Talk:Nondenominational Christianity

Barna Group
I added in the url, http://www.barna.org/, and a brief discription of this Research Organization that was referenced in the History section. But when I searched their website for information on megachurches, what I found doesn't quite go with a fact that was cited. http://www.barna.org/FlexPage.aspx?Page=BarnaUpdate&BarnaUpdateID=49, published in March 2000, states that a megachurch is defined to have at least 1000 adults in weekly attendance.

POV
This article is too Christian-centric - going so far as defining beliefs of typical non-denominational churches solely in terms of non-denominational Christian churches. The article also overlooks the the application of the term to people - which is often another way people self-identify without saying "secular" --JimWae 06:49, 2005 August 13 (UTC)

What the bible says
I would not like to say that some person does strictly what the Bible says. That is most likely contested by someone. A true way of saying it in NPOV way is: what they believe the Bible to say. This credits both the sincere belief of these persons and gives the idea that they do not have the absolute authority to interpret Bible. I am quite sure that the Pope tries to do what he believes the biblical way, but I am quite as sure that any Fundamentalist Evangelist from Bible Belt does the same. However, their views may be quite different.

Relation to Evangelicalism
We have a sentence here that begins, "Nondenominational churches are recognizable from the evangelical movement&hellip;" can't even tell what "recognizable from" is intended to mean. Are we simply saying that some nondenominational churches fall within the evangelical movement? Asserting that all do? Or are we saying that the movement has, in some sense "recognized them"? Or something else entirely? Whatever this means, the wording should be changed to make the meaning clear. - Jmabel &#124; Talk 03:49, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

The phrase seems to have entered the article in this major edit by User:Nathan B2, which also appears to have removed a fair amount of cited material without any explanation of why it was removed, and which seems to me to amount to a change in the scope of the article. It does not look like this was discussed at all. - Jmabel &#124; Talk 03:58, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

Having received no answer, I have asked a related question at Reference_desk/Humanities. - Jmabel &#124; Talk 22:55, 16 September 2023 (UTC)


 * That related question (and responses) is now archived at Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2023 September 16. - Jmabel &#124; Talk 04:11, 4 October 2023 (UTC)

Edit, moving forward
I'm not expert here, so on the whole I expect to raise questions rather than give answers.

1) Is there really a single subject here? I particularly wonder when I compare this article against the French and Spanish articles linked to the same Wikidata item. In particular, this article currently begins, "Nondenominational Christianity &hellip; consists of churches [emphasis mine] which typically distance themselves from the confessionalism or creedalism of other Christian communities&hellip;" So are we saying that Nondenominational Christianity refers specifically to a stance of individual churches, not of individual people or of any other sort of institution?

2) I suspect the article should take up comparison between nondenominationalism and such other concepts as ecumenicism, small-c congregationalism (which it already does seem to address in some degree), and Protestantism and Evangelicalism. Is non-denominationalism necessarily a subset of any of these? Do authorities even agree on these answers?

3) The French-language Wikipedia article seems to date the original nondenominationalism earlier than this article, someone may want to look into their sources.

4) "In Asia, especially in Singapore and Malaysia, these churches are also more numerous, since the 1990s." More numerous than what? Is that last comma just superfluous and is this just saying that they've grown since the 1990s, or (given context) is it saying that since the 1990s these churches are more numerous than other churches (previous sentence was about how they compared in numbers to various denominations in the U.S.).

5) "Nondenominational churches are particularly visible in the megachurches": I have little idea what this means, partly because it is entirely unclear what "visible" means here. What is the objective, factual statement here?

6) Almost half of the article consists of criticism of nondenominational Christianity (note: not criticism of the concept as a tool in analyzing churches, but criticism of nondenominationalism as a movement). None of the article consists of any positive statement of this approach to Christianity by its advocates. This seems very imbalanced.

Jmabel &#124; Talk 21:37, 18 September 2023 (UTC)


 * User:Jmabel, I agree this article needs some work.
 * In answer to #1, the topic of this article should refer to churches and members of those churches that do not claim membership in any specific denomination. For example"
 * First Baptist Church of Whoville is Baptist (a denomination)
 * Community Church of Whoville (which is also a member of the Southern Baptist Convention) is Baptist (a denomination) but is trying to downplay its denominational background by leaving "baptist" out of the name
 * New Hope Church of Whoville was founded in 1999 by Bob, a former Southern Baptist pastor who left the SBC in 1998. New Hope Church has never been part of the SBC or any other denomination. It is therefore a truly non-denominational church.
 * In answer to #2, that is probably a good idea to explore how these different terms relate to each other. Is non-denominationalism necessarily a subset of any of these? Do authorities even agree on these answers? Non-denominational churches may follow congregational polity, or they could give all authority to the pastor. It depends on the church. N-D churches are overwhelmingly Protestant. It would be difficult to embrace Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy while also eschewing any broader authority beyond the local church (though maybe a non-denominational church could try it). A N-D church could be evangelical or not. However, I suspect most in America are probably evangelical.
 * For #5, I think this just means that many mega-churches are non-denominational - meaning they are not members of any denomination. Ltwin (talk) 00:15, 14 January 2024 (UTC)
 * if you think you can do something with this, great. I would recommend looking at the French-language article, if only for its scope and its sources. Not that I'd suggest aping it, but there may be material there worth incorporating.
 * Yes, I would agree that non-denominational Christianity is generally at least implicitly Protestant. But what's important is what actual scholarly sources say.
 * For #5 you are probably right. Without citation, though, it is just so much blather. As it's worded now, it's just so much incoherent blather. - Jmabel &#124; Talk 05:29, 14 January 2024 (UTC)

Nondenominational Christians and Baptists
In 2018, political scientist and Baptist minister Ryan Burge wrote on his blog about a study that shows the similarities between Southern Baptists and nondenominational Christians. He noted that the two groups are very similar, but nondenominational Christians are more moderate theologically.

https://religioninpublic.blog/2018/03/07/nondenominational-protestants-are-basically-southern-baptists-with-a-few-caveats/

To add to this, NewSpring in South Carolina started out as church plants by Southern Baptists but its members claim their church is nondenominational. In fact, it is a bit hard to find mentions of the Southern Baptist Convention on their website. This seems to be something of a trend of mega churches to hide their affiliation to denominations. 159.117.174.98 (talk) 19:31, 23 March 2024 (UTC)