article take a side on the controversy but simply to present the existence of the controversy and then present both sides of it.  I believe that this is the NPOV approach.  (P.S. I'm not thrilled with the locution "It is commonplace to...".  It would be better to say something like "Some scholars assert...".  However, that would require providing sources for the assertion and I don't have any at this time.  --Richard S (talk) 01:08, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

For reference, here is the lead from Judaism and violence
 * The love of peace and the pursuit of peace, as well as laws requiring the eradication of evil, sometimes using violent means, co-exist in the Jewish tradition.[1][2] This article deals with the juxtaposition of Judaic law and theology to violence and non-violence by groups and individuals. Attitudes and laws towards both peace and violence exist within the Jewish tradition.[1] Throughout history, Judaism's religious texts or precepts have been used to promote[3][4][5] as well as oppose violence.[6]

and here is the lead from Islam and violence


 * The love of peace and the pursuit of peace, as well as laws requiring the eradication of evil, sometimes using violent means, co-exist in the Islamic tradition. This article documents the historical relationship between Islam and various methods of violence, as well as how violence has been justified by Islamic sources.

--Richard S (talk) 15:59, 28 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, it is good to look at other articles, for consistency. On the other hand, those articles are in terrible shape (especially Islam and violence which may qualify as the one of the worst formatted articles in the encyclopedia).   Some edit warring happened in  Judaism and violence and the lead paragraph is in shambles now.   Again, these articles are primarily about the association of faiths with violence (as documented by reliable sources);  some apologetic material is appropriate, for balance, but it is not correct to make "peace" the main topic of the lead.   My recommendation is to focus on this article, get a great lead, and then perhaps apply it's approach, as applicable, to the other articles.  --Noleander (talk) 16:05, 28 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm going to take a stab at changing it further. I don't know if the rest of you will like it or not, but nothing's etched in stone. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:02, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

See also section

 * The "See also": Violence against Christians" links have become ridiculous. How is the link you re-added "Karl-Gustav Sauberzweig: Waffen SS (Bosnian Muslim Nazi division against Christians in the Balkans under the Mufti of Palestine)" related to the topic of violence promoted by Christianity, which is the scope of this article? It isn't, it's just there as some irrelevant text in order to try and portray Christians as victims of violence. Whether or not that is true is besides the point - these links have no place in an article about violence carried out by people following their Christian convictions. No other terrorism or violence article on Wikipedia has a section of links to articles about violence against the people of the same religion as those who are the subject of the article. Josh Keen (talk) 14:27, 28 October 2010 (UTC)
 * That is not quite accurate. The article Judaism and violence a similar "see also" list.  I'm not sure that list is very appropriate, but it is there.  --Noleander, 15:18, 28 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Josh, I'm the one who reverted you, and I'm about to revert you, partially, again—but I'll leave out the link to which you object by name here. You seem to think that the only solution to your concern is to delete the entire sub-list. As I tried to explain in the talk section just above, that's wrong. This is not an article about Violence by Christians; it's entirely reasonable to include see also links of this nature.
 * Now, that said, I'm very receptive to pruning the list. It probably has gotten too long. So I am leaving out that one you objected to. And I think it would be fine to delete some more, one by one, but not just to wipe out the whole thing. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:44, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Input needed re new sidebar template
Please see Templates_for_discussion/Log/2010_October_27. --Noleander (talk) 20:58, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Organization of this article
It occurred to me that one reason this article appears to become a coatrack is the tendency to list examples of violence by Christians without organizing those examples along a thematic structure. I have developed the following categories: punishment of sinners (non-heretics), suppression of heretics (non-orthodox Christians), and violence against non-Christians. I believe that, if we hang any new example onto one of these three main sections, the article will remain readable because of the thematic structure. I'm open to expanding the structure as long as we stick to a thematic organization rather than a purely chronological one. --Richard S (talk) 07:17, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Organization is a good thing.  About the only reason not to group the topics is if the grouping somehow promotes a particular bias or point-of-view.  It would be best if some independent source provided a grouping we could copy.  On the other hand, there may not be any single source that lists all these topics, so it may not be possible to find a source that provides a grouping, in which case we would have to come up with our own.  Your tentative list above seems like a decent starting point:  we'll have to see if other editors think it is too point-of-view.  For example, using the word "sinners":  do the sources say that the perpetrators of violence thought of the targets as "sinners" or not?    --Noleander (talk) 14:59, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree with everything both of you have said, and I thank Richard for thinking of this idea. The only thing that looks odd to me is the links-only "Violence against Christians" section that duplicates the "see also" section, unless it is intended only as a place-holder until the material is expanded. And actually, I'd somewhat lean against expanding it, on the grounds that it fits better as a "see also" subject than as a subject within the scope of the page. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:06, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Pogroms
Please see the quote from Volf in the Violence by individuals section, for relevance to this page. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:00, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

I've added better sourcing, so I think it's ok now. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:28, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Can you help me understand some more... I see a ton of text in the article:
 *  Christianity has had a troubled relationship with Judaism that often involved antisemitism. Although the first Christians were Jewish, anti-Judaic attitudes started to develop before the end of the first century. Anti-Judaic attitudes developed from early years of Christianity and persisted over the centuries, driven by numerous factors including theological differences, competition between Church and Synagogue, the Christian drive for converts,[58] misunderstanding of Jewish beliefs and practices, and alleged Jewish hostility toward Christians. These attitudes persisted in Christian preaching, art and popular teaching of contempt for Jews over the centuries. In many Christian countries it led to civil and political discrimination against Jews, legal disabilities, and in some instances to physical attacks on Jews which in some cases ended in emigration, expulsion, and even death. Scholars have debated how Christian antisemitism may have played a role in the Nazi Third Reich, World War II and the Holocaust. Throughout Christian history many popes, bishops and some Christian princes stepped up to protect Jews, it was only in the mid-twentieth century that the Catholic Church and many Protestant denominations issued major statements repudiating anti-Judaic theology and began a process of constructive Christian-Jewish interaction[citation needed].  A series of genocidal persecutions, or pogroms, against Jews took place in Russia. These arose from a variety of motivations, not all of them related to Christian antisemitism. In part, they have been attributed to antisemitism arising from the canard that Jews were responsible for the crucifixion of Jesus.[59] The primary trigger of the pogroms is considered to have been the assassination of Tsar Alexander II.[60] The first Kishinev pogrom of 1903 was led by Eastern Orthodox priests.[61] 
 * yet hardly anything that says "Such and such Christian doctrine caused such-and-such a violent act". The one place is " in some instances to physical attacks on Jews which in some cases ended in emigration, expulsion, and even death" but that does not have a cite.  I don't doubt that the material is accurate, but more citations are needed and the source needs to make the connection, not the prose written by the editor.  --Noleander (talk) 18:32, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
 * You talkin' to me? (kidding) I think we have a couple of us editing simultaneously, and I just want to make clear that most of what is quoted above wasn't from me. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:37, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
 * :-) Well ... to whomever added that text (Richardusr?):  I think the first sentence of the section needs to be something like "In 1911, archbishop X of the Russian Orthodox church incited his parishioners to carry-out a pogrom in village Y, in which 4 Jews were killed".   There is no need for a long intro on Christian-Judaic relations, since that info is already in the "see also" links that are there. --Noleander (talk) 19:03, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree that there is no need for a long intro on Christian-Judaic relations but I do think that some intro is needed as not everyone who reads this article will have the requisite background. We should summarize the key points and then point the reader in the direction of relevant other articles. --Richard S (talk) 00:35, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

I understand that much of the text that I added doesn't seem directly focused on "Christianity and violence". That's because I lifted the text from Wikipedia articles on the topic of the section in question. I removed the text that was clearly off-topic and left the stuff that was kind of related to "Christianity and violence". This is Wikipedia. That means you are free to rewrite the text to be more on topic.

The critical point that I am making here is that this article has previously had a tendency to focus on describing individual trees rather than providing an overall view of the forest. When we complain of the article being a WP:COATRACK, it is because people keep trying to provide more and more instances of Christian violence rather than describing the nature of the phenomenon, its causes and the efforts to control and end it. (This, BTW, is why I have tried to trim the section on the Iron Guard. In the overall story of Christian antisemitism, the story of the Iron Guard is only one chapter and, AFAICT, not even a major chapter.

