Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2011-07-18/Calvary Chapel

Request details
We would like an independent opinion on whether the "Accusation of Cult Status" subsection under the "Criticisms" section of the article should remain.

Where is the dispute?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvary_Chapel

(Under "Criticims")--Esquire880 (talk) 16:35, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Who is involved?
The list of the users involved. For example:
 * Walter Görlitz
 * Sliceofmiami
 * --Esquire880 (talk) 16:35, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
 * 24.129.80.52 (current IP)
 * Mojoworker (talk) 17:18, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

Acceptance of Mediation
Please place your signature here to indicate that you are aware of this mediation process and want to participate in it: --Esquire880 (talk) 16:35, 18 July 2011 (UTC)


 * I not only accept mediation, I welcome it. Walter Görlitz (talk) 18:44, 18 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Agreed. 24.129.80.52 (talk) 23:47, 18 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Mojoworker (talk) 17:18, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

What is the dispute?
Requestor seeks resolution between contrary opinions about whether it should remain. It is not a "major point of view," makes an extraordinary claim without supporting evidence, and its only reference is to the source that made the claim.

A calm explanation of what the problem is. Be as precise as you wish, but avoid general statements such as "User:X has a POV regarding article Y", as that's usually unhelpful. Provide diffs if possible, but try to keep the description brief. A list of issues that need to be addressed, such as this, would also help.

What would you like to change about this?
Would like the relevant subsection removed

Here, tell us what you would like to changed. Does the conversation need better structure? Are folks having difficulty communicating? Are they talking past each other? Stuff like that.

How do you think we can help?
I believe the main proponent of retaining the subsection would abide by a neutral decision.

We are here to help you, but we need to know how. Sometimes mediators will look at a dispute and have no idea where to start, so please help us out. Do note that we will not "take sides" in any dispute.

Mediator notes
I have joined as another mediator -- J  (t)  13:07, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Oddbodz, I'm not sure why you want me to "put your opinion on this in the mediator's notes section", as you suggest in the medcabstatus box above, but the reference supporting the content in question is not Christian Times, it is the article Losing My Religion from Metro Newspapers and the publisher claims more than half a million readers weekly for their papers. Mojoworker (talk) 08:26, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Discussion
I would like to re-phrase the dispute. There are really three sides. The first, held by only one editor, is that the church is a cult and there should be discussion of this. The editor concerned cannot find any sources to back this opinion. The closest is that of a cult deprogrammer who states the church is not a cult but they do have authoritarian leaders.

On the other extreme is a group of attenders of various congregations affiliated with Calvary Chapel (the churches do not believe themselves to be a denomination, but a loose confederation of churches who have a similar opinion and goal, but that is not the issue. I add this parenthetical comment to explain the convoluted use of the term) who don't see any problems with the churches or the way they are run. They cannot offer any references to support their claim that the church is not authoritarian nor a cult since it's difficult to prove the absence of something if it's not perceived. They argue that the claim is slanderous or libellous/libelous.

And I feel like I'm walking down the middle of the debate. I recognize the one reference alluded to above as valid. The RS board did not clearly state that the source was unreliable. I also recognize that it's insulting and believe that the editor who added the section in question has a skewed WP:POV and has an axe to grind against the subject and appears to be using Wikipedia as her sounding board. It would be good to have some neutral opinions. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 18:39, 18 July 2011 (UTC)


 * This is a diff of a typical edit summary discussion. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 18:49, 18 July 2011 (UTC)


 * And here is an archive of the Reliable Source call for feedback that suggests (to me, at least) that the reference as well as the content in question fails WP:Due. To Walter's point, the source itself was not found to be 'unreliable', but we can't ignore the other half of their feedback.  I quote:  "As a general rule, information available only in some minor source might be considered verifiable (=we're sure he said it), but not WP:DUE (=we're not sure it's important enough to mention). Tiny minority views, such as information that can only be found in someone's blog or a minor source, are not usually important enough to mention in a Wikipedia article." 24.129.80.52 (talk) 23:55, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
 * To address the "Self Referenced" issue, here is the link to the archive of the David Templeton Losing My Religion article from the April 2-8, 1998 edition of the Sonoma County Independent from the website of the publisher Metro Publishing Inc: . The citations should be changed to this ref: But the article is presently fully protected, so an admin will need to do it. Mojoworker (talk) 06:56, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

I want to re-phrase a few of my concerns with the inclusion of the contested section. The section at issue was 1) is patently untrue, a fact acknowledge by all concerned including those who argue for its retention ( Walter Gorlitz, ckruschke) 2) added by an editor (sliceofmiami) on a clear vendetta against the topic subject (as shown by that editor's other, non-RS additions to the page which Walter removed) 3) cannot be called a significant minority opinion in any sense, since it was a comment made by one person, one time, thirteen years ago and has not been affirmed or supported in an RS by the original person or anyone else since (to my knowledge) 4) is given undue weight on the page. --Esquire880 (talk) 19:25, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't agree it's patently untrue. The church as a whole is not a cult, I fully agree with that. However, some have seen cult-like authoritarian practices in the church structure.
 * Yes, sliceofmiami appears to have a vendetta against the subject.
 * Completely unsupported by any other references. A single, "cult expert"'s comments are the basis for the paragraph in question.
 * As in 3.
 * Is a valid reference though, and
 * Does not say anything damning about the subject other than there is some authoritarian practice in the church.
 * What is untrue, is that the two opponents of the paragraph think the church is being called an outright cult, which it's not. That is what they object to. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 19:42, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

