Talk:Original Church of God or Sanctified Church

Female ordination issue
An IP editor and a (so far) single-edit editor are reversing "The new board approved the ordination of women, which Gray opposed, and in that same year Gray and a group of members broke away to form a new body, the 'Original Church of God or Sanctified Church.'" to say the opposite, i.e. "The new board opposed the ordination of women, which Gray approved, and in that same year Gray and a group of members broke away to form a new body, the 'Original Church of God or Sanctified Church.'" The Charles Jones book cited in the article supports the original version, saying that Gray "frowned upon" female ordination (thanks to Orlady for re-proving this source) as can be seen in this snippet view. Before the change is reverted again, the editors changing it from the original version are asked to discuss the matter here. Regards, TransporterMan  ( TALK ) 18:54, 28 February 2013 (UTC)


 * The Fundamental Doctrine and Government of the Original Church of God or Sanctified Church, written by Elder C. W. Gray. Part Two, Article II and III. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ZHester (talk • contribs) 22:49, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

The situation at this moment is that we have one reference, cited in the original article and unchallenged for more than three years [I guess it was challenged in February 2013, hence the comment above, but, still, that is two years], which says that when Elder Gray led about a third of the members to leave the Church of God (Sanctified) and form a new church, "at issue was the ordination of women which Elder Gray frowned upon."  We can actually see this statement in the snippet of that document linked above. We also have another editor now claiming that the exact opposite is true, and supplying the name of the above document which we apparently cannot see online, in support of that claim. What to do? I have explained to [one of] the latest editor[s] that the burden of evidence is on the editor proposing the change.  Dwpaul  Talk   02:46, 1 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Here is a link to another reference (African-American Holiness Pentecostal Movement: An Annotated Bibliography by Sherry S. DuPree) that states explicitly that Elder Gray "frowned upon" the ordination of women, leading at least in part to the split.  Dwpaul  Talk   03:10, 1 February 2014 (UTC)


 * The fact that the document is not online is not a legitimate objection, see SOURCEACCESS, but there is nonetheless a considerable problem: Even if this is evidence that the original foundational documents of the church written by Gray prohibited the ordination of women (and even that has to be absolutely plain on the face of the document, since that is a primary source under Wikipedia policy and primary sources cannot be used to make a point if they have to be analyzed or interpreted to reach that point; for example, if it says that men may be ordained but doesn't specifically prohibit the ordination of women, to conclude from that silence that it prohibits the ordination of women would be a prohibited interpretation of a primary source), it is prohibited original research to use it to support the point that Gray left the CoG(S) for that reason unless it is clear from the face of the document that it was written at the time of the schism and as, in effect, a declaration of independence from CoG(s). Otherwise, it is only evidence of what the doctrines and policy of the OCoGoSC were at or after it formally formed. While there's not much of a logical bridge needed to impute those doctrines and policies back to Gray's motives at the time of the schism, any logical bridge is too much under Wikipedia's no original research policy, especially in the face of Wikipedia-preferred secondary reliable sources which state the opposite. Regards, TransporterMan  ( TALK ) 14:54, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

New leadership
The following material was added without adding a new reliable source as defined by Wikipedia to support it:


 * In August 2015, the Original Church of God welcomed Bishop Warren Edwin Boyd, pastor of Original Church of God - Indianapolis to the office of Presiding Prelate. Assistant Bishop Ayuba Maigari, pastor of Original Church of God - Akron, serves by his side.

I'm preserving it here because it is probably true, but information in Wikipedia — especially information about living persons — must be supported by a citation to a reliable source: See the verifiability policy. Regards, TransporterMan  ( TALK ) 20:32, 16 June 2016 (UTC)