Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Christofascism (3rd 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.  Sandstein  07:13, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Christofascism
AfDs for this article: 
 * – ( View AfD View log )

Term is non-notable and the article is clearly not written from a neutral point of view. Eggbelly (talk) 01:14, 23 January 2011 (UTC) Delete. Strong Delete The article lacks neutrality and expresses a personal point of view such as "all the "revealed" religions seem downright dangerous to me". Prsaucer1958 (talk) 13:09, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep. The term is out there in current usage, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/feb/09/johnedwardsbloggingfarrago and is therefore notable. Article is well-sourced and at most needs a little editing. Jonathanwallace (talk) 13:03, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Lacking neutrality is an argument for a rewrite, not a deletion. And surely you noticed that the sentence "all the "revealed" religions seem downright dangerous to me" is a quote from an outside source as an example of how the term is used? Wickedjacob (talk) 17:08, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Strong Delete Just wanted to point out the original consensus was delete. However, it was never carried out. Term is not notable, hense why it was selected for deletion before. Eggbelly (talk) 05:57, 25 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep The term's history is a little thin but is present enough to be worthy of some discussion and sources do exist. I am also not sure what the rationale is for renominating this article, as nothing major has changed in the past 3 years.  If consensus was reached once, we should not be quick to rehash the same debate unless a new problem has emerged. Wickedjacob (talk) 17:08, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep well referenced article on topical topic. If editors believe NPOV is an issue this should be addressed though appropriate editing - not deletion. -- Paul foord (talk) 23:54, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Philosophy-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 00:58, 25 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Christianity-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 00:58, 25 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment: (: here we go again. :) --Kevinkor2 (talk) 05:30, 25 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Looking at the logs for the page, I see that the page was deleted May 9, 2005, when the first discussion was closed as delete.
 * The page was recreated on May 15, 2005, as a redirect to Christian fascism. (See view of Christian fascism on May 15, 2005).
 * The page was redeleted on August 11, 2007.
 * The page was recreated on December 19, 2007, and immediately nominated for AfD. That AfD was closed as keep.
 * --Kevinkor2 (talk) 06:22, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Comment The fact of the matter is that this term receives only a smattering of Google hits. The term is non-notable and not widely used. Unless Wikipedia is going to start having articles about every term and idea with a Google result, this needs to be deleted. Just because the offensive term "Islamofascism" is notable, doesn't mean that "fascism" must be attached to every other religious group quid pro quo. There are plenty of other equally offensive yet notable terms applied to various religious and political groups, and it's not up to Wikipedia to create novel terms to even some popular culture "score" Non-notable, politically motivated, delete it. Eggbelly (talk) 17:27, 25 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete Move to Christian fascism or  merge to clerical fascism. This expression can be found in sources, but it means a lot different things: (1) "American Taliban", (2) Christian religious extremists, (3) priests who collaborated with Nazi; (4) rejection of all other religions; (5) Anti-Judaism, and so on. Conclusion. This is not an established and well-defined terminology, but Coatrack. This is also a POV fork to clerical fascism. Biophys (talk) 17:56, 25 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Christian fascism is not an article but a redirect and Clerical fascism is a different concept involving religion abetting fascist regimes. The only thing they have in common are the words in the title. This article is on religions using fascist techniques or fascist behavior. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 05:00, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Still delete or merge (see above).Biophys (talk) 21:52, 29 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep. Term is plenty notable. If you think the article is biased, fix it. Roscelese (talk &sdot; contribs) 06:54, 26 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep -- The fact that the term has been used and discussed by a series of academic theologians indicates that WP should have an article on it. Yes it is a POV, but the article is about a POV, existing outside WP.  Such a POV can quite properly be discussed in a NPOV manner, as required in WP.  Peterkingiron (talk) 12:44, 26 January 2011 (UTC)
 * If we are talking about people who can be described as theologians, this is only Dorothee Sölle (may be redirect to her page?). This is pure propaganda, although possibly a notable propaganda, and should be merged to clerical fascism or moved to Christian fascism. Biophys (talk) 16:19, 26 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment Hodja has a good point, moving or merging might be logical. One academic hardly counts as notable. 72.130.214.87 (talk) 18:52, 26 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Luckily, it's not just one academic. That is, unless Sölle, Driver, Hunsinger, and Hall are secretly the same person. Roscelese (talk &sdot; contribs) 21:25, 26 January 2011 (UTC)
 * A professor of theology is a theologian. From the Christofascism section:
 * Tom Faw Driver is a Paul Tillich Professor Emeritus at Union Theological Seminary in New York.
 * George Hunsinger is a director of the Centre for Barth Studies at Princeton Theological Seminary.
 * Douglas John Hall is a Professor of Christian Theology at McGill University.
 * --Kevinkor2 (talk) 05:45, 27 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep well written and well referenced. See my note above about redirecting to unrelated but similar sounding concepts. Also note that Eggbelly is a SPA with two edits and an immediate jump to delete this article. Eggbelly is also adding other tags to the article that editors keep removing. Egg must be a sockpuppet. Newbies don't use phrases like "non-notable" and "clearly not written from a neutral point of view." --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 06:15, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete Cute, but this is being used as a conscious nonce term with various meanings, and not a word. Shii (tock) 02:22, 31 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Except that isn't true at all, I don't think you actually looked at the article before you commented. A nonce word is used once, and a Google search in Gscholar, Gbooks, and Gnews shows that is used more than the one time of the person that coined it. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 02:55, 31 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I looked specifically at Christofascism which is simply a list of nonce usages without even a claimed connection between them. Shii (tock) 03:23, 31 January 2011 (UTC)
 * That's a problem that can be corrected, though; I had suggested writing it up as a paragraph rather than as a bullet-pointed list, with a section heading like "American political usage" or something like that. Not all the cited sources agree as to what exactly it is, but there's a continuity there as to what they're describing, it's not a list of disparate usages. Would having it as a paragraph assuage your concern? Roscelese (talk &sdot; contribs) 05:51, 31 January 2011 (UTC)
 * If a connection could be made between these statements my opinion of the article's validity would definitely improve, yes. Shii (tock) 06:57, 31 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Except your definition of "nonce" is off, so you are not familiar with the term or are deliberately misusing the term. If we are arguing about how others are using the term, it isn't for the nonce anymore. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 02:11, 1 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Let's take a closer look from the beginning.