OK, since I was requested to add myself as a party, I will continue the discussion and attempt to correct some misconceptions. Some points:
 * The content in question was added more than three years ago and was discussed at the time before consensus was achieved. So what has changed in the interim and why are we rehashing this?
 * As you can see from the link in the previous point, the content in question was not added by User:Sliceofmiami as alleged, but rather was added by User:B.
 * Walter is correct, "the RS board did not clearly state that the source was unreliable". Note that at the Reliable Sources Noticeboard discussion the one, sole, solitary editor to comment, User:WhatamIdoing, says "I have not bothered to look up either the newspaper or the individual in question". The discussion was then archived without resolution. How does that that suggest "the reference as well as the content in question fails WP:Due"?
 * I found the archived article on the website of the publisher, Metro Newspapers and it doesn't seem to be a "minor source" as others have characterized it &mdash; on that webpage, the publisher claims more than half a million readers weekly for their papers.
 * Conflict of Interest questions have been raised about some of the parties involved in this mediation going back more than two years &mdash; those might as well be resolved here as well if that's possible in this venue.

Mojoworker (talk) 19:59, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

I was asked to comment on this question by User:Mojoworker. A couple years ago, I made some efforts to spruce up this paragraph. I did this rather than trying to remove it, partly because it would have been contentious and I had recently finished trying to moderate some unrelated contentious issues on this very page.

This is a tough one. After reading the entire Templeton article and contemplating, I do think that the current Ross quote has to go. The word "cult" is a hot-button, and given that Ross is saying that CC is not a cult, it is unnecessarily inflammatory to mention the word at all. And the "authoritarian" bit is strange, in that it is not supported at all by the rest of Ross' quote or by the Templeton article in general. We see people driven to do unhealthy things because of their acceptance of (and, I would say, taking to an extreme) a particular Christian theology and practice, but no hint of unhealthy authority directly exercised by leaders in the sense of, say, the Branch Davidians. So I can see how the CC-inclined folks might legitimately see this line, especially given with little context, as kind of a hit-and-run job. In the same quote, Ross says that CC is "typical of a lot of groups" and that they are not "nearly as extreme as others". And I take him to be comparing CC to mainstream Christian groups there (Ross is not friendly to evangelicalism in general). So, if CC is not remarkable in this sense, why do we need to single it out?

On the other hand, the Templeton article is well written, informative, and has the ring of truth. Having grown up in CC myself (in case you're interested, I feel neither loyalty nor resentment, and am now an ordained elder in a different Christian denomination), some of Templeton's stories sound familiar, while others I see as things not normative in CC but as excesses to which it might be prone. I think it might be good to find a different quote to use in citing the Templeton article, and maybe this could be the foundation of a compromise that the pro-quote people could accept. --BlueMoonlet (t/c) 14:56, 2 August 2011 (UTC) (cross-posted to Talk:Calvary Chapel)


 * It seems there are other 'cult' related quotes in the article:
 * Laura Hoffman: "I do look back on my experience as that of being in a cult. It's left me with little tolerance for people who won't think"
 * Jeff MacSwan: "I wouldn't say they're a cult, though," he cautions, "because then you'd have to say that 12-step groups are cults, or even the Marines, which all depend on hyped-up emotionality and psychological control."
 * "Ross has twice been involved in transitioning clients away from Calvary chapels, each time contacted by parents who were alarmed at the intensity of the personality changes and frightening mood-swings their children experienced after joining Calvary. 'Don't get me wrong,' he adds, 'I've seen some of the worst cults ever. By comparison, I don't see Calvary Chapel as being nearly as extreme as others. But does that mean Chuck Smith is a nice man or that his churches are a good place to go? No.'"


 * So, it seems that some people do have the perception of cult–like behavior. Can we possibly rework the section to be something along the line of "Why some perceive it as a cult, but why it really isn't" or something similar? I know that may be difficult to find sources to support that, but may be worth a try. Also, I don't know if it adds context to Ross's "authoritarian" quote, but the Christianity Today article Day of Reckoning says "former members and some pastors say Calvary Chapel fosters an authoritarian culture, where pastors believe they are accountable only to God. It has enticed some leaders to become power hungry, avoid financial oversight, and, at times, become spiritually abusive, according to Calvary insiders." Mojoworker (talk) 19:47, 4 August 2011 (UTC) (Mostly cross-posted to to Talk:Calvary Chapel)