Today, my goal in adding to the sections "Age of Discovery" and "Anti-semitism" has been to provide more of an overall overview and de-emphasize the specific instances of violence by Christians because the list of instances can be very long and tends towards advancing the thesis that Christianity is a violent religion. A more NPOV approach is to say "Here is a large category of instances of Christian violence. Here are the characteristics that make this a general trend rather than just a bunch of isolated instances.  Here are the efforts to denounce and end that violence.  Here is an assessment of how effective those efforts were.  e.g. in the case of the Age of Discovery, the result was, at best, mixed.  in the case of antisemitism, it took the Holocaust to get Christians to focus on the inherent antisemitism in their culture and their religion."

--Richard S (talk) 19:16, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Hmmm. There are a couple of problems with that approach:  (1) you'll need sources that string all that together. You nor I, as editors, cannot make that long logical argument on our own.  (2) As I read the text, I dont see any sources that make a direct connection between Christianity and the violence of the pogroms.   As you see from the Talk page discussions above, there has to be a very direct connection.   The problem with the way it is written now is that it is guilt by association:  Christianity held anti-Judaic views;  anti-Judaic views led to pogroms;  some pogroms involved violence; therefore Christianity was related to the violent pogroms.  Again, all that may be true, but unless you have reliable secondary sources that links all those together, it cannot go into the article.


 * Why don't we try this: can you provide a few succinct quotes from your major sources on this topic: the quotes that make that linkage I describe above?  After we see the quotes, maybe we'll have some better feel for how this should fit into the article.


 * Also, in articles on sensitive topics like this, virtually every sentence should have a footnote. Back in 2001-2004 many articles had no footnotes, but in recent years the requirement in sensitive articles is for everything to be sourced.   Otherwise, we'll end up with "citation needed" tags, and the material will eventually get removed. --Noleander (talk) 19:23, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Actually, I agree with both of you. Richard is right that it is good to get away from the long-list format of previous versions of the page, and Noleander is right that we need to have sourcing. Keeping in mind that WP:There is no deadline, I'm going to, as time permits, try to fix up the things that need fixing, and I encourage everyone else to do likewise. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:40, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Sounds good. Richard:  Can you supply the quote from ""Jewish Massacre Denounced", New York Times, April 28, 1903, p 6." that is used as a source?  Thanks. --Noleander (talk) 19:54, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Actually, that source is from Anti-Jewish pogroms in the Russian Empire and was put here by me. (Is your head spinning yet?) You can see the quote in full at Anti-Jewish pogroms in the Russian Empire: "The mob was led by priests", etc. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:12, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Noleander, you wrote that there is a problem of "guilt by association" i.e. " Christianity held anti-Judaic views; anti-Judaic views led to pogroms;  some pogroms involved violence; therefore Christianity was related to the violent pogroms". I agree that one can challenge this line of argument and argue that Christian individuals and Christian governments (e.g. Tsarist Russia) instigated the pogroms and that Christianity as a Church and a religion were not directly responsible for the pogroms. I believe an NPOV treatment would be to present both sides of the debate. It seems clear to me that many people place blame for antisemitism with Christian culture and believe that the religion fostered such antisemitism. If you look at what the Popes actually said, I think you can find pronouncements on both sides i.e. both attacking and defending Jews. I don't know what the record of Orthodox metropolitans and patriarchs is on this issue. We should certainly make sure to present all the evidence and let the reader form his/her own opinion. --Richard S (talk) 00:34, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Slavery section: more direct connection to violence?
I think the slavery section, although accurate and readable, is not directly connected to the topic of this article. There is already another article Christianity and slavery on that topic. If there are some specific topics that discuss how Christian doctrines were responsible for the violent treatment of slaves, that would be appropriate for this article.

On a related note: there is a large amount of sources available on the topic of "Christian church encouraging and supporting violent mistreatment of  native americans" (particularly related to the Spanish conquest in South America and Central America:  Aztecs, Incas, etc) and that is not yet discussed anywhere in this encyclopedia. So perhaps some effort could be expended on that. --Noleander (talk) 18:11, 8 November 2010 (UTC)


 * You bring up a valid point that I thought of when I added that text.


 * There are two related issues to consider here:


 * The first is violence of Christian colonists against native peoples cannot be considered in isolation. It occurred in the context of an overall campaign to subjugate natives as part of the colonization effort.  If we focus only on physical violence and not the overall subjugation, it will be a very strange section that makes little sense.  And, even though the article title is "Christianity and violence", the subjugation of native peoples by Christian colonists certainly comes to mind when most people think of "Christianity and violence".  We must, however, be careful to differentiate between the actions of Christian individuals, Christian countries (e.g. Spain and Portugal), Christian clergy/religious and the Pope.


 * The second issue is that of slavery. Clearly, violence or the threat of violence (coercion) is required to make someone a slave and keep them in that condition.  Once again, one could argue that Christians made slaves of others and were no different from other cultures such as the Muslims.  We need not get into a long discussion here but the two topics are so closely related that it would be strange to make no mention of slavery at all in this article.


 * The text that I added was just a first attempt using text taken from the Christianity and slavery article. Feel free to improve it.


 * --Richard S (talk) 00:22, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

"Age of Discovery" section quotes should be moved into footnotes
I added a "too many quotes" tag to the "Age of Discovery" section. The quotes are okay, but they should be in footnotes. The WP manual of style suggests that we strive for an encyclopedic style, which means the article body should primary be paraphrases (by the editors) of what the primary sources are saying. Occasional quotes are okay, but should be brief and significant. The quotes in this section can be replaced with paraphrases. Long quotes are very rare, and should only be included if a paraphrase would not be a satisfactory substitute. I suggest that the quotes be kept and simply moved into footnotes, so readers who want more detail can readily find it. --Noleander (talk) 18:00, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Note your comments. At present I'm putting down the raw material from which a higher level summary may be formed later. It is only in relatively recent times that the true events relating to the arrival of Colombus have been published. In the meantime I think they do no harm whilst the article is subject to development. ma&#39;at (talk) 16:28, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Material in " Suppression of heresies" needs sources
I removed some material, which had no sources at all, from the " Suppression of heresies" section. In the early years of WP, it was common to write articles without footnotes or sources, but since around 2004-2006, it is more-or-less mandatory to provide sources for all non-trivial statements in an article. That is doubly true for articles that are potentially contentious, such as this article. Also, most of the material removed was not related to violence. One thought: if "Christianity and the suppression of heresies" has lots of sources that discuss it, perhaps an entire (new) could be written to capture that material, since much of it is apparently unrelated to violence. --Noleander (talk) 17:40, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Material in "Roman Empire" section needs sources
Ditto for material in "Roman Empire" section. --Noleander (talk) 17:43, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

The Lead
It reads at present. "Despite its teaching of nonviolence, Christianity and violence have been associated repeatedly during history, in acts of violence as well as in opposition to such violence.[1]" I think this is very problematic since it seems to suggest that pacifism is a core teaching of Christianity. This is clearly not so since none of the major Church groups subscribe to it and never have. Whilst I have a great deal of sympathy for pacifists and their beliefs and how they try to base them them on scripture the reality is no mainstream Christian group has ever espoused them since they they know that their smaller brethern (in terms of numerical size) have to blind-eye certain key passages of the NT that flatly contradict the Christian non-violence message. In terms of sheer numbers and its dominant influence on western culture (in that respect the RCC article doesn't distort) it appears that the opinion of minor sects (as Enyclopedia Britannica calls them) is given not just prominance in an article on "Christianity and violence" but indeed the very first sentence to set the tone of the article. I'm all for representing these views but when I attempt to make a change its reverted. I can of course supply piles of material to add to the lead that comprehensively refutes the claim in order to provide balance but is it not better to simply alow a high level summary opening sentence that no scholar who is familiar with the issues is likely to find objectionable. My proposal yesterday, albeit done in a rush under time constraints in public library, sought to simply state what the indeed is the majority view and, as Britannica calls it the the views of the minor sects along with the very important distinction between "legitimate" forms of violence carried out, for example, in the so-called "just-war" scenario as against those acts that Christians consider to be wrongdoing. ma&#39;at (talk) 17:46, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Hi, I'm actually a lot more sympathetic to that suggestion than my edits, following your edits, might suggest! I'd like to hear from more editors about this. My understanding of the sources, which is still rather limited, is that there is a central dogma of nonviolence, although nonviolence and pacifism are not identical things. A lot of where I'm coming from is the issues raised in past AfDs for this page: a lot of editors see this page (inaccurately) as an attack page against Christianity and want it deleted in total, a problem common to all criticism of religion pages. But, as I said, I'm eager to hear what other editors think about this, and I'm open to going either way. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:08, 9 November 2010 (UTC)


 * I think the truth is complicated here. One cannot say that Christianity endorses violence although many Christians have engaged in violence and the Church and clergy have endorsed such violence at times.  Christianity certainly does not teach that violence is the best way to resolve issues.  There is not a concept akin to "jihad" which could be interpreted to support violence.  However, there are certainly scriptural passages which could be used to support violence and/or oppression.


