Talk:List of former Christian Science churches, societies and buildings

Comment by User:Harrietta5
Hi Clariosophic, I always appreciate your desire to establish a balanced POV in the articles on Christian Science. Because of this, I was surprised by the negative thrust of this page. The main purpose appears to be an attempt to document a decrease in membership in the Christian Science church. As you have noted yourself, it is difficult to get any definitive membership numbers and the status of church buildings do not necessarily verify the status of the membership numbers of the churches. I was also surprised that areas of growth in the CS populations have not been included, lists of new churches in Africa and indication of church progress as exemplified by the recent increase in CS practitioners.

In the area where I live, the Roman Catholic church has sold numerous church buildings. I do not believe one could draw any sound statistics on membership from this action, either. As population centers change there is often a need to relocate services.

There are other things that might be of interest to Wikipedia users about former and current Christian Science buildings that could be more verifiable. Might you consider changing the thrust of the article to highlight CS buildings of architectural interest? Or look for other means to bring balance to the article?Harrietta5 02:14, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

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555 West 141st Street
The Church at 555 West 141st Street, Manhattan also appears to have been sold to Michel Madie, who appears to hold performances and reside there. Uses the property now also include "open sexuality parties" and homosexual weddings. The place is now also called "Temple M" or "Taj Maharlem". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.40.6.84 (talk) 13:59, 24 May 2016 (UTC)

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Eastbourne
FCCS, Eastbourne was put up for sale in (mid?)-2018. Need to keep an eye out for deregistration information. Pending that, this is ref from the Estates Gazette: Hassocks 5489 (Floreat Hova!)  22:38, 2 January 2019 (UTC)

Belfast
The building in Belfast is now owned by Iglesia ni Christo. Presumably they meet somewhere else in the city. Several images available on Geograph. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A01:4C8:141F:9C9E:1:2:3B9A:D12 (talk) 23:23, 15 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks; I will investigate. Geograph search results w/ potential sources for this article are summarised here.  One of the pics has been transferred to Commons.  Hassocks 5489 (Floreat Hova!)  14:13, 16 January 2019 (UTC)

