Talk:Outline of Christian theology

"Controversial Movements"
that section need to be properly edited, and cited or uncited sentences should be removed. --65.113.35.130 (talk) 18:27, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Merge Controversy
I think that the controversy page should just be merged as a section here. Might help resolve the NPOV issues there, as well. PhatJew 10:59, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Schools of thought
I added a section on schools of thought in Christian theology...made it alphabetic for NPOV purposes, but thought that perhaps it could be / should be divided into larger sections...i.e., Eastern Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism, Protestantism, with appropriate links in those sub-sections. Thoughts? KHM03 20:52, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

references?
Isn't the reference section supposed to be for information sources used to create the article? I wouldn't think it would take all of those sources to create a link page, which is what this article is at the moment. Liblamb 04:49, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

Something which may interest editors of this page
Any help which could be provided would be greatly appreciated. Agriculture 07:37, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

Covenantalism
I removed this from the list of "schools of theology" because it is primarily a Calvinist subgenre. I may be wrong; if so, let's talk about it. KHM03 12:37, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
 * I think that Covenant Theology should be included. First, while it is primarily advocated among Calvinists, it is not necessarily so; and such can also be said of New Covenant Theology. And Dispensationalism is likewise attached to baptistic fundamentalists, though not exclusively (e.g. Reformed Baptists are baptistic fundamentalists-of-a-sort that are some of the strongest advocates of Covenant Theology, among some, and New Covenant Theology, among others). Three weeks ago I added it back. The lack of interest says something. :-/ Cool. No prob.  GUÐSÞEGN  – UTEX – 21:31, 6 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Dispensationalism is not a fundamental, neither was the historic fundamentalist vs modernist controversy a baptist vs other polarity. The fundamentals are basic Christian beliefs which one must hold to be a Christian, like the deity of Christ, per fundamentalists -- the fundamentals are not denominational distinctions, but cut across denominations.


 * The history of dispensationalism can be traced 1) to England with John Darby, brethren, not baptist. 2) In the USA dispensationalism can be traced from Judge Joel Jones (a presbyterian, one time mayor of Philadelphia in his Notes on Prophecy to the Lutheran Peters who wrote his Theocratic Kingdom and cites Jones, and to presbyterian Lewis Sperry Chafer who wrote a systematic theology and cites the Theocratic Kingdom. Via Chafer, the founder of the non-denominational Dallas Theological Seminary, the movement spread around the world via DTS students who came from many denominations and non-denominational Christianity.  It should also be remarked that Chafer apparently was a disciple of C.I. Scofield founder of what became the non-denominational Philadelphia College of Bible (much like DTS).  Scofield was pastor of a congregational Church (not baptist). Thus Chafer had 2 inputs (Lutheran Peters and congregational Scofield).

Speaking of Calvinism, Chafer was a 4-point Calvinist (TULIP) perhaps like Calvin! Dispensationalists may be even 5-point Calvinists. But they do not follow the theocratical nature of Calvin with trying to take over the government as in Geneva. I suppose some would call that Calvinism, but I normally think of the 5 points as Calvinism. At any rate, bringing in baptists is irrelevant. "Baptists" so far as I know, only agree on one thing as to being baptists: water baptism of believers only. After that affirmation they may hold extremely wide difference, some being Arminian, some disbelieving the Bible and calling each other "moderates." (PeacePeace (talk) 14:23, 30 June 2018 (UTC))

Wesleyanism
Contarini 17:30, 18 October 2007 (UTC)This term is used broadly to refer to mainline Methodism as well as its various offshoots. It can also denote specific denominations--in the U.S. (and apparently in New Zealand) the "Wesleyans" are a more conservative/radical offshoot of the tradition, but in Britain for a long time the "Wesleyans" were the "mainline" Methodist denomination in contrast t more radical groups. It is therefore best to define the term first and foremost in terms of the broad theological tradition

Didache
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Didache#Didache_Title_Translation_Question

Anyone interested in looking into this one. Simonapro 18:39, 14 May 2006 (UTC)]

Suggestion
"Present Day COntroversies" seems laden with POV. In particular, the focus on Pentacostalism and the charismata seems too in-depth for this article, and should be a seperate article or included in a different article. There are plenty of other contemporary debates in modern theology. Pastordavid 19:32, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Basic Christian doctrine
I’m requesting the article, Basic Christian doctrine, because the differences among apostolic doctrines are important. There’s a difference between the notion of Christ dying for the sins of the world and Jesus being punished as an example to prevent sins. There are also differences among the ideas of being saved by belief in Jesus, of being saved by repenting before sinning, and of simply being saved by the choice of someone else. Also, if Jesus had not been crucified, what would the doctrines be? Salvation by repentance with God’s help? Also, should the biblical accounts of Jesus death be considered important at all, or simply annoying gratuitous violence in an historical record? Jesus at the beginning of his ministry preached repentance and prayer, and not the atonement. Therefore, there is room for an article on doctrines. --Chuck (talk) 00:19, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Should the History section go?
Given that there is a separate article on the History of Christian theology, I propose that the history section on this page should be replaced simply with a link to that - to avoid duplication.

What do others think?

