Talk:Ecclesiastical polity

Merge
This may get merged into Polity (religious), or vice versa. Mangoe 11:34, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
 * No-one (except me) has replied. I favor the merge - please go ahead.  --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 14:28, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Done. Mangoe 15:14, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Article should be redone...
This article on Ecclesiastical Polity is riddled with incorrect information and missing many other bits of information. For instance, the names of the current list is not correct. It is not correctly titled Episcopal policy, for which Episcopal polity are we talking about? There is Prelatic Episcopacy and more correctly titled Presbyterial Episcopacy. Congregationalism is not even correct defined and should not even be the title of a major polity. Independency would be the more correct title to the third polity. But there is a huge difference between Independent Congregationalism and Independent Eldership which are governed differently from each other. Independent Congregationalism is invested in the Congregation and remains Independent while Independent Eldership's government is invested in the eldership while the church remains Independent. Then you are completely missing another polity which is called Erastianism which is that church government is supremely invested in a civil monarch of a nation. So this article should be changed. Any discussion? Coramdeo30 (talk) 17:41, 2 July 2008 (UTC)Coramdeo30

Consistency please...
I made one edit to this page referencing the Church of God in Christ and Full Gospel Baptist Church Fellowship (historically Pentecostal and African American church bodies)regarding what is commonly known about their hierarchical structure and a source was demanded where there were none for similar assertions regarding other traditions.

How about some consistency from the theologians and scholars of Christian history please. (DJ Black Adam (talk) 19:06, 8 July 2010 (UTC))

Entrepreneurial polity?
Many American churches, and some of the largest, are independent (thus neither episcopal nor presbyterian in their polity) and have final authority vested in the pastor rather than in the congregation or the elders (thus not congregational polity). One example that has made an attempt to formalize this as an ecclesiology (calling it the "Moses model") is Calvary Chapel. Is there any scholarship on this idea? Is there a good name for it? Does anyone know how common it is among independent churches? It could be called "entrepreneurial" in that the church lives or dies based on whether it is able to attract people who will follow the pastor's vision, but I have no WP:RS to support that usage. --BlueMoonlet (t/c) 15:41, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Merge discussion
Plurality (church governance) has been a stub for some time now, and would fit well as a section of this page. To facilitate development of both pages, and provide context for the source page, I recommend a merge. Some discussion has already occurred on the source page's talk page. --JFHutson (talk) 14:43, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Quakerism
Could someone add information on Quaker church govt? --2.98.118.248 (talk) 17:54, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Please feel free to do so yourself. --BlueMoonlet (t/c) 00:53, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

No Sources
There are no sources for the majority of the article. Most are from Plurality (church governance) from several years ago. The rest are citations for irrelevant individuals facts. --Zfish118 (talk) 07:12, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

These classifications seem to be based on how the Denominations are governed not the Individual Congregations?
It seems to me like all the Major denominations classified as either Presbyterian or Congregational are in fact still Episcopal in terms of the local Congregation. Independent Baptists are in fact very strong believers in treating the Local Pastor like a Spiritual King over his Congregations. Basically I'm saying this distinctions needs to be acknowledged more. There are some small niche Churches that avoid this, like many House Churches or some Charismatic congregations.--JaredMithrandir (talk) 15:35, 23 April 2021 (UTC)


 * If there's not a bishop it can't be called episcopal. Some independent churches use the title (think TD Jakes), but it can't be called episcopal polity if a bishop isn't required to ordain and oversee parishes and their priests. Dirkwillems (talk) 09:02, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

Requested move 11 April 2024

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: no consensus. (closed by non-admin page mover) Vpab15 (talk) 16:34, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

Ecclesiastical polity → Church polity – Concision and recognizability. "Church" and "ecclesiastical" are exactly equivalent, but "church" is a more common term to the average user. According to Ngram, the two phrases are now roughly as common as one another, though "ecclesiastical" is more historically prevalent. Dirkwillems (talk) 00:18, 11 April 2024 (UTC) — Relisting. Natg 19 (talk) 23:32, 18 April 2024 (UTC)


 * Support: more hits from Google scholar for "church polity", and many of the ecclesiastical polity hits are related to Richard Hooker's work. I believe your ngram is also heavily skewed by Hooker. -- JFHutson (talk) 17:29, 11 April 2024 (UTC)
 * On second thought, is church government the COMMONNAME? ngram. Interestingly, Church government doesn't redirect here, but I don't find the DAB entries plausible meanings of "church government" or "ecclesiastical government." Seems the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC of church government and ecclesiastical government is this page. I don't think any of these books are about the other DAB listings at Ecclesiastical government. Also, similar to the nom, polity (as used here) has the exact same meaning as "government." -- JFHutson (talk) 17:40, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
 * Oppose. Seems like dumbing down. Also seems a little odd that the editor who propsoed Calvinism → Reformed Christianity is insisting on replacing "ecclesiastical" because of recognizability! Srnec (talk) 20:12, 11 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Oppose, your argument doesn’t have any inducing rationale on why it should be changed.
 * Raulois (talk) 11:59, 12 April 2024 (UTC)