User talk:John Carter/Christianity portals

Eastern Christianity portal

I myself have a bit of a reservation about this portal. It seems to jumble together the Church of the East, Assyrian Church of the East, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Saint Thomas Christians, and Eastern Catholic churches. We already have a dedicated portal for the Oriental Orthodox churches, and the Indian Christianity portal effectively deals with most of the Saint Thomas Christians. I personally wouldn't mind seeing the Eastern Christianity portal become an exclusively Eastern Orthodoxy portal, with separate portals made for the Eastern Catholics and Church of the East/Assyrian Church of the East. I think both of the latter have at least enough decent articles to get together an at least acceptable portal, are sufficiently different to possibly merit such portals, and the existence of them might help draw more attention to the related content. Anyway, I would welcome any responses, one way or another. John Carter (talk) 15:28, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Any other additional portals?

I could see having separate portals for Christian art, and maybe a few other faith traditions. Opinions? John Carter (talk) 15:53, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

What about Christian NRMs? Would that lead to too much duplication? Also, I noticed that you have both "Portal:Christianity in India" and "Portal:Indian Christianity" (are both necessary?). • Astynax ^talk 18:53, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

No, the duplication isn't necessary, I just wasn't sure when I started which name the portal was currently under. I wouldn't mind a Christian NRM portal, with the only real reservation being about some potential questions about whether certain NRMs can be called "Christian" or something else. For instance, at List of new religious movements, the Aetherius Society is described as "UFO-Christian". But otherwise, I could see such a portal existing.

Of course, if there were also specific interest in creating portals for specific classes of Christian new religious movements, like for instance "Charismatic Christianity" or the Pentecostal Movement, I wouldn't necessarily object there either.John Carter (talk) 15:32, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

I hadn't thought of the issues regarding what constitutes "Christian"—that obviously would be something which would need to be addressed. I suppose the brush would have to be broad, and rely on reliable sources to establish the connection with Christianity. Certainly that would encompass some very marginal groups and syncretic religions that might some sensibilities might find objectionable. Excluding any which have a supportable connection doesn't seem fair, however.

Melton breaks down Christianity into these traditions: Western Catholicism, Anglicanism, Eastern Orthodox, Lutheran, Reformed-Presbyterian, Pietist-Methodist, Holiness, Pentecostal, Free Church, Baptist, Independent Fundamentalists, Adventists, Liberal, Latter-day Saints, Communal, Christian Science-Metaphysical, Spirtualist-Psychic-New Age, Ancient Wisdom, and Unclassified—along with noting connections with Christianity among some traditions that don't fall into his "Christian" categories. I think that the line he draws between some of these is arbitrary, and that some of his categories would work better if merged. He also has a category for Interfaith/Ecumenical organizations. Just thinking off the top of my head here. • Astynax ^talk 21:34, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Bible, Book of Mormon and Christianity portals

You know, I really think that this portal could be fairly easily made a bit more useful to those who access it. I think, although I would have to check, that most of the articles on the books of the Bible are at least Start class without quality tags, so they could be used in a portal. I think the same holds for the articles on the various books of the Book of Mormon. That being the case, for each of those portals, it might be possible to turn one section of each portal over to the various books of each, leaving the other main article section to deal with other articles, preferably, where possible, articles which in some way relate directly to the specific book being discussed.

I would personally like to see the rotation use the books in order, but there is a problem with the differing orders of books in Judaism and within Christianity. Also, honestly, I would not like to see Jewish viewers turned off by seeing only Christian NT articles featured for an extended time. Maybe, just maybe, if we turned the selections into a weekly rotation, we might alterate weeks between OT and NT books, thus hopefully keeping the attention of all prospective viewers.

Also, given the huge size of Christianity, I think it might be a good idea if we can agree to it to turn that into a weekly rotation portal. Such portals have 52 selections apiece, but, like I said with the Bible portal above, I think we have enough content to fill that rather easily. Weekly rotation of the Chrsitianity portal would allow for showing all of the most important material relative to that topic, while still running the risk of duplicating selections with one of the other portals for only a week. Thoughts on any of this? John Carter (talk) 18:31, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

I cannot imagine that any would have a problem following the order used in the Tanakh. The apocryphal books also differ between Judaism and Christianity (and between sects within Christianity) anyway. Perhaps the books within the 3 sections of the Tanakh (Torah, Nevi'im, Ketuvim) could somehow be interleaved with sections of the NT (Gospels/Acts, Epistles) and a grouping of the accepted apocrypha? Weekly rotation seems like a good idea. • Astynax ^talk 21:06, 1 October 2010 (UTC)