--mahigton (talk) 14:34, 23 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I think that would be a good move. Then this article could be structured around topics, while the History of Christian theology could be structured chronologically. I think it would be good to incorporate the history section into the History of Christian theology, if possible. Lamorak (talk) 02:55, 24 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Okay - I have (finally) removed the history section. I've made further suggestions for simplification at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Christianity/Theology work group.--mahigton (talk) 10:18, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Quick explanation of Wikipedia outlines
"Outline" is short for "hierarchical outline". There are two types of outlines: sentence outlines (like those you made in school to plan a paper), and topic outlines (like the topical synopses that professors hand out at the beginning of a college course). Outlines on Wikipedia are primarily topic outlines that serve 2 main purposes: they provide taxonomical classification of subjects showing what topics belong to a subject and how they are related to each other (via their placement in the tree structure), and as subject-based tables of contents linked to topics in the encyclopedia. The hierarchy is maintained through the use of heading levels and indented bullets. See Outlines for a more in-depth explanation. The Transhumanist 23:52, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

Much of this article has no sources at all, reliable or otherwise. & there is gross NPOV violation
The definitions given lack sources. For example, for dispensationalism there is a very inadequate unsourced defininition. Probably the standard for definition here is Charles Ryrie: Dispensationalism Today. (PeacePeace (talk) 06:12, 30 June 2018 (UTC))

Article Should Be Deleted
I nominate this article for deletion as it runs on and on but has no citations. Moreover, it requires complete re-writing and is likely to have NPOV problems due to the many and conflicting points of view as to theology (for example, the attempt to include "tradition". If such an article ought to exist, it would distinguish systematic from Biblical theology.  Systematic theology is the attempt to take the revelation in God's Word and put it into topical order, synthesizing the revelation on various topics.  The divisions of systematic theology would include:


 * Epistemology (how we know truth)
 * Bibliology (nature of the Bible, revelation, inspiration)
 * Theology Proper (God Himself)
 * the One God, the Father, Cristology, Pneumatology
 * Angelology (angels, seraphim, cherubim, satan, demons)
 * Anthropology (man)
 * Hamartiology (the fall and sin)
 * Soteriology (salvation, election)
 * Dispensations & Covenants (divinely given economies limited to particular persons, groups, or eras)
 * Antediluvian Dispensation (no capital punishment, no meat eating)
 * Noahic Covenant (capital punishment)
 * The Law of Moses (with animal sacrifices)
 * The Church Age (with baptism)
 * Israelology (the nation of Israel)
 * Ecclesiology (the Church)
 * Eschatology (last things, the future)

Biblical Theology isolates revelation from particular authors or movements in the Bible and addresses the systematic topics as presented by particular authors as well as topics emphasized by those authors and includes topics like the following:
 * Old Testament Theology
 * The Law of Moses
 * The Teachings of the OT prophets
 * The Teaching of the Lord Jesus (on earth)
 * The Kingdom of God
 * Pauline Theology
 * Johannine Theology
 * Jewish-Christian Theology (James, Jude, Peter, Hebrews)

(PeacePeace (talk) 13:45, 30 June 2018 (UTC))

Dispensationalism
The article is just so faulty that I can't see trying to fix it piece by piece, but dispensationalism is just one faulty part. The idea of dispensationalism is that on the one hand God has given eternal principles to angels and men which are constant (like Love God and Love Neighbor as Self), but on the other hand God has given particular men, groups, and ages particular responsibilities which are not eternal.


 * This is like the Pope forbidding divorce, yet he may give a dispensation for an annulment to some particular person. Or like some ecclesiastical entity having married clergy but deciding at some point it time they should be celibate.

Similarly in the history of the world as recorded in the Bible, God instituted a system of animal sacrifice with the Law of Moses, a system valid only for Israel and for a limited time. When God instituted the Church, he enacted water baptism and abolished circumcision per the NT. Christ sent Peter to fish for a coin to pay tax. In Matthew 10 Christ gave the apostles special missionary instructions, which to my knowledge no Christian missionary today follows. He instituted buying swords in Luke at one point. These are dispensational issues. All Christians are to some extent dispensationalists to the extent that they do not regard the Law of Moses as their rule of life. Moreover, they recognize that God made Adam a gardener, told Noah to build an ark, and permitted polygamy in the OT by such great OT saints as King David. Yet Christians generally do not feel that they should be gardeners, make arks, or practice polygamy. One cannot be a Christian without being a dispensationalist to some degree.

The modern dispensational movement applies the dispensational interpretation more than others do, however. And there are degrees of dispensationalism. Generally dispensationalists affirm normal interpretation (literal is preferred unless there is manifestly a figure of speech or symbolic language). Also they distinguish Israel from the Church as two different groups with a different history and destiny. They believe that the special promises to Israel in the OT (the land of Israel, a kingdom on earth) remain valid and were never transferred to the Church.


 * Ultra-dispensationalists do not believe that the Church was founded in Acts 2 on the day of Pentecost; they delay its foundation to some time later in Acts, perhaps even near the end of the book, and they may believe they should not practice the Lord's Supper or water baptism, as these things are not found in the later epistles.


 * As it stands, the reference in the article to dispensationalism is inaccurate. I see no way really to fix this article, and I don't think there is any way to write it without one group trying to cram its POV down the throat of others, as by an attempt to include tradition, a Roman Catholic POV.  (PeacePeace (talk) 14:05, 30 June 2018 (UTC))