Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Christianity and violence (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   no consensus. I'm not seeing any clear consensus here. Although the deletion arguments about NPOV and COATRACK are compelling there has been a major prune and the subject itself appears notable so it seems reasonable to give this article more time to fox the problems before reviewing it again Spartaz Humbug! 05:30, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Christianity and violence
AfDs for this article: 
 * – ( View AfD View log  •  )

This article was nominated for deletion last July, and closed as no consensus. Although the title of the article has been changed, all the problems are still there. For example, there is a HUGE section on violence done by Christians, and a tiny section on Christian opposition to violence. Delete, therefore, as irredeemably POV. StAnselm (talk) 10:48, 5 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Christianity-related deletion discussions.  —StAnselm (talk) 20:51, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Crime-related deletion discussions.  —  Lady  of  Shalott  21:19, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
 * DELETE. The tone of this article is biased against Christianity. I would have a similar opinion if an article of this tone was entitled Buddhism and violence, or Hunduism and violence. This article is clearly anti-Christian. Sections of any redeeming value can be added to the Christian terrorism article which already exists. How many more articles are needed for this subject? There is absolutely no reason to keep this biased article. It is an affront to the fine content of Wikipedia. รัก-ไทย (talk) 14:39, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment - not to get too into an "other stuff" debate, but there do exist the articles, Mormonism and violence and Judaism and violence. Lady  of  Shalott  21:22, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
 * (And others listed in the "see also" section of the page.) --Tryptofish (talk) 21:24, 5 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Neutral, with comment - Being an atheist and an anti-theist, I can't in good faith vote, because I'll obviously say keep. However, the article is very well sourced and decently written, and I see no reason why it should be deleted. Yes, the article only has a "tiny section on Christian opposition to violence", however that's because Christian pacifism has it's own article. ~  Baron Von Yiffington  . talk . contribs 16:06, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I would also like to point out that the nominator is a Christian preacher, according to his userpage, and so this is a pretty clear conflict of interest. ~  Baron Von Yiffington  . talk . contribs 16:10, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I am, although that may not necessarily dictate what I think about violence perpetrated by or against Christians in the past or present. In a sense, every Christian would have a COI here, and every atheist too. In fact, this was almost a procedural nomination, after I removed the prod. See Talk:Christianity and violence. StAnselm (talk) 20:26, 5 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep. The arguments for deletion are just plain false. Nominator falsely states that only the title of the page has been changed since the previous AfD discussion. In fact, the edit history will show that the page has been considerably improved in the intervening time. As the editor just above me notes, the reason for the relative lengths of the sections reflects the existence of a separate pacifism page. The second editor arguing for deletion is essentially making a WP:IDONTLIKEIT argument. If there are still concerns about the tone of the page, the correct action to take is to edit it for NPOV, not to delete it. Nowhere has anyone even attempted to argue that the page fails WP:N or lacks sourcing. In fact, since the previous AfD, secondary sources establishing a literature on the consistent link between Christianity and violence have been added to the page, obviating previous concerns about a coatrack. I also have to note that this nomination has appeared, over the Easter weekend, simultaneously with a sudden flurry of arguments for page deletion placed, incorrectly, on the article talk page instead of here, after months of quiet since the previous AfD discussion. Therefore, I cannot help but to suspect that there has been off-site canvassing to promote this AfD. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:34, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment. Well, obviously I'm not aware of any off-site canvassing. But if you look at my nomination closely, I didn't say that only the title had changed - I said that although the title had changed, the problems were still there. And the admin who closed the first deletion discussion encouraged a nomination a few months later if they were. StAnselm (talk) 20:30, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Point taken about "only". But you are incorrect about the problems still being there. The closing admin was talking about whether synth/coat problems remain, and they have been addressed. If there are concerns about POV, deletion is not the proper course of action. In fact, where you did say "irredeemably POV", POV problems can almost always be fixed by corrective editing, not deletion. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:06, 5 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep Agreed that the article shows POV/bias issues, but those can and should be improved through the regular editing process. Jclemens (talk) 20:55, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete; the issues raised in the last AFD have not been properly addressed, and I have no confidence they will be. Stifle (talk) 21:01, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
 * In what way? And why could they not be further addressed, assuming that they still exist? --Tryptofish (talk) 21:06, 5 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep biased but not to the point of deletion, need improvement — Preceding unsigned comment added by Weaponbb7 (talk • contribs)


 * Delete this article because it is redundant, based on a false premise and quite simply an attack on Christianity.


 * Violence is perpetrated for a variety of reasons, and people give a variety of reasons for why they perpetrated violence. But just because an individual or group claims Christian justification for their acts of violence, it does not necessarily mean that this is uniquely Christian or even representative of Christian ideology.
 * There are already articles about Christian terrorism, the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition etc. This article is redundant in that it simply repeats the information already written in these and many other articles. There are better ways to document violent parts of Christian history and there are already many well written articles documenting it (in addition to the ones I've listed above).
 * To further show that this is a specific attack against Christianity, I would like to point out that there are no articles titled Islam and violence, Satanism and violence, Antitheism and violence, Atheism and violence, Racism and violence, Homophobia and violence, Communism and violence, Nationalism and violence, Greed and violence, Resources and violence, etc etc. These are all reasons individuals and groups have given for committing acts of violence, yet it would be frivolous to create articles compiling all the times these various ideologies and reasons have been given regarding acts of violence.

