Talk:People of Praise/Archive 3

Divisions and affiliated organizations
This section comes off very much as corporate promotion...Linn C Doyle (talk) 13:54, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

Trinity Schools

 * "The schools follow an academic core curriculum which includes six years of mathematics, five years of science, 11 semesters of writing, six years of literature, and five years of a foreign language"
 * "Students take 5 semesters of scriptural studies (through an ecumenical Christian approach) and either a Catholic or Protestant doctrine course"
 * ...are we advertising this curriculum? Is this curriculum noteworthy?Linn C Doyle (talk) 13:54, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

Christians in Commerce

 * "Christians in Commerce (CIC) is a movement of business and professional men and women that is dedicated to helping members grow in the Christian life and to influence the world of commerce with the gospel"
 * This is pure advertising. Where is our reliable source that "members grow in the Christian life and to influence the world of commerce with the gospel"Linn C Doyle (talk) 13:54, 30 November 2020 (UTC)
 * "35 local Men's Chapters, Women's Chapters and Campus Clubs. These chapters have held retreats (Challenge Weekends) that have been attended by over 14,000 men and women"
 * Citing the organisations own website? Are these attendance figures reliable given obvious corporate vanity issues? Is this not advertising?Linn C Doyle (talk) 13:54, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

This Article Could Use a Reference Purge
Behold! Here thar be unreliable sources. Burn em to the ground says I! What say ye?

There are numerous dubious sources in this article. Ralph Martin and Billy Kangas, for example, work for Word of God (community), which is heavily involved with People of Praise, where past membership used to work together on Bob Mumfords Shepherding movement, as with Sword of the Spirit where we are seeing some living bulwark references. There's a veritable plethora of self-publication and blatant corporate vanity issues in the referencing too.

That and a never ending onslaught of opinion pieces regarding a certain supreme court (though I would agree this is controversial and noteworthy, many sources used are not reliable) which could use some sifting through. Linn C Doyle (talk) 00:55, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

To begin...

Source 1: This is Ralph Martin's perspective. Ralph Martin used to run the 'association of communities' between Word of God and People of Praise which was the proto- Sword of the Spirit 'community of communities'. This cannot be trusted as an unbiased account as the source has a conflict of interest. This info can be verified here. Linn C Doyle (talk) 01:07, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

Source 5 and 6 are the People of Praise self-published magazine and affiliate Sword of Spirit (founded by Martin and Clark, both of whom operated the association of communities with People of Hope) self-published website. This cannot be trusted as an unbiased account as the sources again have obvious reliability issues. Linn C Doyle (talk) 01:07, 28 November 2020 (UTC)


 * Self-published sources are allowed to be used as sources of information about themselves. Source 1 is mainly used as a source for categorizing POP as an "intentional community". I don't think that is really controversial or doubtful. Ralph Martin is quoted in the "reception" section so it's cataloguing people's opinions about POP. Source 5 is used once to flesh out the history of the organization; any claims that don't align with independent sources can always be challenged and removed. I didn't see POP mentioned in Source 6, so I'm not sure how relevant Stephen Clark is to POP. The article seems to suggest he was a founder, but maybe we need a better source for that. Ltwin (talk) 02:16, 28 November 2020 (UTC)


 * So re source 1, POP is not actually an international community, but a local community. It is in itself a member of a charasmatic community association (which is not sword of the spirit) that I will have to dig out the name of. I know the POP website lists communities as 'branches' but this is in fact under a separate umbrella (with much of the same leadership). Otherwise this article has its share of errors (margaret atwood refers to people of hope as inspiration in Penguin published interview, not POP). Ralph Martin (see the Rush ref) used to work with the POP bosses leading a community association. I'm just not convinced 'ex POP boss says POP great' is the most balanced reaction shot that can be given.


 * RE source 5 yes for sure however there are perhaps better primary sources, theres a few books on the topic I have handy. For simple statements like POP was a charismatic group Bernard, David K (1999). A History of Christian Doctrine (PDF). Word Aflame Press. can work and would perhaps be a better option than self-publication.