 * Similarly, one cannot say that "pacificism" is unequivocally a core teaching of Christianity. Christianity does not issue a blanket condemnation of violence in response to violence or violence in response to sin although it certainly does preach peace and compassion (e.g. the adulteress who was not stoned).  There is also the "turn the other cheek" dictum.


 * I think we must say that there are those who find a pacifistic tone in Christian teaching and others who find Christianity compatible with military force, slavery and oppression. Any attempt to treat Christianity as a monolith with only one teaching is doomed to failure.  There is a pacifistic fringe and there is a more militaristic fringe.  The rest of the religion lies somewhere in between.


 * I would like to see the article present the above NPOV view (with citations to reliable sources, of course!)


 * --Richard S (talk) 21:16, 9 November 2010 (UTC)


 * I've attempted to rewrite the lead in a way that addresses the concern raised by User:Yt95. I'm sure what I wrote can be improved but I figured I'd throw it out there for everyone to consider.  Let's discuss ways to improve it. --Richard S (talk) 00:57, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I think its going in the right direction. A problem is terminology, i.e violence is assumed, incorrectly, always to be wrongdoing from a Christian perspective. When I changed the lead I used the word “force” to avoid this but the reality is “violence”  in application can be either a vice or a virtue according to Christians. For example, the RCC catechism  defends the rights of those who shun violence in the form of war ( conscientious objectors) (2306), those who use violence  in just war setting,  and also it’s use by an individual to defend their life, so long as its not used in an excessive way (2264) Maybe the leader should make this distinction clearer between what is thought as just and unjust forms of violence, with “just war” being of course a prime example of the former.


 * This leads to what I think is another important point. There are types of violence which were once considered just in the past, indeed acts of charity, but have since been totally rejected. This includes religious coercion, most famously expressed by St. Augustine who took the words of Jesus “compel them to come in” as scriptural sanction for his religious views that once so influenced Christianity. The use of torture, also once considered an act of charity, has also now been renounced, and the Christian analog of  Jihad, i.e the Crusades, and so on.  In short to make clear that Christian thought has developed on this issue over time, largely through the hard reality of the consequences brought about these policies in the past.


 * As for your final comments, it seems best to be proportionate to these point of views relevant to the numbers who hold them e.g there are only two Christians I know, in this instance Catholics, who have published material that supports the idea that slavery is permissible (Panzer and Avery Dulles) but they do so blushing, and only to defend their own distinctive understanding of Papal infallibility and old decrees issued in the past sanctioning the slavery of pagans and unbelievers. They are most definitely fringe. ma&#39;at (talk) 17:46, 10 November 2010 (UTC)


 * ma'at, I think you've brought up some important points about the approach that I'm proposing. When I say that "Christianity does not endorse violence", I am talking about mainstream Christianity in the 21st century.  AFAIK, there is no mainstream Christian branch or denomination today that endorses violence per se.  (Although I confess, I'm not 100% sure about where the Orthodox would stand on this question).


 * However, I do think I overstated the case in what I wrote especially with respect to past history. For example, I wrote that "there is no concept analogous to jihad".  You pointed out the Crusades as an analog to jihad.  I think there is some validity to this assertion although my point is that jihad is a key concept in Islam.  The question is not whether or not Muslims should engage in jihad.  The question is whether the concept of jihad sanctions violence in support of the righteous way or whether it simply urges continuing "struggle for righteousness" (a struggle that does not necessarily include violence).  The question then is whether Christianity has a similar concept or teaching.  Popes and bishops gave their blessings to the Crusades.  Are these isolated instances or is there a core teaching of Christianity (e.g. "just war") that encourages violence in the name of Christianity?  Many Christians today would repudiate the Crusades.  Are they repudiating the more militant teachings of Christianity or just arguing that those specific instances were inappropriate applications of the teaching?


 * NB: I am not seeking to answer these questions definitively in the article. I just think we should find sources who make a case on one side of the question or the other and then present those sources in the article.


 * --Richard S (talk) 17:41, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

On a quick read, a few things that occur to me would be that it needs more inline citations, and it might be good to shorten it and maybe break it up into more paragraphs. Due to real life obligations, I'm not going to be able to do much for about a week, but maybe that comment will be helpful. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:51, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Need sources for some of the antisemitism material
Quite a bit of material was recently added into the Antisemitism section. Most of it had no sources, and most of it was unrelated to violence. This article (see discussion above in this Talk page and its archives) is for violence that is directly related (by reliable sources) to Christian doctrines or Christian religious texts. For examples of proper sourcing, see the subsections on the "Iron Guard" and "pogrom" sections, which are more appropriate (but could still use some pruning). There is already an entire article Christianity and antisemitism, which is linked-to already. A brief summary of that, as it pertains to violence, is appropriate in this article. --Noleander (talk) 17:33, 12 November 2010 (UTC)
 * You have deleted material I added today which was all sourced. Are you suggesting that what was done to the Jews in the death camps, and what Hitler alludes is not violent? Indeed I was about to add how some of those involved in the death camps were destined for trial at Nuremburg escaped through the Vatican organised rat-lines (once again reliably sourced). Whilst I respect your opinion should you be enforcing your own opinions on the article in this way as well distorting edit summaries that indicate what I recently added is without sources? I await your response before reverting but having taken a random look at your talk page archives I'm worried that you maybe just like the editors who once controlled the RCC article and I would rather be doing something else than engage with such editors again. I hope I'm completely wrong but I have no further time in the library tonight to determine if this be so.ma&#39;at (talk) 17:54, 12 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Here are the paragraphs that were deleted, with an explanation for each:
 * "Throughout Christian history many popes, bishops and some Christian .." ..  had no sources.
 * "Paul Johnson notes that over 20% of the SS guards who worked in the death camps were practising Roman Catholics...  "  ... perpetrators just happened to be Christian (see Talk page above)
 * "In the summer of 1942 Pope Pius XII explained to his college of Cardinals the reasons for the great gulf that existed between Jews ..." ... source does not say that a Christian doctrine was responsible for the violence
 * "In 1933, Hitler declared to representatives of the Roman Catholic Church ..." ... source does not say that a Christian doctrine was responsible for the violence
 * "These attitudes persisted in Christian preaching, art and popular...." - no sources at all
 * "Christianity has had a troubled relationship with Judaism that often involved antisemitism. ..." - .. source does not say that a Christian doctrine was responsible for the violence (in fact, no violence in this paragraph).
 * I have no objection to including material in this article, but the consensus is that the material (1) must be related to violence; (2) the violence must be attributable (by the source) to Christian doctrines or texts (not merely that the perpetrators happened to be Christian); and (3) must be supported by sources (not the editor's opinion). Finally, I would suggest that you look at the Christianity and antisemitism article:  that article may be more appropriate for the material you are working with, because it is not limited to violence.   --Noleander (talk) 18:14, 12 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Points 1, 5, 6 are not my edits, though the person who added them will have no problem adding sources. You never gave me the chance of finishing my edits that might have explained to you how traditional Christian anti-semitism affected the way Christians responed in the run up to the Holocaust - though I would have thought anyone who edits these kind of articles would had such basic knowledge. You simply jumped in during the midst of a sequence of edits that I had spent a lot time preparing because, it seemed to me, you had made up your mind that what happened to the Jews was a no-go subject. No explanation, just a hight handed revert. I won't waste anymore time trying to persuade anyone who has unresolved issues relating to Jewishness but before I depart the article, and for any people of goodwill, this is my thoughts on the article structure:


 * The article was sending out mixed messages as to content. There is reasonable grounds for having an article that focuses on violence (or force as I prefer to call it) that is done exclusively in the name of religion (as Jordan does in his 2006 book on the subject “In the Name of God: Violence and Destruction in the World's Religions”, and this was the approach I took when I added information dealing with the era of conquest in the Americas. Thus Jordan justifies the “notable omission” of the Holocaust. However, the article began with a semi-apologetic statement that suggested that Christianity was in the beginning a pacifist movement, followed by the first section of the main article text once again suggesting the same thing. Further on there were statements about the holocaust but with no mention as how to how the commonly accepted view of Christian anti-Semitism became the seed ground in which Nazi racial ideology could grow, so I added what I thought was extremely pertinent information that showed how Hitler was aping/mocking the actions of Christianity  in the past, and in so doing silencing Christian opposition in the present.


 * Anyhow the article should make it clear from the very first sentence what the contents is about. If it's restricted to violence committed in the name of Christianity then say so clearly and drop the apologetics stuff relating to pacifism. On the other-hand if the article was also about, for example, Christian thoughts on the use of violence, acceptable and unacceptable variants, along with issues such as pacifism, then that too has the making of a decent article, indeed one that I think is of more interest than the “In the Name of God” type alternative – so long as the special pleading apologetics that riddles so many religious articles is avoided.


 * On the issue of pacifism there will always be people with hearts of love who could not hurt another human being and there was no doubt people in the early Christian community who contemplated the Beatitudes, to the neglect of other passages, that inspired them in their view-point. But as we have seen unconditional pacifism is not the central message of early Christianity. St. Paul, affirming the words spoken by Jesus, thought the curtain was coming down on this world, so much so that even getting married and having children was thought to be an irrelevant distraction. In this context worrying about socio-political issues like military service was not even on the agenda. The other consideration was the Romans considered the the early Christians as an another irritating Jewish sect, but since  they admired those religions with an ancient heritage the early Christians came under the umbrella of dispensations given by the Romans to the Jews and this included exemption from military service and as far as I know nobody has ever argued that this was to satisfy  Jewish pacifism. When the early Christians consigned the Jews to “otherness” and refused to pay the Jewish tax they lost with it the rights given to their ancestral religion.  The other influence at work here was the cult of martyrs, such a prominent feature of early Christianity. A martyr went straight to heaven and so some of the so called “military martyrs”, proto-pacifists, were just as likely inspired by the same spirit that leads some people today to blow themselves up as a quick passport to a happy afterlife. An early synod in Spain, before the reign of Constantine, thought it was getting out of hand with Christians launching, in effect, suicide attacks on pagan temples and they proscribed this as not being true martyrdom. ma&#39;at (talk) 15:55, 13 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Yt95: You seem to have some good ideas there, but the bottom line is that the sources (not editors) must associate violence with Christian doctrines or texts.   Regarding the apologetic material on peace, that is debatable whether it belongs in the article or not; but the current consensus (see above on Talk page) is that it is appropriate to include some peace/pacifism material for balance and neutrality.  --Noleander (talk) 16:06, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

Lead paragraph should summarize entire article ... but major sections are not mentioned
The lead paragraph is supposed to summarize the entire article, yet comparing the lead with the table of contents shows a large disconnect. It looks like the lead was an essay (coherent, admittedly) written by one editor, and the article was written by other editors. At a minimum, the lead should reflect (at least mention) the major sections in the article. When I get time, I'll try to help out with improving the lead, but in the meantime, I've added a tag so other editors are notified of the issue. --Noleander (talk) 17:49, 12 November 2010 (UTC)


 * While it is true that "the lead paragraph is supposed to summarize the entire article", consider that it is not necessary that the lead paragraph be written only after the article is "finished". Of course, on Wikipedia, an article can never be considered "finished" and therefore the lead may have to change to accommodate subsequent later changes.
 * However, we can also take the approach that a well-written lead can drive the writing and refinement of the article. That is to say, we could work on figuring out what we want to say, write the lead in a way that says it succinctly and concisely and then write the article to support what we've written in the lead.  This is the approach that I recommend we use.  It would help to prevent the article from becoming a WP:COATRACK.  Every new addition to the article should be considered in the context of the question "How does this information help support what is being asserted in the lead?"


 * NB: I am NOT saying that the current version of the lead is perfect and untouchable. I'm just saying that the lead should drive the article writing rather than being slave to whatever stuff editors feel they want to stuff in the article.  We should be willing to say "Nah, we really don't need that little tidbit of info in the article." and then revert it back out.


 * --Richard S (talk) 16:56, 13 November 2010 (UTC)
 * What you are saying is somewhat sensible. But the fact remains that the lead must summarize the article.  And it does not.  --Noleander (talk) 17:18, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

The topic of this article is "Violence"
I've removed several paragraphs that had absolutely nothing to do with violence. Please note that the topic of this article is "''Christianity and violence".  Some contextual information that is unrelated to violence is okay, provided that sources connect the contextual material to violence (and that the contextual material does not overwhelm the primary'' purpose of this article). As editors, we cannot make that association, we cannot determine that "readers need to know this to understand about the violence". Only sources can do that. --Noleander (talk) 04:31, 15 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Richard: I have removed the material a second time. The WP policies are very clear that the burden is on editors wishing to include material to provide sources that show that the material is appropriate. What sources do you have that relate that slavery, antisemitism, and persecution material to violence?   Please note that your personal opinion that the material is related to violence is not sufficient:  the sources must make that association.  --Noleander (talk) 14:10, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Noleander, there are several issues to consider here.

Let's first address what I said earlier about your dictum "If it's sourced, it can stay." This is exactly what I was talking about when I said that I strenuously object to using that rule. A lot of what I want to add and you want to delete is sourced. By your dictum, the material should stay. However, for me, the question is whether it is appropriate to this article. As I've indicated, I do not believe that "being sourced" is sufficient for inclusion into an article. There should be a logical reason why the material in question helps improve the article. I am prepared to discuss my proposed edits on this basis. However, I do not believe that the rationale for material being in the article has to be sourced. If we used that dictum, much of Wikipedia could be challenged. I will address the various issues in separate sections to facilitate discussion.

--Richard S (talk) 16:35, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Definition of violence and non-violence
Responding to Noleander's question "What sources do you have that relate that slavery, antisemitism, and persecution material to violence?", the answer is that slavery and antisemitism are mentioned in a number of sources that discuss Christianity and violence. Please don't make me dig them all up. I have rewritten the lead and the section on "Christianity as a violent religion" to use J. Denny Weaver's framing of the problem. --Richard S (talk) 16:35, 15 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, you have to dig them up. WP policy is very clear on that.  Editors such as you or I are not free to use our own opinions on the subject.  See policies WP:OR and WP:BURDEN.   The material will be deleted unless reliable sources clearly relate it to violence.  --Noleander (talk) 20:20, 15 November 2010 (UTC)
 * OK... I've already provided one source (see the quote from J. Denny Weaver). Need more? --Richard S (talk) 23:59, 15 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't think you understand. You've added large tracts of original research.  You cannot do that.  Here is one sample pargraph:
 * During the first three centuries of its existence, the "heretical" nature of some beliefs was a matter of much debate within the churches. However, there was no true mechanism in place to resolve the various differences of beliefs. Christianity was effectively outlawed by requirements to venerate the Roman emperor and Roman gods. Consequently, when the Church labeled its enemies as heretics and cast them out of its congregations or severed ties with dissident churches, it remained without the power to persecute them.
 * Not only are there no citations for the entire paragraph, the paragraph has nothing to do with violence. In contentious articles such as this, every sentence must have a citation, and the source (not you) must associate the assertion of the sentence with violence.  I think the material you are working with does belong in the encyclopedia ... but you are putting it into the wrong article.  There are already other articles on Christianity and slavery, Christianity and antisemitism, etc.  The material belongs in those articles (unless there is some direct relationship to violence).   --Noleander (talk) 00:24, 16 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Wait.. are you asking "What sources do you have that relate that slavery, antisemitism, and persecution material to violence?" If so... I can find sources that argue (like J. Denny Weaver) that the slavery and antisemitism are forms of violence (in truth, these phenomena are not just violent acts but also include threats of violence and other forms of coercion that are not technically violence per se).