This article is redundant on Wikipedia, it is an attack on a certain ideology, and it is based on a false premise. All of these things go against Wikipedia guidelines (WP:NPOV, WP:NOR, WP:SOAP, WP:REDUNDANT) and make this article inappropriate as an encyclopedic work.


 * WP:OTHERSTUFF. Just because the other articles do not exist, does not mean this one shouldn't. If there isn't an article on Satanism and violence, Islam and violence, Whatever and violence... start it. This is Wikipedia. ~  Baron Von Yiffington  . talk . contribs 12:17, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

I strongly urge that this article be deleted. Yaki-gaijin (talk) 00:11, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Why didn't you put my post at the top of this nomination? I am the one nominating this article for deletion, and now there are a bunch of "keep" votes simply voting against your incomplete nomination. I think we should restart this nomination if possible...frustrating. Yaki-gaijin (talk) 00:17, 6 April 2010 (UTC)


 * please read the explanations titled "Whoever is moving comments around, PLEASE STOP." and "About moving the order of comments around." below. I confess to being the guilty culprit who rearranged the comments per Yaki-gaijin's complaint immediately above.  I didn't understand the history of what had happened and made a good-faith effort to fix things, unwittingly making a mess.  My apologies. --Richard S (talk) 03:11, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
 * No problem, Richard. Perfectly understandable, and clearly done with good intentions. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:24, 7 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep but only with massive truncation which I have done (See this revision).  This article was up for AFD last year and will continue to come up for AFD as long as it violates WP:SYNTH and WP:COATRACK.  I have deleted the sections titled "Acts of violence by Christians", "Historical cases of Christian violence" and "Notable incidents".  The two remaining sections "Theological justification of Christian violence" and "Christian opposition to violence" still have problems but can serve as the basis for writing a good article. --Richard S (talk) 13:39, 6 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Whoever is moving comments around, PLEASE STOP. This debate has become a jumbled mess because someone keeps moving comments to the top. Splitting your comment away from my argument does not make it go away - I will fix it. ~  Baron Von Yiffington  . talk . contribs 15:39, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
 * About moving the order of comments around. I agree with Baron Von that this is objectionable, and I have restored the original order of the comments. Let me explain. Wikipedia has two separate policies, which Yaki-gaijin appears not to understand: WP:PROD and WP:AFD. This round of demands for deletion (as, tellingly, an "attack on Christianity") began when Yaki-gaijin incorrectly marked the article for PROD, for which it is ineligible. Within a short time, Rak-tai appeared at the article talk to support PROD, and StAnselm then recognized correctly that PROD was not appropriate, and took the nomination here, to AfD. (As I commented earlier, I am very uncomfortable with how three editors who never before edited the article nor took part in the previous AfD discussion just happened to all come upon this same nomination within such a brief period of time.) In any case, it was StAnselm who made the AfD nomination, as opposed to the out-of-policy PROD nomination made by Yaki-gaijin. After StAnselm's nomination, several editors replied to it. To reorder the page because of Yaki-gaijin's misunderstanding of the nomination process had the effect, as noted by Baron Von, of confusing the meaning of the discussion that had occurred in the meantime. Therefore, I have restored the original order of comments, while retaining everything that was said by Yaki-gaijin and others. I will add that in my opinion, nothing that Yaki-gaijin has added would alter my nor other editors' keep comments, because Yaki-gaijin's "nomination", for all its throwing around of NPOV, NOR, SOAP, and REDUNDANT, fails to make a substantive, policy-based argument for deletion (as opposed to corrective editing), and, in the end, is nothing more than OTHERSTUFF and IDONTLIKEIT. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:04, 6 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep. The POV problems are not irredeemable, I am confident that there is a balanced article buried in there somewhere. Qrsdogg (talk) 18:39, 6 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment. I just noticed that it's worth clicking on the books and scholar links at the top of this page. There are a lot of as-yet uncited secondary sources that are, explicitly, about Christianity and violence, which really pulls the rug out from under any claims that the page is synth or coatrack. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:44, 6 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep- I agree with Qrsdogg's statement above, that there is a balanced and neutral article in there somewhere. However, if this AFD does end in deletion, perhaps a move to the incubator would be a good idea, with the catch that it be taken to DRV before being brought back to main space. Umbralcorax (talk) 21:08, 6 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep "The Crusades" are a documented historical set of events, that are clearly violent, and clearly christian. I see no reason why an article on such a topic would not be encyclopedic. There's a lot of christianity based violence in the world, and in the past. It's just like most other religions, whose zealots and those who game the system for personal gain use violence against outsiders to affirm their position or faith. 