Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/True Jesus Church (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. j⚛e deckertalk 01:52, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

True Jesus Church
AfDs for this article: 
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fails WP:GNG, most Google hits seems to be address-books, Wikipedia or releated websites The Banner talk 19:36, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of China-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 00:00, 2 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Organizations-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 00:01, 2 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Christianity-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 00:01, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

(Note: If you are new to Wikipedia and are unsure how to vote, please click on this link to write down your opinion and vote whether to keep or delete the article). --C.Z. Lee (talk) 00:28, 2 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Comment I don't have access to the paper sources, but none of them look to be an address book, Wikipedia, or a related article. I've no idea how deeply, if at all, this topic is covered in those sources, but it certainly looks notable and I am familiar with at least one of the authors.  Hobit (talk) 01:46, 2 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Keep WP:Verifiability does not require that sources be online.  This appears to be a well-referenced and written article.  Unscintillating (talk) 04:03, 2 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Speedy Keep At least two of the references are from reliable sources and available online (now linked). I've also added the Chinese name and discovered there are a vast number of inter-wiki language links, many of which are referenced in their specific language. Philg88 ♦talk 04:39, 2 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Comment. What a strange article! Quote (with emphases added): Holy Communion — The Holy Communion is the sacrament to commemorate the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. It enables us to partake of the flesh and blood of our Lord and to be in communion with Him so that we can have eternal life and be raised on the last day. This sacrament shall be held as often as possible. Only one unleavened bread and grape juice shall be used. This seems curiously "in-universe". I had an odd hunch about it, too. Sure enough, Google shows that tjc.org serves up: The Holy Communion is the sacrament to commemorate the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. It enables us to partake of the flesh and blood of our Lord and to be in communion with Him so that we can have eternal life and be raised on the last day. This sacrament shall be held as often as possible. Only one unleavened bread and grape juice shall be used. At the bottom of that page, we read "Copyright © 2014 True Jesus Church" together with a link to the site's legal mumbo jumbo page. The latter has nothing about "public domain", "Creative Commons", "GFDL", "copyleft", etc; to the contrary, it says: any use of these materials on any other Web sites or networked computer environment for any purpose is expressly prohibited. I infer that much of this article should be deleted as a copyright violation. As for the rest, it makes some non-trivial claims. Among these, that TJC is currently one of the largest Christian groups in China and Taiwan. This claim about 2014 is attributed to a book published seven years previously and titled The Future of Pentecostalism in the United States. We're not told the publisher but we are told the ISBN. Amazon hasn't heard of it. Copac hasn't heard of it. Worldcat says it's an ebook, published by Lexington, which looks legitimate. It's a collection of papers; who wrote this paper and what's its title? All in all, if an article on this subject is warranted, then given how recently its predecessor was deleted, this new version seems very slapdash. -- Hoary (talk) 13:26, 2 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Comment Strange indeed, but I'm not sure that the quoted text can be a copyvio since it is a summary of the communion rites of Christian religion and no doubt recorded in hundreds of documents throughout history. In other words, TJC don't hold the copyright in the first place. Philg88 ♦talk 14:03, 2 June 2014 (UTC)
 * But even when ideas are centuries old, their expression can't be assumed to be in the public domain. Google for the string Only one unleavened bread and grape juice shall be used, and you just get a three-figure total of hits, all seemingly derived from TJC. (In view of this, I'm about to delete the material.) -- Hoary (talk) 23:26, 2 June 2014 (UTC)
 * (i) Perhaps if the 10 beliefs are each summarized in 1-3 sentences then it would be acceptable? For example, the Beliefs of the Seventh-day Adventist Church are summarized based on their 28 Fundamental Beliefs and at the bottom of that pdf document it reads: "Copyright © 2013, General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists". --Jose77 (talk) 01:48, 3 June 2014 (UTC)
 * (ii) User:Hoary mentioned the statement "given how recently its predecessor was deleted...". Not all readers of Wikipedia understand how to edit a page and where to leave their opinions. If you looked at the first afd of this article, you would see that someone had left his remarks Here instead of on the main afd page and as a result it had gone unnoticed by other readers. Had he known where to properly place his comments then the outcome may have been different today. --Jose77 (talk) 02:15, 3 June 2014 (UTC)


 * And an additional comment. Above, C.Z. Lee advises people "new to Wikipedia" on "how to vote". C.Z. Lee's own contributions are new and few (for admins only, here's the first), which may explain why he/she doesn't realize that it's not a matter of voting. -- Hoary (talk) 23:26, 2 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Keep - Hmm, so it appears that the deletion No. 1 was a poorly attended reaction to the global puffery Jose77 has invested in these semi-spam articles and the AFD ignoring the opinion of User:Peterkingiron who in the past I have found qualified in these subjects. Nevertheless the benchmark isn't how articles are but what is in Google Books. Enough references like Melton (anything in Melton is notable) or sources like Francis Khek Gee Lim - Christianity in Contemporary China 2013 - Page 186 "The main congregations are the 'True Jesus Church' (Zhen Yesujiao) and the 'Group of the Shouters' (Huhanpai)... etc. mean this article should be kept, but kept on Watchlists to stop it turning into giant peacock piece again. In ictu oculi (talk) 11:56, 4 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Keep -- this article has been dodgy in the past and may become so again in the future. But now its claims are decently sourced. Incidentally, is this the true church of Jesus (真耶稣][教会, cf all the fake churches); or is it instead the church of the true Jesus [真[耶稣]]教会, cf all the fake Jesuses)? -- Hoary (talk) 13:16, 4 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Judging from Melton in 1917 it meant the church as compared to other churches. Now we know this AFD is closing as keep, I've watchlisted it, added more sources, started Talk:True Jesus Church and notified WP Christianity looking for a couple of other watchlisters. In ictu oculi (talk) 03:17, 5 June 2014 (UTC)


 * Obvious keep -- " TJC is currently one of the largest Christian groups in China and Taiwan". This is a denomination, not a local congregation (such as we often delete).  With churches other than Three Self (and Catholics) existing on the margins of legality, or even beyond it, the chances of finding on-line sources on it must be limited.  I understand there to be about 5 networks of underground (illicit) house churches in China that are to some extent tolerated, but strongly discouraged from uniting.  Peterkingiron (talk) 18:35, 6 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Keep - I don't see problem with this article or any reasons that it would require deletion.  Occult Zone  ( Talk ) 14:07, 10 June 2014 (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.