 * For slavery, consider this article titled "Christian Violence and the Slave Narrative". or this one title "An Essay on Violence, Tradition and Modernity" which has a chapter on Slavery and a section of that chapter dedicated to "Christianity and Slavery"


 * For antisemitism, try this book titled International encyclopedia of violence research Volume 2 by Wilhelm Heitmeyer and John Hagan. On page 331, you can find the following assertion: "Among the most notorious examples of Christian violence are the Inquisitions, Crusades, wars of religion and antisemitism."


 * Regarding the relevance of the persecution of early Christians to their attitudes towards violence, I have already provided quotes from Elizabeth Castelli and Michael Gaddis that attest to the importance of that experience to Christianity.


 * Or are you complaining that some of the text that I copied from other articles is unsourced? If this is your problem, I can go out and look for sources to support the assertions or otherwise remove any unsupportable original research or synthesis in the text.  What I need to know is whether you are challenging the truth of what was asserted by the new text or the relevance of the new text to the article topic.


 * --Richard S (talk) 01:40, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Relevance of persecution of Christians to the topic
I will note that "the Christian experience of persecution by the Jews and by the Romans" is not so obviously linked to Christians being violent. The average reader might not normally link these two ideas. However, the linkage is supported by multiple sources. There are two ways to approach this issue. The first is that a number of sources mention in passing the irony that Christians went from being persecuted to persecuting in what appears to be a "twinkling of an eye". Christians are being persecuted in the 3rd and 4th centuries and yet by the end of the 4th century (380AD), they are already identifying heresy and beginning to persecute it. There is a very strong opinion that there is a massive change in Christianity when it becomes the state religion of the Roman Empire. Some people characterize early Christianity as pacifist (and the assertion that reliable sources think this is easily sourced). Even if you don't go that far, the argument that Bart Ehrman et al make is that Christianity changes from being a bunch of diverse splinter religions to being one that uses the power of the state to suppress "heresies" and enforce orthodoxy.

I will grant Bart Ehrman's view is possibly a minority view. Secular historians are more likely to side with him whereas Christian historians are perhaps less likely to do so. The mainstream view is that Christianity was always orthodox and that deviant groups sprang up from time to time and had to be suppressed. If someone wants to argue that the characterization of early Christianity needs to be made more NPOV and that Ehrman's opinion should not be presented as truth, I am open to that. I just threw the Ehrman quote in there as a placeholder until I had time to write a more NPOV treatment.

However, Ehrman's view is not critical to the argument that becoming the state religion of the Roman Empire results in massive changes in the Christian religion. While there may have been bishops prior to the 4th century, they did not wield the power that they did after Christianity became the state religion. If there is a desire for orthodoxy before the 4th century, it is muted by the fact that Christian bishops had little power other than to excommunicate. Splinter groups could easily form and bishops could do little to suppress them. All this changes when Christianity becomes the state religion. Not only does Christianity adopt the power structure of the Roman Empire (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diocese#History), orthodoxy is now deemed to be a vital interest of the state. Note that, prior to Christianity becoming the state religion, the Roman Empire was actually very tolerant of religious diversity.

So... presenting the fact that Christians were persecuted is very important in order for the reader to comprehend this dramatic change that the religion underwent from being persecuted to becoming persecuters in the span of a century. Look at it this way... a lot of people would think it reasonable for Christianity to become the state religion and urge a pacifistic and compassionate approach to public policy and foreign relations.

What happened was quite different. Constantine expected Christianity to help him in his military exploits. (Read In hoc signo vinces).

And so... all of the above is justification for including this quote from Michael Gaddis which argues that "The formative experience of martyrdom and persecution determined the ways in which later Christians would both use and experience violence under the Christian empire."


 * Michael Gaddis writes:

The Christian experience of violence during the pagan persecutions shaped the ideologies and practices that drove further religious conflicts over the course of the fourth and fifth centuries... The formative experience of martyrdom and persecution determined the ways in which later Christians would both use and experience violence under the Christian empire. Discourses of martyrdom and persecution formed the symbolic language through which Christians represented, justified, or denounced the use of violence."

Similarly, Elizabeth Castelli makes the argument that the experience of persecution by the Jews and by the Romans is responsible for pacifism in Christianity. That is the justification for this text which Noleander wishes to delete.


 * Elizabeth Castelli asserts that " Christianity itself is founded upon an archetype of religio-political persecution, the execution of Jesus by the Romans." She points out that " the earliest Christians routinely equated Christian identity with suffering persecution" as attested by numerous passages in the New Testament.  As examples, she cites the passage in the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus says, “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account” (Matthew 5.10-11).  As another example, she cites the passage in the Gospel of John where Jesus warns his disciples with these words: “Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you” (John 15.20).

The Castelli quote is related to the point made in the Gaddis quote "Discourses of martyrdom and persecution formed the symbolic language through which Christians represented, justified, or denounced the use of violence."

To put it another way, this idea that "Jesus, the Apostles and the early Christians were persecuted" becomes a lens through which Christians view the world. Some become pacifists. Others feel compelled to use violence but feel they have to justify it in order to be consistent with the pacifistic tone of the Gospels and other early Christian writings.

While I accept that there are too many quotes in the article (WP:QUOTEFARM), I figure dropping in relevant quotes is a useful first step to actually writing the ideas in a more encyclopedic style. I wanted to flesh out the structure of the article first and then come back and improve the writing later.

--Richard S (talk) 17:02, 15 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Re-reading what I wrote above and taking another look at the article text, I can see that my copying text over from other articles has resulted in a somewhat roundabout presentation of the point (i.e. the article text is very flabby prose). The text that I wrote above does a better job of linking persecution of Christians to Christian attitudes towards violence.  We should probably work on making the article text make the point more succinctly along the lines of the text above. --Richard S (talk) 17:07, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Sins punishable by death
I created the section "Sins punishable by death" as a place on which to hang the two sections "Blasphemy" and "Homosexuality" because I wasn't sure at the time whether to keep the sections or delete them. I have to say that the neither of these sections is particularly well-written nor do they fit with the overall flow of the current article. We could do one of two things. We could just delete the entire section "Sins punishable by death" or we could work on improving it. I'm inclined to just delete it. I think these sections are holdovers from the time when this article was more of a coatrack and the sections in question should be deleted as part of the transformation from coatrack to encyclopedic article.

Anybody else have an opinion on this?

--Richard S (talk) 18:52, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Request for Commnt
Richardusr: I will be  creating a RfC (request for comment) so other editors can help out with this discussion. --Noleander (talk) 19:32, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Providing sources requested by Noleander
Detailed reference can be found in the "References" section of the article.

