Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/African United Baptist Church


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was   no consensus.  MBisanz  talk 01:16, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

African United Baptist Church

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Delete this has been here for 5 years but remains little more than a dense essay, with little real-world context and devoid of references showing notability. This doesn't seem to be the mainstream Baptist group in southern Africa, but a splinter one that may not be numerous or otherwise notable. It has had periodic tweaks over the years so we can learn: "No other Black denomination has built more edifice in Southern Africa than NBC USA INC albeit that many have remained empty and delapedated due to bad blood. The contrast of this sad scenario is against the backdrop of Africans still worshiping under trees as their edifice. With all educational exposure ever provided towards educating the clergy no foundation of a formalised christian education programm exists. Apartheid is long gone and forgotten and Obama is president who do those concerned with missions work have to point a finger. Where is a Nehemiah to rebuild the walls of our fathers and mothers ruined fallen walls." which seems more an unsourced slam at the National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc., and some aspiration that Nehemiah will return - an insight into their theology perhaps but not encyclopedic. Carlossuarez46 (talk) 02:20, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete A Google search on both the church and the names cited in the article, including S.J Mahlangu and Moses Mocha, are turning up no evidence that this church exists. Redirect Based on the edits and input from GRBerry, I would recommend redirecting the article to African Baptist Assembly of Malawi, Inc. Pastor Theo (talk) 02:49, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete Not notable; the article is filled with random trivial facts Lets  drink Tea 03:13, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete unless we get some sources indicating the importance of this church grouping. Capitalistroadster (talk) 04:43, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Christianity-related deletion discussions.  —Cunard (talk) 09:11, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Africa-related deletion discussions.  —Cunard (talk) 09:11, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep but revert to last 2008 edit. The page was a reasonable looking stub until 5 January 2009.  That edit is a problem.  I can find via Google Books a 1965 source that verifies the stub, so I've added it and basically reverted to that stub with a couple minor copyedits.  (Note that in searching Google, the "African United Baptist Association" of Nova Scotia, Canada is significantly more prominent online, and should probably be filtered out to preserve your sanity.)  I'd like to find more data on it, but given our systemic bias against African content I'm happy with keeping the stub.  I don't know if the denomination is still around under the original name, renamed itself, or merged into another denomination.  GRBerry 16:23, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep -- The long parargraph added prior to 18 February and now removed is unreferenced and poorly written, but contains a lot of detail, which is unlikely to have been invented: information with that amount of detail normally does have a reliable source, or at least a credible source. The article seems now to have been reverted to a short stub, as existing in late 2008.  This has removed a lot of textb that some one had put in.   Pastor Theo's comment that googling produces nothing is not helpful.  Malawi is not a country renowned for being heavily connected to the Internet; hence, this proves nothing.  Patrick Johnson and Jason Mandryk, Operation World (6th edition, Paternoster Publishing, Carlisle 2001), 419 ideneties the existence of 330 denominations in Malawi, including African Baptist Assembly, Baptist Convention and Evangelical Baptist.  Each of these three is a denomination of several hundred churches.  Unless some one can find evidnce that this article is a WP:HOAX, it should certainly remain in some form.  For preference, I would like to see the deleted material moved to the Talk Page, pending verification.  I suspect that Wikipedians who are experts on Christianity in Malawi are few.  Peterkingiron (talk) 22:57, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
 * As I said in the prior comment, I returned to the stub because I found sourcing to largely support it. I wouldn't object to you putting a link to the 2009 content on the article talk page... but my take on it is that it is unreliable garbage.  For example, I really doubt that the edit of 28 January saying that "Somali pirates" (used in quotes by adder) tried to take over a church building is based on anything reliable (Malawi is a land-locked country), and it is largely indistinguishable from the rest of the content added in 2009.  Parts of the 2009 content (e.g. timing of founding) contradict the reliable source I found.  If it is not vandalism then WP:BLP also comes into play.  GRBerry 23:13, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Per Peterkingiron: there is abundant Malawi-related news on the Internet, both from the nation's media and the pan-African media: . Pastor Theo (talk) 02:20, 26 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep per Peterkingiron. Thanks. Ism schism (talk) 18:29, 28 February 2009 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.