Talk:Free Christians (Britain)

Free Christian
This articles neglects to cite sources. Several statements in particular suggest a point of view that lacks neutrality.

The article states that Free Christians are "theologically unorthodox". Are they? According to whose orthodoxy?

Why does the article suggest that it is "surprising" that Quakers have joined Churches Together? I am not surprised. Does the author hold a particular perspective which is surprised by Quaker ecumenism?

The article states that the Quakers have recruited from the Baptists. If this is true, what is the source for this statement? In a little reading I've done I found that leading Quakers had been Anglicans. Were they unusual?

What is the "creed of the Evangelical Union" to which the article refers? Of what importance to Free Christians, "orthodoxy" or the Church?

Is there any Free Christian activity in the United States or is it a British phenomenon? My understanding is that the movement Britain calls "Free Christian" is particularly active in the U.S. in the Christian Church (Disciples) and in the United Church of Christ. I'm not an expert so I am not certain but a brief note about American activities would be helpful.

The article could provide a reference to the "General Assembly of Unitarians and Free Christians" inasmuch as that it is probably Britain's major Free Christian association. The "Nonsubscribing Presbyterian Church of Ireland" is another Free Christian denomination that deserves mention.

LAWinans (talk) 03:18, 5 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Undoubtedly, this article could be improved; more information, better referenced and better phrased. However, several of the points made above are not particularly constructive. The most important of which was the questioning of Free Christian unorthodoxy.

According to whose orthodoxy are 'Free Christians' unorthodox? Are you serious? Surely we have all heard of the Nicene Creed?

A creed is a statement or confession of belief. The most definitive creed in Christianity is the Nicene Creed, formulated in AD 325 at the first of the Seven Ecumenical Councils. Affirmation of this creed, which describes the Trinity, is generally taken as a fundamental test of orthodoxy. The Apostle's Creed is also broadly accepted by the majority of the world's Christians.

For further reading, the Wikipedia article Creed has a useful section called 'Christians without creeds'. Yozzer66 (talk) 21:00, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Chaotic and staggering discourse
The discource is bewildering, paradoxal and chaotic, like it tries to prove some POV by a bad rhetorics, f.ex.:
 * most Free Christians have been Arminian but, again, most Arminians are not Free Christian

is a triviality remark followed by
 * The Methodists have their own creeds.

which is a well-aimed shoot-yourself-in-the-foot argument, considering the non-creed-criterion for being "free christian". The text should (if true, I suspect this article is actually an editor-conceived topic) instead say something like:
 * Free Christian have been a minority group with adherents mostly among Arminians that don't accept creeds as binding statements

Or some such.

This is worse:
 * As mentioned previously[unencyclopedic subclause!], Free Christians may be found within mainline Christian denominations—often under different names such as 'Progressive Christian' and/or 'Liberal Christian'.

Then I get an affirmation of my suspicion that Free Christian is actually not a valid article. There is no criterion of non-Creed to be classified as either 'Progressive Christian' or 'Liberal Christian'. I believe 'Liberal Christian' is a confusion with Liberal theology, building on primarily higher criticism and historical interpretations. 'Liberal Christian' is just a noun cluster denoting any Christian that might be "liberal" it is not a valid term. There is neither any criterion of non-Creed for Liberal Theology even though some extra bold Liberal Theology proponents have criticised common creeds for various reasons. I believe this article is an editors concoct. Rursus dixit. ( m bork3 !) 18:57, 17 October 2010 (UTC)


 * I agree that the article needs a radical re-write but I disagree that it is simply an editor's concoct. The term 'Free Christian' is in mainstream use in the UK. It is not just another term for non-creedal Christians because, as you know, these come in many varieties. In the General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches, 'Free Christian' is a self-applied label used to distinguish its adherents from Unitarianism. However, these particular 'free Christians' remain theologically unorthodox. Perhaps you are right that "Free Christian have been a minority group with adherents mostly among Arminians that don't accept creeds as binding statements". Yozzer66 (talk) 16:21, 20 October 2010 (UTC)


 * I have conducted a major edit - to try and simplify the article, and focus it on the main points. I think a brief reference and/or a link to the article on Arminianism is all that is needed, if at all --HopeRedefined (talk) 10:00, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

moving all external links here
The external links are to bios of and books by Martineau, or to organisations mentioned in the article. There is no official webpage about "Liberal Christians", so I very much doubt that there can be a useful EL section. In case the sources are useful for developing the article, I paste them here:
 * The New Affinities of Faith: A Plea for Free Christian Union, James Martineau (online book)
 * Non-Subscribing Presbyterian Church of Ireland
 * General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches (UK)
 * James Martineau Biography
 * Unitarian Christian Association (UK)
 * Way-Farers - Free Christian resource
 * Free Christian Church of Unitarians and Universalists
 * Free Christian Historical Documents

It's still a pretty bad article, even after all the culling I've done. Even the title is confusing. BrainyBabe (talk) 15:42, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