What sorts of things are considered violence vis-a-vis Christianity as a violent religion?
Heitman and Hagan identify the Inquisitions, Crusades, wars of religion and antisemitism as being "among the most notorious examples of Christian violence". To this list, J. Denny Weaver adds, "warrior popes, support for capital punishment, corporal punishment under the guise of 'spare the rod and spoil the child,' justifications of slavery, world-wide colonialism in the name of conversion to Christianity, the systemic violence of women subjected to men." Weaver employs a broader definition of violence that extends the meaning of the word to cover "harm or damage", not just physical violence per se. Thus, under his definition, Christian violence includes "forms of systemic violence such as poverty, racism, and sexism.--Richard S (talk) 02:29, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Slavery
Consider this article titled "Christian Violence and the Slave Narrative". or this one title "An Essay on Violence, Tradition and Modernity" which has a chapter on Slavery and a section of that chapter dedicated to "Christianity and Slavery"--Richard S (talk) 02:29, 18 November 2010 (UTC)


 * article Christian Violence and the Slave Narrative
 * An Essay on Violence, Tradition and Modernity - has a chapter on Slavery and a section of that chapter dedicated to "Christianity and Slavery"
 * Violence in Slavery - "This article looks into the world of Christian slave owners, who somehow found it glorifying to god to maintain control over their slaves with physical harm. "
 * the church and postmodern culture: conversation - "The relation between violence and the Christian religion or the role of violence in Christianity is of course not a new problem. However, like other difficult, controversial, and incredibly important issues, it is often left unaddressed or given scant attention in Christian circles including Christian seminaries. ..., in dialogue with other Christians via this guest post format, I want to have a conversation about what Scripture itself says, promotes, prohibits, permits or seems to say promote, prohibit, permit about violence, majoring on those difficult passages dealing with genocide, slavery, and the like—all with a view to developing a Christian hermeneutical trajectory that would enable us to intelligently and compassionately engage contemporary issues."
 * The Christian Vision Project - Wilberforce could have done many things to show Christian love to the slaves of his era. ... But he didn't. Instead he gave them, of all things, a law, making the buying and selling of slaves illegal. Why? Because he knew that the core ingredient of slavery was violence: the wealth and blood "drawn by the lash,"

Antisemitism
Consider this book titled International encyclopedia of violence research Volume 2 by Wilhelm Heitmeyer and John Hagan. On page 331, you can find the following assertion: "Among the most notorious examples of Christian violence are the Inquisitions, Crusades, wars of religion and antisemitism."--Richard S (talk) 02:29, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Relevance of persecution of Christians to their attitudes towards violence
Regarding the relevance of the persecution of early Christians to their attitudes towards violence, here are quotes from Elizabeth Castelli and Michael Gaddis that attest to the importance of that experience to Christianity.

Elizabeth Castelli asserts that " Christianity itself is founded upon an archetype of religio-political persecution, the execution of Jesus by the Romans." She points out that " the earliest Christians routinely equated Christian identity with suffering persecution" as attested by numerous passages in the New Testament. As examples, she cites the passage in the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus says, “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account” (Matthew 5.10-11). As another example, she cites the passage in the Gospel of John where Jesus warns his disciples with these words: “Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you” (John 15.20).

Michael Gaddis writes: The Christian experience of violence during the pagan persecutions shaped the ideologies and practices that drove further religious conflicts over the course of the fourth and fifth centuries... The formative experience of martyrdom and persecution determined the ways in which later Christians would both use and experience violence under the Christian empire. Discourses of martyrdom and persecution formed the symbolic language through which Christians represented, justified, or denounced the use of violence."

--Richard S (talk) 02:29, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Colonialism
During the period of European colonialism, missionaries accompanied explorers and were later sent to colonial settlements with the mandate to convert the native peoples to Christianity.

Edward Andrews writes: Historians have traditionally looked at Christian missionaries in one of two ways. The first church historians to catalogue missionary history provided hagiographic descriptions of their trials, successes, and sometimes even martyrdom. Missionaries were thus visible saints, exemplars of ideal piety in a sea of persistent savagery. However, by the middle of the twentieth century, an era marked by civil rights movements, anti-colonialism, and growing secularization, missionaries were viewed quite differently. Instead of godly martyrs, historians now described missionaries as arrogant and rapacious imperialists. Christianity became not a saving grace but a monolithic and aggressive force that missionaries imposed upon defiant natives. Indeed, missionaries were now understood as important agents in the ever-expanding nation-state, or “ideological shock troops for colonial invasion whose zealotry blinded them.”

According to Jake Meador, "some Christians have tried to make sense of post-colonial Christianity by renouncing practically everything about the Christianity of the colonizers. They reason that if the colonialists’ understanding of Christianity could be used to justify rape, murder, theft, and empire then their understanding of Christianity is completely wrong. "

--02:29, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Gunpowder plot
Josh Keen: I've removed the Gunpowder plot section temporarily, until more sources are found. If you read the Talk page above, you'll see there was lengthy discussion because lots of material used to be in this article where the perpetrators just happened to be Christian. That material has been removed. The consensus is that the violence must be directly related to Christian texts, leaders, or doctrines. The Guy Fawkes incident seems to be 90% political and 10% religious. Can you find a few more sources (rather than a single newspaper op-ed piece)? Academic sources are best. The sources should say that the perpetrators were motivated by Christian doctrine, not merely that they were Christian, and not simply that they were trying to install a Catholic political leader. Does that make sense? --Noleander (talk) 13:44, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
 * But King James was a religious leader - he was the head of the Church of England. The plotters wanted to kill him and replace him with a Catholic monarch. The issue is clearly a religious one - if King James had been a follower of Roman Catholicism, there would have been no need to kill him. Likewise, if the plotters were Protestants, then there would have been no motivation to kill him.
 * This article should have the same rules as Islam and violence. In that article, it is not necessary for sources to show that "the perpetrators were motivated by Islamic doctrine" (as you put it). That article includes many instances where Muslims killed Jews because they were a different religious group. How would you deal in this article with similar historical situations where Christians massacred Jews? For the sake of consistency, I would argue that they should be included here. The same argument extends to Christian on Christian violence. Josh Keen (talk) 16:10, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree that there should be more consistency between the various "SomeReligion and violence" articles. However,  the clear trend in the WP community is in the direction of more sources, more direct relationships.  The "Islam and violence" article is (as this article was a year ago) a dumping ground for any material with even the most remote relation.  That article contains much material that should not be in it, and hence we should not use it as an example for this article.   If I had more time, I'd work on that article also :-)   In any case, there was consensus reached on this Talk page (several months ago) that this article's contents must be very directly related to Christianity's leaders, texts, and doctrines.  So, turning to the gunpowder plot:  can you provide some sources (preferably academic books) that say something like "King James initiated the gunpowder plot in order to further his religious objective of ..."  or "the plotters wanted to replace the Protestant King with a Catholic King in order to further the religious objective of ..." or  "Guy Fawkes was inspired to plan the action after hearing a sermon by ..."?  (I'm just giving hypothetical wordings: I have no clue about the exact history of the plot).   Those are the kinds of direct connections that are required.  If the connection with religion is as direct as you say it is (and I do not doubt that it may be) then it should be easy to find academic sources that assert such direct connections.  --Noleander (talk) 16:21, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Josh, I share Noleander's concerns. Please be attentive to past talk here and be very careful about making sure that secondary, preferably scholarly, sources relate any specific instance to Christian leaders, texts, or doctrines. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:53, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I think that the Gunpowder Plot falls under the category of "Sectarian violence" which the current (newly revised) version of the article does not deal with at all adequately. That said, it's not clear to me how much detail we need about the Gunpowder plot. Perhaps we could mention it and link to the main article on the topic.  --Richard S (talk) 16:01, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Comment by User:History2007
1. Looked out of curiousity. But this is my 1st and last comment here. Will not comment further, or look at the page.

2. What an amazing hot potato article. A dumb and non-realistic topic that should be renamed "The naive person's guide to religion". A new low for Wikipedia.

3. Any person with a sense of realism knows that most governments and religions advocate one thing, then the leaders do another. So what is new? Basic ideas:


 * Does Christianity teach peace and love? Of course it teaches it.
 * Have leaders followed that teaching all the time? In many cases, of course not.
 * Did the crusaders only travel with roses in hand? Of course not.
 * Did the Muslims invade Europe with roses in hand? Of course not.
 * Did Christian leaders look the other way when slavery was going on? Of course they did.
 * Does much of the world today still look the other way as atrocities take place? Of course.
 * Have other religions all been peaceful? Of course not.
 * Is hypocrisy a new invention? of course not.
 * Have Christian leaders had a monopoly on hypocrisy? Of course not.
 * Is this a dumb article? Of course. Of course.

