Template talk:Southern Baptists

Is this template undesirable on some pages?
I understand how the many articles in which this template is used are relevant to Southern Baptists. What concerns me is that in some cases, Southern Baptists are not of particular concern to those articles. General Baptist and Strict Baptist, for instance, are not particularly 'part of a series on Southern Baptists', as the template proclaims. And while it's more suitably placed in the Evangelical section of Biblical inerrancy, it overflows that section quite significantly. Should a more general template on Baptists be made, that takes over the generic parts of this one (most of the history, for a start), letting this one be smaller and more specifically applied? -- Perey 09:47, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Protestant
It is my understanding that the Catholic church does not recognize Baptists as "protestants." I understand that the Baptists started because of a lack of "coverage" by the Catholic church rather than as a result of the Reformation.

Baptists claim to have been in existence at the time of Christ and predate the Protestant Reformation by 1,500 years. Sometimes though they are called "Protestants" for the sake of convenience of categorization. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Billy Hathorn (talk • contribs)
 * Any template should follow the articles its is navigating. Both Baptists and Southern Baptist Convention indicate Baptists are Protestant, as does the Protestant article. Novaseminary (talk) 03:07, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Should Jack Graham be added?
Should jack graham (pastor) be added to the list of pastors in this template? He is the pastor of (the largest?) a 26,000 member Southern Baptist church and a former President of the Southern Baptist Convention. However, I'm a little hesitant to put him on here, because I'm not sure he has enough current relevancy. Opinions anyone? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Floridapeaches (talk • contribs) 15:25, 10 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes, all former SBC presidents qualify. And he would qualify on the basis of the megachurch anyway. Billy Hathorn (talk) 21:01, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

B H Carroll's great-grandson is
alive well and living in Albuquerque NM. A passing bit of trivia that might interest somebody. Or not. This fact and $4 will get me a cup of coffee.

Catmandude (talk) 19:35, 29 July 2008 (UTC)catmandude

List of People
I have merged the list of People in this template into List of Southern Baptist Convention affiliated people. I propose to replace the template list with a link to the article. Reasons: Comments? Aymatth2 (talk) 02:10, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
 * This template is very long, often extending below the text of the article that contains it
 * The two lists are not being maintained in synch: most names in the template list were not in the article list, and vice-versa
 * The article provides context for each name (e.g. who they were/are))
 * I support the proposed change. The template is rather intrusive, especially on shorter articles. Putting the link would allow readers who want to read about people to quickly get to a list that will give them a better idea about whom they may want learn (especially as List of Southern Baptist Convention affiliated people continues to improve). It would seem to me to be about the right trade-off between comprehensiveness and usability. Novaseminary (talk) 02:38, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I took a crack at implementing this change with this edit. I don't 100% like the formating of my edit. Maybe somebody could improve that? Novaseminary (talk) 14:18, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I tweaked it. The template stills seems a bit large. Aymatth2 (talk) 02:35, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
 * The tweak looks good. And I agree the template is still too large. How about collapsing the "Background" and "Doctrinal distinctives" sections into just a link to Baptists? And then collapsing the "theology" section to just a link to the Baptist Faith and Message (which would also cover what the distinctives currently cover) and maybe Southern Baptist Convention conservative resurgence? That would keep the template focused on the SBC, rather than more general topics, and yet leave the general topics only one article removed in Baptists or Baptist Faith and Message where they are explained with appropriate links if the person really wants to read deeply into a subject. That would also leave the remaining links as truly SBC-related, really focusing on the organization as such. Novaseminary (talk) 05:45, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I "collapsed" the template as an experiment - different approach. See Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary for this looks on a real article. Thoughts?
 * Looks great to me -- It's much smaller, yet keeps all the info no more than a click away. Makes me wonder if something similar would be appropriate on Template:Christianity... Novaseminary (talk) 20:23, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

What belongs in the template?
I am still not comfortable with the template. The title says "Part of a series on the Southern Baptist Convention", which implies that each link in the template is to an article in the SBC series, and each linked page will include the series template. That is true of the articles under the "People", "Related organizations" and "Seminaries headings", and I think can be extended through a sort of inheritance to articles in the List of Southern Baptist Convention affiliated people and List of state and other conventions associated with the Southern Baptist Convention. Each of these pages could reasonably include the template.

It is not true of the articles under the "Background", "Baptist theology" and "Doctrinal distinctives" headings, which cannot be seen as part of a series on the SBC. These articles could not reasonably include the template: they are not "part of the series". I will check around and see if there are SBC-specific articles that could be put under these headings, perhaps create articles if there are none. Maybe Baptist Faith and Message could be expanded to cover all three areas. Aymatth2 (talk) 01:08, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree. That was sort of what I was going for (in addition to shrinking the size of the template) with my suggestion in the section above to replace certain sections with individual links. It seems this template is most useful in focusing on the SBC, not general Baptist issues, especially if those issues are not especially relevant to SBC issues. Novaseminary (talk) 01:13, 1 September 2010 (UTC)