 * RE source 6. So Clark was in fact not a POP founder. He did indeed work with these people and sat on the fort lauderdale council with ralph martin and bob mumford (Shepherding Movement). Martin and Clark centred around the word of god originally, however. The People of Praise and Word of God originally worked together to try build the 'association of communities'. That collapsed ran 1975-81 then POP and WOG split. Essentially it was a tight knit bunch and some conflict of interest issues. 82 Clark fills in the 'community of communities' gap with sword of the spirit extending from WoG and a group centred around clark and scanlan, servants of christ the king.
 * All for accepting things like 'it was in south bend" and "we are a charismatic community" but not so much "ralph says the pope things people of praise are great"...Linn C Doyle (talk) 02:58, 28 November 2020 (UTC)


 * While PoP may well be some kind of "international association of covenant communities" (international, meaning that said communities "exist in more than one nation"), what Ltwin was saying is that each of its constituents profess to be intentional (...a group of folks "committed" to "co-operate" with "mutual" "intent" blah blah blah to build a "community"). The overall PoP is a major part of a larger movement sometimes termed the "covenant community movement." Although there isn't a Wikipedia article at that red link, if there were, information about Stephen B. Clark would belong there. There's also info about this goodly "friar"  here in the PoP article's "history" section. For additional sources about the movement, see "Talk:People of Praise/Archive 2."--Hodgdon&#39;s secret garden (talk) 20:08, 29 November 2020 (UTC)


 * Yes so this is where I am getting at. PoP origins are somewhat 'vague' here and I have refs to improve that. PoP was founded and initially worked with Word of God (community) (ralph Martin/Steve Clarke) in managing the 'association of communities'. This ran 75 through to 81 I believe at which point 'disagreement in leadership caused WoG and PoP to part ways. The joint 'association of communities' split here, Clarke and Martin forming Sword of the Spirit around WoG (which split again martin vs clark in 1990/91 - clarke forming sos around his and scanlans 'servants of christ the king'). PoP formed its own community association which has a specific name I cannot remember off the top of my head. Where this leaves us is with an intro which wrongly identifies PoP as the 'network of communities' rather than the individual community discussed through most of this article.Linn C Doyle (talk) 13:22, 30 November 2020 (UTC)


 * Either way given that Ralph Martin worked closely in leadership of a joint organisation with PoP leadership, there is a clear COI issue in using ralph martin quotes to assert 'the pope thinks my old busniness partners (PoP) are awesome'. At the very least this reaction shot should clarify Ralph Martins COI in text. Linn C Doyle (talk) 13:27, 30 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Efforts toward wp:Balance might involve, if the article doesn't already, reference to, for example: (A) Francis's 2014 warning to (esp. lay-led) communities that they not 'usurp the individual freedom' of participants (B) how PoP members' covenant to 'accept the order of this community.' (C) that "one former member of the group[...]said groups like People of Praise can develop unhealthy dynamics without careful attention". See for all three Catholicnewsagency/"Experts Push Back on Criticism of Amy Coney Barrett's 'Covenant' Agreement". The other option, if contributors continue as too lazy to find such balancing info, for wikipedia to simply mention such straightforward, non-opinioned facts as that francis named fr. peter smith of vancouver WA & portland OR - who's also of (inter-Christian faiths) PoP - aux. bishop of portland & allow readers to draw what conclusions they may.--Hodgdon&#39;s secret garden (talk) 17:08, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

, your note comes off a bit WP:TEXTWALL. Would you consider pulling it apart into sections (or subsections of this section) and only bringing up one possibly problematic source at a time and then people can wade through that, decide, then move on to the next one? Novellasyes (talk) 20:36, 29 November 2020 (UTC)
 * For sure, I will do a cleanup when I have some time.Linn C Doyle (talk) 13:22, 30 November 2020 (UTC)