Why only former churches? Expand/merge?
Hello to User:Hassocks5489, User:Clariosophic, and others. Thank you for developing this list. I find no mention of any list of Christian Science churches and other buildings at the Church of Christ, Scientist article, and I was just starting Draft:List of Church of Christ, Scientist, churches. First I was starting with those that I can find listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. Then I come across this list of former ones, only. Should this list be changed to include current ones? Almost all lists of places with which I am familiar include current and former places, with former meaning buildings that have been repurposed but survive, and also ones that have been demolished. Please see Template:Lists of religious worship places and Template:Lists of religious worship places in the United States. --Doncram (talk) 03:16, 24 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Hi . Apologies for the late reply; I have been on holiday.  I am inclined to suggest there should be a list for current churches, separate from the "former" list.  Would the scope be mainly architectural (i.e. covering heritage-listed CS churches, of which there are relatively few in the UK; there seem to be more in the USA) or should it cover everything regardless of heritage status?  If the latter, I could certainly put together a comprehensive list of extant churches in England and Wales, at least.  I have put the draft on my watchlist.  Hassocks 5489 (Floreat Hova!)  21:26, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Hi Hassocks5489, thanks for getting back to me. There's no rush, but I think it would be worthwhile to "rationalize" this coverage of Christian Science churches, to be more consistent with other lists of churches and other places. Right now, I am inclined to modify this list-article a bit that way, including to reduce the number of columns and the amount of white-space in particular.  I will be bold perhaps and consolidate the Canada ones into one table, then the United States ones in another table, and then consolidate other location information into just one column.  And combine the built year column with the "NRHP = yes"-type column to be one "Dates" or "Years" column indicating years built, listed on the NRHP, listed on the Vancouver local heritage register etc.  It will be sortable by the built year or whichever other year appears first.
 * I did much of that editing. Still could combine the architecture info about style and architect into one column in the U.S. section, as I did in the short 3-item Canada.  But at least the whole width of the table can now be seen on my computer screen. --Doncram (talk) 00:08, 5 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Whether or not the current ones should be combined with the historic ones, the items to be included would be "notable" churches and not every meetingplace. Any place that is listed on a national or local historic register should be included, at least.  But also anything like a "megachurch" or otherwise significant, even if modern.  About combining or not, in other settings like List of county courthouses in Texas, see discussion at its Talk page, it seems to me to make sense to put all the nearby ones together (so current plus former) for readers to browse together.  I dunno about a list of current churches only; that could rub me the wrong way if its purpose was to provide directory-type service to direct people to the nearest church of this type.  There do exist on the internet such directories for LDS churches, for Muslim worship places, for probably many other denominations;  that seems not very encyclopedic to me (related to essay/guideline wp:NOTDIR perhaps?), and better done by the church organizations themselves.  Do let's talk this out a bit. --Doncram (talk) 23:11, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
 * I think identification of current churches which are notable enough to be listed somewhere needs to be done for several states, then we could see if that info is comfortably merged with the former churches of those states. I am noting that Category:Christian Science churches in the United States contains former ones, e.g. its subcategory Category:Christian Science churches in Arizona has just one item, a former one.  For California I see that of 3 items in Category:Christian Science churches in California, that two ( First Church of Christ, Scientist (Berkeley, California) and First Church of Christ, Scientist (Riverside, California) appear to be current Christian Scientist churches while Second Church of Christ, Scientist (Long Beach, California) isn't clear.  And there are 6 members of Category:Former Christian Science churches, societies and buildings in California.  Currently I am thinking covering them all in one table would work, with identification where it is clear (and it may not always be determinable) that the church is a current one or not. --Doncram (talk) 00:08, 5 June 2021 (UTC)
 * I'm inclined to agree with you User:Doncram in regards to expanding/merging; it seems like the the reason for this article should be architectural significance, which applies to both former and current. I don't really see separate "former" and/or "current" lists for other religions or denominations except for Christian Science, and it seems weird to highlight a relatively small new religious movement in such a way. (The one exception is List of former mosques in Spain, which seems to be a very specific case of cultural and historical significance given the Muslim conquest of Spain.)
 * I also think now would be a good time to talk about WP:COMMONNAME in regards to these churches. First, I would point out that the proper pluralization is "Churches of Christ, Scientist" not "Church of Christ, Scientist, churches". (See for instance: https://www.britannica.com/topic/First-Church-of-Christ-Scientist-Boston and if you google "Churches of Christ, Scientist" you'll see that's what they are referred to as elsewhere as well.) Secondly, I've been looking around at some of these pages and I noticed that most Wikipedia pages have been using parentheses to denote location, for example, First Church of Christ, Scientist (Phoenix, Arizona). However, again if you google how they are referred to, it's almost always by using a comma, for example First Church of Christ, Scientist, Brisbane. (Google for instance "Second Church of Christ, Scientist", etc. to see more examples.) As far as I can tell the comma+location is actually part of the name, not just something added by Wikipedia to make multiple pages possible. It's a small thing, but I think we should start using the common name (comma+location rather than parentheses) especially for new pages if you or anyone else make any; and at some point I think someone should go through and rename them per that convention. If that happens, I also think some of them should be renamed to their current use (on a case by case basis of course.) For instance First Church of Christ, Scientist (Los Angeles) is now called Iglesia Adventista Central according to its page. I suspect if someone wants to learn more about the building they would search for its current name rather than its former one. WestCD (talk) 01:16, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

The United Kingdom section
I am going to start formatting this as a table and potentially expanding. This will probably take place in a sandbox first. Hassocks 5489 (Floreat Hova!) 11:25, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

Doncram's draft
Pursuant to the above, I've restored Draft:List of Church of Christ, Scientist, churches. I'm not sure whether merging here makes sense, or a standalone. Thoughts? Star  Mississippi  02:04, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

sourcing
Where does "dissolved" vs. "merged" and other status info come from? For example, First Church of Christ, Scientist (Little Rock, Arkansas) is identified as having dissolved. The NRHP nomination document does not say that; it says the building was sold to a different church group, but is silent about the Christian Scientist group. What source would clarify perhaps? --Doncram (talk) 00:08, 5 June 2021 (UTC)