Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bible study (Christian) (2nd nomination)


 * 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   keep. Ron Ritzman (talk) 01:08, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Bible study (Christian)
AfDs for this article: 
 * – ( View AfD View log )

This was nominated before, and the consensus was to keep based on the notability of the concept. But the concept exists in the cell group article - I split off the material about group Bible study there, and the material about personal Bible study to the Quiet Time article. Hence, this can be deleted, or become a disambiguation page. StAnselm (talk) 19:12, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Christianity-related deletion discussions.  —StAnselm (talk) 19:16, 16 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment - I've added cell group and quiet time to the related articles section on the dab page Bible study. --GraemeL (talk) 19:23, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Weak keep - based on notable distinction between "bible study" and "cell group" (but unfortunately not based on quality of article). I guess it depends on the contexts one is familiar with, but IMHO Bible study is actually a more familiar term to many than cell group, and it covers a large, but different, umbrella of meaning.  It seems from the article that cell groups imply a level of organization that Bible studies do not necessarily employ; i.e. there is a coordinated effort on the part of the church to organize their members into these groups.  The cell group's article's opening statement:  "The cell group is a form of church organization that is used in some Christian churches."  Bible studies are not (necessarily) used to organize a church, they can be quite informal (may not even have a leader), may be intended as a form of outreach ("evangelistic bible studies"), may not be church sponsored (e.g. para-church ministries) and the participants may not all be Christians.  Based on the cell group article (but I cannot vouch for it), it says cell group participants are all Christians and are a method of church organization, so they seem like distinct concepts and I do support a keep based on that, but  weak, because after the split-off and merger activity it would need to be developed and supported with sources, and right now there isn't much to the article.  -- Joren (talk) 20:16, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, I use the phrase "Bible study" myself, but I don't think the distinction is a notable one - indeed, people often rename it and then say "Cool name group isn't a traditional Bible study group." But anyway, the major source I've added into the cell group article (Hunsicker) refers to "small groups" in the article title, and then starts by saying The “cell” concept in church structure is becoming prominent. So we have a fair bit of interchangeability. I added the comment about para-church ministries, and also included a picture of a (presumably) non-denominational Bible study on board a ship. StAnselm (talk) 20:39, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I think the main problem I have is just that - the cell concept is about church structure. The bible study may or may not be, but the cell group definitely is (at least that's what the article said).  I'm not sure it can be solved by trying to expand the definition of cell group to include all bible studies.  Which raises another issue, where do our definitions come from?  Right now, the cell group article's sources don't even seem to be using the term - they all say "small group" or something like that. Our definitions needs to be supported by and reflect sources that explicitly say what the term "cell group" means (this is also a deficiency in the Bible study article as well).
 * -- Joren (talk) 20:57, 16 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Because of, , and , the project's copyright licences require keep irrespective of other concerns. If you are going to nominate content and its accompanying edit history for deletion, don't use that content. Uncle G (talk) 20:27, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
 * It would be possible to fix that problem with a history merge. --GraemeL (talk) 20:32, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
 * No it wouldn't. One cannot history merge one edit history into two others. Uncle G (talk) 20:39, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
 * My initial plan in editing was to redirect, but that got reverted. StAnselm (talk) 20:42, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Your next stop thereafter should have been the article's own talk page not AFD. Uncle G (talk) 20:47, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Not for a redirect, surely. If we're discussing whether to replace the content with a redirect, then we're discussing deletion. And that belongs here. StAnselm (talk) 20:54, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, for a redirect. You have an erroneous idea of what deletion is.  Redirects are not deletion.  A redirect is not enacted with the deletion tool.  It is enacted with the edit tool.  You should know this, you enacted one with the edit tool yourself.  Don't come to Articles for deletion unless an administrator, using the deletion tool to erase all content and all edit history &mdash; meaning that you cannot copy that content in other articles without violating the terms of the copyright licences &mdash;, is what you actually want.  You should not have brought this here merely to discuss a difference with another editor that involved no more than the two of you using the edit tool to enact and undo a redirect.  Deletion is not involved, deletion is not what you enacted (You don't even have the deletion tool, either of you.), and deletion is not what you want or what you may, in accordance with the terms of the copyright licence after what you've copied and pasted, have.  Uncle G (talk) 02:59, 17 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep Far more churches have "Bible study" than have something like the "cell groups." "Cell group" and "Quiet time" as used in those articles are not a term used in most mainstream Christian denominations. The nomination seems to ignore all of Christianity but one movement in its belief that there is no notability to "Bible study" other than the way they approach it. "Bible study" is a notable topic by itself, without even considering some specially formulated version of it used in some evangelical megachurch. There was Bible study and Bible study groups long before Hunsicker. Bible study was done in parochial schools, and as a regular Sunday activity at the church in many denominations. Google book search shows over 27000 results for "Bible study" published between 1900 and 1899. Many of these describe systematic multi-year approaches to conducting Bible study in churches or outside churches, or in schools, and are not at all part of someone's recent trendy system for increasing small-group interpersonal contact in megachurches. I use the 19th century results just to show the topic's broader and earlier coverage. A search for "Bible study" less results with "cell" or "Hunsicker" and with no timespan limit produces 191,000\ book results.  Edison (talk) 21:06, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Indeed, the whole point of the Hunsicker article is that small groups go back to Pietism and Methodism. The cell group article is much broader than megachurch cell groups - if you can think of a better article name for either this or the Quiet Time article, then go for it. StAnselm (talk) 21:14, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
 * It is fine to have articles on "Cell groups" and on "Quiet time," but "Bible study" is not limited to these forms of Bible study. Those are subtopics, but keep Bible study as the general topic. It has its own history: widespread study of the Bible was not always encouraged by the Church, since it might lead to novel insights and "heresy." So it has a history, and scads of references. What is the necessity of deleting it and pretending that there is not and never was any form of Bible study but the "Cell group" or "Quiet time?" Edison (talk) 21:21, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
 * But if Bible study is the general topic, what about Bible study (Christian)? StAnselm (talk) 21:36, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I intended to link to Bible study (Christian), a silly distinction, as if millions of Jews, Hindus, Zoroastrians and pagans sit around studying the "Bible," when that is understood to be both the Old and New Testaments, with perhaps the apocrypha. I apologize if Jews also use the term "Bible" to describe the Tanakh or their scriptures, but I have not heard or read that as a common usage on their part. I have understood Christians to be the main participants in what is called "Bible study". Edison (talk) 05:51, 17 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep Given that Bible study is a disambiguation page, this page needs to be kept. There's nothing NN about an activity that millions of people worldwide engage in weekly or more frequently. Jclemens (talk) 22:57, 16 December 2010 (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.