Straitening up Free Christian content
The content that was for a long time the content of the article named Free Christians has been moved and used as far as I can tell as the bases for the creation of this article. This content in question is about Free Christianity in the UK and Ireland. Can anyone here tell me why it was ever moved out of the Free Christian atrial in the first place? I for one feel this content would be of best use if it was merged back into this Free Christians article. Thoughts on this development would be most appreciated. --Devin Murphy (talk) 19:48, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived 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. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: superceded by events. During the long course of this discussion, editors resolved the ambiguity by redirecting Liberal Christians to Liberal Christianity and by creating a new disambiguation page at Free Christian. Discussion seems to have reached a happy consensus. In any case, other suggestions would best be handled by new discussions, as circumstances have changed greatly since this discussion began two months ago. Xoloz (talk) 03:45, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

Liberal Christians → Free Christian – The cited article was originally under Free Christian but was merged, without consultation, to Liberal Christians. A page of non-specific content with links to various groups was then placed under Free Christian. There was a proposal made in October 2013 to return Free Christian page to its earlier state, using the content on Liberal Christians. Other interested users are broadly in agreement with the proposal. Please could someone action this. Relisted 19:34, 27 January 2014 (UTC) StockportFCF (talk) 13:22, 28 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Article is a complete mess! I don't understand the subject enough to edit though. Theroadislong (talk) 15:19, 28 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Agreed, the article has become a mess though not due to the content - the article under 'Free Christian', 'Free Christians' or 'English Free Christianity' would rectify the issues quite quickly. StockportFCF (talk) 17:24, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
 * We already have an article called Free Christians though. Theroadislong (talk) 17:30, 1 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Redirect to Free Christians as a content fork. A merge seems like it would be appropriate, but I'm not sure there's really anything to merge. Redirection, at any rate, will preserve page history in case editors want to carry out a proper merge (n.b. Liberal Christians should redirect to Liberal Christianity; Free Christians (Britain) should redirect to Free Christian). --BDD (talk) 00:18, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Merge the other way - The other article "Free Christian" (?) looks to me like partly WP:OR. The free Christian Church of James Martineau (which is what the merged article should be called, is a notable, provable denomination - or was, since it is largely merged into Unitarians. But what is "Free Christian"? I cannot see any reliable sources saying that "Free Christian" existed or exists other than the Free Christian Church denomination. In ictu oculi (talk) 05:26, 14 January 2014 (UTC)
 * On closer inspection the Free Christians page appears possibly to be almost a hoax for a group that doesn't exist.The original German page was AFDed for WP:OR de:Freie Christen and has now gone. The logo for this church was made in Corel Draw, looks like WP:OR too. In ictu oculi (talk) 05:36, 14 January 2014 (UTC)


 * I am the individual who originally suggested the merger between the current Free Christians article and this article now called Free_Christians_(Britain) that was called Liberal Christians at the time of my suggested merger. But after having a closer look at the current article that is under the heading Free Christians I couldn't agree more with this comment from In ictu oculi "On closer inspection the Free Christians page appears possibly to be almost a hoax for a group that doesn't exist." So I think we ought to move ahead with implementing what StockportFCF suggests above. If I do not hear any objections to doing so by next Saturday I will go ahead and implement this. --Devin Murphy (talk) 19:39, 18 January 2014 (UTC)
 * User:Nived 90 cc User:StockportFCF User:Theroadislong User:BDD, I would compeletely support nuking the hoax article and deleting the self-made Corel logo. In ictu oculi (talk) 07:38, 23 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Agreed. --BDD (talk) 15:52, 23 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I have nominated Free Christians for deletion you can go have your say on its entry here. --Devin Murphy (talk) 19:55, 27 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Do not move. Keep this article at Free Christians (Britain), as it relates to a specific strand with links to Unitarianism. Delete current page Free Christians then redirect that to nondenominational Christianity, to avoid content forks. Redirect Liberal Christians to Liberal Christianity as the obvious primary meaning. – Fayenatic  L ondon 12:31, 28 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Pinging all users involved here. Now that Free Christians and its redirect Free Christian have been deleted, this may affect where we go with this discussion. We can probably all agree that the status quo right now isn't right. --BDD (talk) 00:50, 8 February 2014 (UTC)
 * well, I stick with my suggestion above. – Fayenatic  L ondon 07:43, 8 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Restore Liberal Christians back to Free Christian as before User:Bibelforscher's move to create own page (now deleted as was de:Freie Christen). Pinging User:BrainyBabe as an expert editor in this area. In ictu oculi (talk) 06:54, 8 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I would support redirecting Liberal Christians to Liberal Christianity. And don't think we ought to redirect Free Christians or even Free Christian to nondenominational Christianity, as the term "free Christians" or "free Christian" are not always referring to non denominational individual Christians or churches, take the British usage of this term as an example. Also I would support keeping this article at its current tittle Free Christians (Britain) or moving it to Free Christian (Britain) as it has been said by others here the term free Christian can also refer to "nondenominational Christianity". So then would a disambiguation page for the term "free Christian" be of some use? --Devin Murphy (talk) 17:18, 10 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I have gone ahead and changed Liberal Christians redirect from this article to Liberal Christianity. --Devin Murphy (talk) 20:52, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Well done. OK, a disambig page at Free Christians sounds the way to go, with a redirect to it from the singular. – Fayenatic  L ondon 21:04, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Agree. Free Christians is a term several organisations would like to claim, with several of the claimants very active on the web. We probably haven't seen them all yet! A DAB is the way to go. Andrewa (talk) 11:54, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I have created the DAB page, and undeleted Free Christian as a redirect to it. – Fayenatic  L ondon 14:53, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.