 * 1) It tells: "To Sölle, Christofascism was caused by the embracing of authoritarian theology by the Christian church". There is no such thing as "authoritarian theology". There is simply theology, and it normally does not deal with fascism.
 * 2) It tells:Usage of the term became much more prominent ... as a backlash against increasing usage of the word "Islamofascism". This is something very different.
 * 3) It tells:[m]uch of the churches teaching about Christ has turned into something that is dictatorial in its heart and is preparing society for an American fascism. This is something different again.
 * 4) It tells: this is "Christomonism", meaning accepting only one divine person, Jesus Christ, rather that the Trinity. This is completely different.
 * 5) It tells: this is unrelieved anti-Judaism, which has nothing to do with anything above. And so on, and so on ("earlier forms of fascism in America", "American Taliban", etc.).
 * Conclusion. There is no clear definition of the term accepted by different sources. This is nonce term, WP:Coatrack or the both. Delete or merge.Biophys (talk) 18:23, 31 January 2011 (UTC)
 * 1. Wait, what? "Authoritarian" is a noun. "Theology" is an adjective. The phrase "authoritarian theology" is perfectly acceptable without being a coined concept.
 * 2. Hence my suggesting the creation of an equal subsection for "American political usage," or similar, where historians' and political commentators' views could be included whereas they are currently in bullet points. Would writing the section up as a paragraph assuage that concern?
 * 3. Er, no, it's not, it's exactly consistent with what the article says Sölle wrote.
 * 4. It says that the two are related, not that they're synonyms. This is a spurious objection.
 * 5. Likewise.
 * -- Roscelese (talk &sdot; contribs) 20:43, 31 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Where is a definition of the term? What does it mean, exactly? Is it (a)  an attitude ("an arrogant, totalitarian, imperialistic attitude, characteristic of the church in Germany under Nazism"?), (b) a backlash (against Islamofascism), (c) a teaching about Christ, (d) a variety of Christomonism, (d) "anti-Judaism, (e) "American Taliban", or all the above? Biophys (talk) 03:07, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete none of the gnews and gscholar hits seem to accurately and decisively define this term. sometimes it is even used as "Judeo Christofascism " . LibStar (talk) 04:46, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep The article and subject matter is clearly quite unpleasant, but getting towards neutrality, and quite clearly notable from references. It appears to be a 'broad' term, but I don't think this affects its notability. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bennydigital (talk • contribs) 09:53, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep. There seems to be some confusion, both in the article and in this discussion, between the clearly defined theological concept of christofascism first proposed by Dorothee Sölle, and the vaguely defined term of abuse, "christofascism". Encyclopedia articles should be about concepts, not their names, and the theological concept is clearly notable, with plenty of academic discussion as cited in the article. The article should be reconfigured to just be about the concept, as it was during the last AfD (see ). If the term of abuse that shares a name with this concept is notable (which I doubt) then it should be split off into a separate article, where the "usage" section can be moved if anyone thinks it worth saving. Phil Bridger (talk) 10:16, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Once again, what is definition of the term/concept? It tells: "According to Sölle, it is an arrogant, totalitarian, imperialistic attitude, characteristic of the church in Germany under Nazism". Does it mean that all other meanings do not belong here? Is it an article about "an attitude" or an article about "Church in Germany under Nazism"? Biophys (talk) 17:41, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
 * No, Sölle's definition is not about "Church in Germany under Nazism", which you will see if you simply read on to the end of the sentence: "...that she believed to be alive and well in the theological scene of the late 20th and turn of the 21st century". And yes, it does mean that other meanings do not belong here, because this is an encyclopedia, not a dictionary, so articles should be about concepts rather than different definitions of a word. When theologians use the word "christofascism" they are referring to Sölle's concept, so that is what we should cover under this title. Phil Bridger (talk) 18:07, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
 * But the article tells: it is about "portmanteau of Christianity and Fascism", and not about a concept. It tells nothing about the concept. I am not an expert, and after reading this article I have an impression that there is no any concept.Biophys (talk) 19:18, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
 * You don't seem to be understanding what I am saying. Encyclopedia articles are about concepts, not words, whether portmanteau words or others. The fact that the name of this concept is a portmanteau word doesn't mean that the article is about that word, and the fact that that information is in parentheses in the article clearly shows that it is only incidental to what the article is actually about. The laundry bag of quotations demonstrating ignorant use of the name of this concept by people who wouldn't recognise a theological concept if it smacked them in the face doesn't belong in this article, and shouldn't be allowed to distort this discussion. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:47, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, I agree, it should be about a concept. But it is not. It tells nothing about any concept, even after three deletion discussions, first of which was decided as "delete". Hence I doubt that there is any concept. What concept, exactly? Simply combining two words and calling something a "totalitarian, imperialistic attitude" is not a concept.Biophys (talk) 22:23, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
 * If this topic is discussed by academic theologians, as demonstrated by sources cited in the article, then it is a concept. Phil Bridger (talk) 22:33, 1 February 2011 (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.