"Religious cover" has for ever been used as an excuse for war by most religions. Christianity is not alone there at all - and this dumb article tries to paint it as the only religion that has been used as an excuse for war. Just look at what the Japanese did to the civilians when they attacked Korea several times over the centuries. is Buddhism a religion of peace more than Christianity? Did the Pope tell them to do that? Of course not.

History has been full of violence, often justified in the name of "some religion". Wake up guys, every body is doing it for centuries. What a waste of time of an article. History2007 (talk) 17:37, 18 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Um, we have other articles for the role of violence in other religions. Also, various Xian churches didn't just "look the other way", some actively advocated slavery, as biblically justified. — kwami (talk) 20:44, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Comment by User:Cadwallader
The fundamental problem with this article is that it starts by defining violence as "coercion" and then judges Christianity and the behavior of Christians by this as if it is a universal standard. This approach must therefore bring into question whether slavery, capital punishment and corporal punishment are "violence" simply because they involve coercion of an unwilling recipient. The older definition of violence in the English language is "unjust force". The idea of just or unjust force refers the question of what is violent back to law and philosophy of the religion.

The article would make far more sense if it were to begin with the foundational premise of Christianity, that God created the cosmos and humanity in His image, and decreed death as the consequence for disobedience to His law. Thus Christianity assumes a good God who punishes dissenters to His law with death. The Christian definition of "violence" is the application of unjust force - that is using force in a way contrary to the moral law given by the God of the Christian Bible.

If you assume the pacifist principle, that all coercion is immoral and therefore "violent", then of course, the Christian God Himself is violent. A history of Christianity and violence would then have to start with criticism of the Christian God, since His followers are merely carrying out the Christian moral law, with varying degrees of consistency.

Jesus himself used a bull whip and forcefully cleaned out the Temple, twice. Was Jesus violent? It depends on your starting premise about violence.

In order to be NPOV this article cannot take an anti-Christian definition of violence and then judge Christianity in terms of it. Rather it should explain Christianity's assumptions about God, law, punishment and violence and then look at how Christian cultures have acted on that historically, as well as how different strains within Christianity have put different spins on the whole thing.Cadwallader (talk) 18:41, 18 November 2010 (UTC)


 * While we could debate endlessly about your approach to the issue, the problem is that all that would be original research without citations to reliable sources. The article provides a fair number of citations to scholars who debate the topic using the framework described in the article.  If you can find a reliable source who makes the argument that you make above, I would be glad to have it inserted in the article.  --Richard S (talk) 18:54, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Should article be limited to material related to violence?
There is a large amount of material that has been recently added to this article that is supported by sources - but the sources do not relate the material to  violence. Examples of such material includes lengthy discussions of slavery, antisemitism, "age of discovery", etc. Should we impose the requirement that the sources must discuss the association of violence with Christianity? --Noleander (talk) 19:35, 17 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment - For those coming to respond to the RFC, it may be useful to note that the text in question can be found in the following sections of the article:
 * Suppression of heresies (specifically the intro paragraphs before the first subsection heading)
 * Slavery
 * Colonialism
 * Antisemitism
 * --Richard S (talk) 00:28, 18 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Support - This article, like similar articles Islam and violence and Judaism and violence discusses the association of a faith with violence (generally as perpetrators of violence). The pattern used in those other articles (and in this article to date) is that the sources must make the association between violence and Christianity.  That is, editors cannot make the connection.  Therefore, all material in the article must be supported by a source, and the source must somehow make an association between Christianity and violence.  --Noleander (talk) 19:40, 17 November 2010 (UTC)
 * To take a specific example: let's say that source A documents some instance where the Christian church endorsed cruel, violent treatment of slaves in Brazil.  So that material is included in the article.  Say there is another source B that discusses the relation of slavery with the Christian church, but has no mention of violence.  Question:  can material from source B be included in the article?   The answer is clearly "no" since that would (a) open up the article to a tremendous amount of material on slavery in general; and (b) it would constitute Original Research since an editor would be making the association of B's material with violence.  --Noleander (talk) 19:43, 17 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Noleander's specific example and subsequent reasoning are valid in the abstract but are not applicable to the specific topics listed above (viz. slavery, colonialism, antisemitism and suppression of heresies). In each case, I have added to the article sourced text that specifically identifies reliable sources who do link these phenomena to the topic of Christianity and violence.  In Noleander's defense, much of this text has been added in the last 24-48 hours and thus it is very possible that he has not had a chance to read and evaluate this new text.  Also, rather than responding directly to his requests for sources, I have been busy improving the article and thus the answers to his question have been spread throughout the article in the relevant sections.  As a result, he may not have been aware that I have been combing the Internet for relevant sources and using them to improve the article.  To make it easier to evaluate these sources, I have put them all together on this Talk Page in the section below titled "Providing sources requested by Noleander".  Hopefully, this will address the various concerns that he is attempting to raise in this RFC. --Richard S (talk) 03:52, 18 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Support the principle; Oppose the specific application of the principle to the current article text.
 * The principle that the article should be limited to discussing the relationship of Christianity to violence is unassailable. The questions to answer are:
 * What is the definition of "violence"? Is it purely "physical violence" or do other forms of force, coercion, oppression and abuse qualify?
 * Are there reliable sources who define what "violence" means when discussing it in the context of Christianity?
 * Is there a universal definition of "violence" in this context or does the definition vary from one reliable source to another?
 * If there are varying definitions among reliable sources, which definition should we use? The narrowest?  The broadest?  What rationale would we use to choose among the various definitions?
 * I will provide my proposed answers to these questions in time. I just wanted to put this out first to frame the issue for those coming to respond to the RFC. My answers to the questions above are provided below.
 * --Richard S (talk) 19:56, 17 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Re - Questions #1 & 2 : These questions have been discussed above in the section Definition of violence and non-violence. They are also discussed in the lead of the article and in the section of the article titled Christianity as a violent religion.  In brief, there are varying "lists of instances of Christian violence" among the sources and even varying definitions.   Heitman and Hagan identify the Inquisitions, Crusades, wars of religion and antisemitism as being "among the most notorious examples of Christian violence".  J. Denny Weaver provides what he admits is a broad definition of violence which includes ""(the) crusades, the multiple blessings of wars, warrior popes, support for capital punishment, corporal punishment under the guise of 'spare the rod and spoil the child,' justifications of slavery, world-wide colonialism in the name of conversion to Christianity, the systemic violence of women subjected to men".
 * Re - Question #3 : Note that antisemitism is not explicitly on Weaver's list. It is, however, on Heitman and Hagan's list.  Conversely, slavery is not on Heitman and Hagan's list but is on Weaver's list.  Thus, it seems clear that there is no uniform definition of violence with respect to Christianity.  It's also important to note that the sources almost never claim to have a comprehensive and exhaustive list of instances of violence.  Instead, they usually use phrases like "such as...", "including...", etc.
 * Re - Question #4: I would argue that, if the reliable sources cannot agree to a single, consistent of violence then we as Wikipedia editors are even less qualified to do so. To me, NPOV would dictate that we present all the most salient definitions and cover them all though perhaps giving less weight to the less commonly used definitions (e.g. Weaver's inclusion of corporal punishment of children) per WP:UNDUE.