 * I really think that the word "cult" needs to go altogether. If your purpose in citing this article is to find a way to apply that word to CC, then I strongly disagree.  With respect to the quotes you just cited, Ms. Hoffman is not someone whose opinion carries enough weight to be cited on a WP page, Mr. MacSwan is (like Mr. Ross) saying that CC is not a cult, and the second quote from Mr. Ross is at best ambiguous.  I interpret him as saying that CC is not as extreme as other Christian groups he has encountered.  He certainly is not clearly calling CC a cult.
 * As for the authoritarian issue, I think that CT is speaking mainly in terms of church polity (i.e., the governing structure of the church). CC definitely has an authoritarian polity, in that the pastor has nearly unlimited control over what happens programmatically in the church.  But this is not the same as having any dangerous level of authority over the lives of individual church members, which is the mark of a sociological cult like the Branch Davidians.  As CT says and as I have said, actual spiritual abuse may be an excess that occasionally occurs, but it is certainly not normative at CC.  --BlueMoonlet (t/c) 20:37, 4 August 2011 (UTC) (cross-posted to Talk:Calvary Chapel)

I feel compelled to weigh in on this on this page since I have been involved in the discussions on the Calvary Talk page. Since I've attended Calvary's since 1998, I can attest, as many have already stated, that the criticisms which Esquire wants to delete are untrue. However, I am honest enough about the way people perceive Calvary (and sometimes churches as a whole) to know that there ARE CRITICISMS of the Calvary pastoral/church structure and that it is a cult. I heard this talk before the first time I stepped into a Calvary and have continued to read it from time to time since 1998. Although I "know" that this is all untrue, they compromise a legitimate point of view that society has concerning Calvary. My thought has always been that by deleting this section because I or Walter or Esquire "know" that the criticisms aren't true is an obvious example of independent research - the first thing someone would ask is "where is your proof". Therefore although untrue, I have been on the side of the camp to leave the sourced text in place. Will it be the end of the world for me if it is deleted? *No* - and I think Walter agrees with that as well. What we are simply doing is trying to enforce Wiki rules on how you remove sections (i.e. you don't just go in and delete because "you don't like it") and further collaboration to come to an agreeable solution. Unfortunately, Esquire is intent on simply blanking the section (and even did it again yesterday) unless he hears someone tell him that it needs to stay in place and this type of action IS NOT the way it should work. The thing I dislike about Rob Bell's page is that if shows a white as snow image of the man without any of the (legitimate) criticisms that he has received from parts of the Christian world. This white-washed POV is what it seems like Esquire is going for and is EXACTLY the kind of "non-NPOV" that the Calvary page has already been accused of by many editors. My 2 cents... Ckruschke (talk) 15:22, 4 August 2011 (UTC)Ckruschke


 * The article currently reads as an advertisement for Calvary Chapel. As such, why is it even in an Encyclopedia?


 * 1) Most of the references are from Calvary Chapel, or sources that are directly affiliated with Calvary Chapel.  When the "self referenced" nature of the article was presented as an issue, one Calvary editor retorted, "...they are reliable sources on questions of what CC believes and practices and why, and much of the article currently focuses on such matters."  Unfortunately, this has resulted in a "Self POV" advertisement instead of an NPOV Encyclopedic entry.
 * 2) The Criticisms section has regularly been removed over the last several years by who appear to be Fans with non-neutral POV styles.  Agreed with other readers -- the criticisms (such as "cult like behavior") should be presented, along with the Calvary Chapel retort/response to the critical information.
 * 3) Contributors who are not Calvary supporters are regularly shunned as "non consensus" members.  This is not a recent phenomena, it has occurred for several years.  This militant behavior is actually addressed in multiple articles (such as suggesting that Calvary type organizations "depend on hyped-up emotionality and psychological control").
 * Sliceofmiami (talk) 02:05, 4 September 2011 (UTC)


 * All these matters have been thoroughly discussed on Talk:Calvary Chapel. To wit,
 * The pattern of sources for this article is similar to the pattern of sources for the article on the Catholic Church. Despite repeated requests, Sliceofmiami has declined to either call the latter article an advertisement nor to explain how the two cases are different.
 * The Criticisms article has recently been edited through a consensus process (post-dating this mediation request). Some further discussion may well be needed, but I have confidence that it will proceed.  Regarding compliants that the section is shorter than it has been in the past, I suggest that the length of the criticism section should not depend on the magnitude of the article subject's deficiencies, but on the quantity and quality of reliable sources to substantiate critical statements.
 * Active editors on the page have wide varieties of relationship (and lack thereof) to the article subject, and wide varieties of views on the article subject, yet all except Sliceofmiami (who accuses all who disagree with him of being a "fanboi" of the article subject) appear able to discuss their differences and work towards consensus. Incidentally, the quote about "hyped-up emotionality and psychological control" is in the context of a statement that the article subject is no more problematic than Alcoholics Anonymous.
 * I would like direct attention to this section, in which practically all active editors came to a consensus regarding Sliceofmiami's disruptive behavior. Henceforth I intend to follow the advice of User:Ltwin (a well-respected and long-established editor who has not been involved in the discussion except for sage comments such as this) not to engage further with Sliceofmiami's tendentious editing, thus I will not respond here if he edits here again. --BlueMoonlet (t/c) 18:40, 5 September 2011 (UTC)