65.94.253.16 (talk) 04:59, 7 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep - while this article is a bit of a POV magnet and not perfect at the moment, it's definitely on a notable topic: many books have been written about violence and nonviolence in Christianity (see for example Just war, which is arguably a subsection of this topic). The key to fixing this article would be to focus it on the theological issues, and prevent it from becoming a general 'list of violent incidents which involved Christians in some way'. Robofish (talk) 16:52, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Also, I note the existence of the Christian soldier disambiguation page, which links to a couple of related articles: Christians in the military and New Testament military metaphors. Perhaps those articles should be merged into this one, but they support the view that this is a notable subject. Robofish (talk) 17:04, 7 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Move relevant content to more appropriate places and delete. There are already several articles covering aspects of this general topic, including Crusades, Just war, Massacre of Thessalonica, and many, many others. Those articles are encyclopedic because they limit their scope to something manageable. The present article tries to cover theology, ethics, military history over 2000 years, pacifism, and a few other things. It seems to me impossible to cover such a wide range of topics properly in one article, and this article almost inevitably fails. Articles with titles of the form "X and Y" are generally a bad idea. Robofish makes a good point above: had this article been entitled "Christian theology of warfare", it might have been workable. -- Radagast3 (talk) 23:03, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Actually, that's not what Robofish said, rather, that warfare-type articles might perhaps be merged into this article. I don't really think there is a policy basis for the comment about "X and Y", other than personal opinion. Given that there are secondary sources saying that the individual subjects listed are related, this article is encyclopedic too. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:47, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Actually, I was commenting on Robofish's remark "The key to fixing this article would be to focus it on the theological issues..."
 * And yes, the comment about "X and Y" was a personal opinion, but I believe such titles invite random additions of the form "I know something that relates X and Y," and such additions would breach WP:NOT. In this case, the overly broad title also turns the article into a battleground between people with conflicting opinions -- conflicts which would be easier to resolve with a series of more narrowly scoped articles. -- Radagast3 (talk) 22:51, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
 * As for "random additions", I would agree with you, but for sourced additions, sourced to secondary sources that say that Christianity and violence are, together, a notable subject (see links at the top of this AfD), I would not. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:37, 9 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Delete "Christianity and violence" is a poorly-defined, over-broad topic. "Violence" is simply too large and too general a topic to write an article about. UserVOBO (talk) 00:45, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Would you, likewise, delete our page on Violence, or are you really saying IDONTLIKEIT? --Tryptofish (talk) 18:37, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, I certainly would delete it. "Violence" as such is not a proper subject for an encyclopedia article. UserVOBO (talk) 21:27, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
 * If so, go ahead and nominate it for deletion. I do not think consensus will be with you, however. Lady  of  Shalott  14:10, 10 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep, Rename, Fix POV - It's true that the article can be improved in a great extend. Yet, I'm certain that any POVs that it contains are fixable. The subject of the article is quite notable and a very real one. While I am a Christian myself, I do believe however that there's a long history of violence in Christianity, despite its teachings. Crusades and the holy inquisitions come in mind. I do think however that the name should be changed according to Topic_creation. Christianity and violence sounds like there's a direct connection between the two, while Christian violence (the previous title) may be more correct, pretty much like Islamic terrorism; it doesn't denote that the whole Christian world is violent. --JokerXtreme (talk) 07:43, 10 April 2010 (UTC)
 * You raise something very interesting that I was previously unaware of, about "and" in the title. In the previous AfD discussion, there was strong sentiment to change it from "Christian violence" to "Christianity and violence", for exactly the reasoning that the old title was seen as implying in a POV way that violence was a part of Christianity, whereas the "and" construction treated them as two things that could overlap without overlapping completely. "Christian violence" sort of sounds as though the violence is "owned" by Christianity. I'm actually surprised, in this regard, by what the guideline says about Islamic terrorism. It seems to me that the latter title is not really more NPOV, but rather reflects a specific movement that has taken place in a relatively short period of time, compared to the subject of this page. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:40, 10 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Nevertheless, the title still sounds a bit "wrong" to me. Maybe use a more descriptive title? Like "Christianity-related violence". Although I admit it doesn't sound really nice. Other names could be "Violence in the name of Christianity". But it sounds like a movie :P --JokerXtreme (talk) 17:11, 10 April 2010 (UTC)
 * "Christian violence" would be a much better subject for an article than "Christianity and violence". "Christianity and violence" may be less offensive than "Christian violence", but that's because it doesn't really mean anything. I don't think proper articles are about "two things that could overlap without overlapping completely." UserVOBO (talk) 21:32, 11 April 2010 (UTC)
 * If we do go that way, we would probably need to make the page exclusively about violence, and delete the section about Christian pacifism. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:19, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
 * That section is not very long anyway. Though it could still be kept, like kind of a criticism section. --JokerXtreme (talk) 18:53, 12 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep - This is certainly a notable topic with room for cleanup and expansion. It should discuss historical attitudes of Christianity towards violence and how those attitudes have been used to justify both violent acts and opposition of violence. Lady  of  Shalott  14:10, 10 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep - Criticism of religion is a huge topic in human discourse, and the number one criticism is "religion is responsible for wars and violence" - so it is notable (and, yes, the Christian church, just like Islam, has sufficient examples to warrant its own article). This encyclopedia is more useful with the article than without it. --Noleander (talk) 03:15, 13 April 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.