 * NB: I readily acknowledge that the section in this article on Anti-semitism is too long, too flabby and includes material that does not directly pertain to the topic. This is the result of having copied the text from other articles.  The same is true of the section on Slavery.  I am fully amenable to trimming down the sections, getting rid of extraneous detail and tightening up the prose.  Unfortunately, this RFC has been phrased to suggest that these topics are totally unrelated to the article topic of "Christianity and violence" and should be deleted from the article altogether.  This leads me to oppose the RFC as written.
 * --Richard S (talk) 20:19, 17 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Support - In my mind, "Christianity and violence" means "violence that occur primarily do to Christianity". Things like the inquisition/crusades seem appropriate, slavery does not. As a sidenote, I don't really like articles of this nature in general.  They seems like invitations for WP:BATTLEGROUNDing. NickCT (talk) 19:36, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
 * But on what basis do you say "things like the inquisition/crusades seem appropriate, slavery does not"? Is this based on a reliable source or on your own personal opinion?  Do you accept Heitman and Hagan's list which includes antisemitism but not slavery?  Or do you assert that the list should be more restricted than that?  If so, whose list do you suggest we use and why? --Richard S (talk) 19:49, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Richard: for the fifth time: you are missing the point.  If Heitman has some material that describes Christianity is associated with violence in relation to antisemitism, then, fine, put Heitman's assertion into the article.  But that does not give us editors permission to include material from other sources that are not discussing violence.   Every source must explicitly be discussing violence.  --Noleander (talk) 19:55, 18 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Oppose. Of course an article titled 'Christianity and violence' should be about Christianity and violence. But that isn't the issue here, so the wording of the question is, to be charitable, misleading. The proposer appears to be suggesting that if we have a source that says a church supports mass rape, but doesn't actually use the word 'violent', then we can't use it in this article because it's OR to call rape 'violent'. That's nonsense. There may of course be marginal areas which are debatable, but we have abundant RS's noting that slavery and antisemitism are violent, so connections with Xianity are relevant for this article. Cleaning up those sections of extraneous material is a different matter, but that's not what's being asked here.
 * As for Nick's opinion above, I half agree: I think it would be useful to distinguish violence instigated by the church or motivated by Xian theology, such as the Crusades and Inquisition, from other violence. However, when a church actively advocates ongoing slavery, witch hunts, pogroms, or genocide, and finds biblical justification for it, then that church-sanctioned violence is IMO entirely appropriate for this article. Even for the Crusades, the motivation was often plunder rather than theology; similarly burning witches, since in some eras the accuser acquired the victim's wealth. There isn't a clear line that can be drawn here.
 * I also think that it may be useful to distinguish one-off violence, such as church support of genocide in Rwanda (resulting in substantial conversion to Islam!), where it is difficult to distinguish the religion as a movement from a few influential practitioners (such as a particular racist pastor), from chronic church support of things such as witch hunts, which are unambiguously institutional violence. — kwami (talk) 20:03, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Kwamikagami:  Please don't misrepresent what I said.  I did not say the sources must use the word "violence".  What I said was that sources must be discussing violence in some manner.   For instance, this encyclopedia already has an entire article on Christianity and slavery.  Should all that material be duplicated in this article?  Of course not.  What portion should be in this article?  Answer:  those parts that relate to violence.  Following your logic, this article could contain the entire body of Witch hunts, Christianity and antisemitism, Christianity and slavery, The Crusades, etc, etc.  But that is ludicrous.  This article must be limited to material from sources that are discussing violence (and no, they don't have to use that particular word). --Noleander (talk) 22:50, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
 * If we have RS's that a particular thing is violent, and that is associated w Xanity, then we have a source for this article. I disagree that the source has to itself be about 'violence' rather than simply about the violent thing. I'm not sure how you'd draw the line: any source on slavery discusses violence, since slavery is violent, so how could any source on slavery and Xity be inappropriate?
 * Sorry if I misrepresented you. But that means that I misread you, so requesting that I not do it is like asking me 'please don't have wrong opinions'.
 * Of course we wouldn't duplicate those articles! Don't create straw men: that's MOS 101. Slavery and witch hunts should be summarized here, with links to the main articles; which sources we use has nothing to do with basic organization like that. — kwami (talk) 00:09, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I could go along with that WP:Summary style approach you are suggesting, provided that the material in this article focused on the violent aspects of the topic. For instance, the majority of witch hunt activity did not involve violence (contrary to earlier belief, modern scholarship shows violence was rather limited .. but very well publicized).   Therefore, the summary in this article should focus on the violent aspects of witch hunts, not on witch hunts in general. Ditto for antisemitism:  the church has promoted  antisemtism in many ways, but 90% of that had nothing to do with violence.  It is the 10% (related to violence) that should be the focus of this article (the other 90% can be addressed in Christianity and antisemitism).  --Noleander (talk) 00:16, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Sure. I'd think that's a given. There are enough specialized articles that there's no need to stray off topic. — kwami (talk) 07:21, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
 * We seem to be in violent agreement that the article should use summary style. It goes without saying that it would be ridiculous to include the entire contents of Christianity and slavery,Christianity and antisemitism,Christianity and colonialism in this article.  However, the concept of focusing on the "10% related to violence" is, IMO, unworkable.  The problem is that one cannot reasonably say that antisemitism is 90% "not about violence" and only 10% related to violence.  It's that there is an overall phenomenon called antisemitism which results in overt violence and covert use of force, coercion and discrimination.  What I am trying to do in this article is paint the picture of how Christian attitudes and teaching fostered the phenomena of antisemitism, slavery and colonialism.  As such, I am much more interested in broad brush strokes of conceptual frameworks and causal links than in lists of specific incidents.  If I had to choose a single thing to delete from this article, it would be the text about the Iron Guard because, in the grander scheme of things, that is a little story that, while horrible, is a minor episode in the overall story of antisemitic violence.
 * We have been moving away from this article being a WP:COATRACK on which people hang their favorite example of Christians perpetrating violence with the support of the Church ("in the name of God"). The Iron Guard text is the last "coat" still on the rack.  Everything else in the current article represents significant phenomena that are widely associated as violence perpetrated by Christians "in the name of God".
 * I think all this talk of "90%" vs "10%" is just "vigorous hand-waving". What we should do is come up with specific examples of text that Noleander thinks is "unrelated to violence".  For example, in the section Material without sources will be removed, Noleander argues that the fact that "American bishops supported slavery even after a papal bull was issued against it" is not related to violence and insists on a source that discusses this point in relation to violence.  I don't agree with this paradigm of "related to violence" because, in my mind, slavery is violence and therefore an assertion that leaders of a major religion explicitly supported slavery is relevant to the article's topic.
 * --Richard S (talk) 16:53, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

The problem with your proposal is that you are refusing to draw the line anywhere. Your policy would permit all discussion of anti-Semitism, heresy, slavery, etc, etc to be included in this article ... even material where the sources are not discussing violence. For example, the vast majority of the Christian/antisemitism relationship has nothing to do with violence. My proposal is sensible: (1) this article can contain a brief overview (say one paragraph) of the broad topic (e.g. "Christianity and antisemitism");  (2) additional material can only be included if the source is explicitly discussing violence (physical harm, torture, war, threats, assault, etc) in some manner (the word "violence" does not have to be used). My proposal would have the benefits of (a) clear guidance to future editors; (b) reduce the abominable bloat of this article; (c) follow the WP:Summary style guideline. --Noleander (talk) 18:00, 19 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Actually, I don't disagree with you completely. In fact, I'm starting to move in your direction.  There are two basic subtopics here: official Church support for violence and the actual violence itself.


 * For slavery and colonialism, unfortunately, there is very little to say about the violence itself and so the discussion necessarily has to focus on Church support for them. The violence itself is of a secular nature but the issue is Church support for the philosophical and theological underpinnings of slavery and colonialism.  It would be difficult to find a Church leader supporting or praising a specific act of violence related to slavery or colonialism.  However, it is definitely documentable that some Christian leaders supported slavery and other supported colonialism.  And it is documentable that there is controversy about the extent to which Christianity is responsible for these.  IMO, that's where this article should focus vis-a-vis the two topics.


 * You will note that I have trimmed down the slavery section significantly by removing what I consider to be excessive detail. You might still think it's too long.  Perhaps you could tell me what you would propose to cut out.


 * The situation changes somewhat with respect to anti-semitism. Now, we run the risk of spending too much time detailing the horrors of pogroms, the Iron Guard and the Holocaust.  There's nothing more emotive than talking about the number killed and the other evil things that were perpetrated.  However, doing that gets off the track of whether Christianity can be tagged with responsibility for the violence.  IMO, we should focus specifically on the actions of church leaders that supported or opposed the violence, not the details of specific violent actions of the Christians.  Thus, we should discuss the German bishops who supported Nazism and those who opposed it.  We should discuss the Orthodox metropolitan that praised the Iron Guard.  etc. etc. etc.


 * --Richard S (talk) 19:07, 19 November 2010 (UTC)