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We are communicating our intent to edit paragraph 4 of the History section of this article. Our intention is to remove the following sentences.
"In 1975, a house fellowship was initiated by Mr. Zac Poonen in Bangalore, which later came to be registered as CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIP CENTRE (CFC) under the Societies Act[8]. Mr. Zac Poonen was a Naval officer who left the Navy to do full time ministry in 1965[9]. He went to Norway in 1971 along with his family at the cost of Smith's Friends[10]. Mr.Zac Poonen wanted to start meetings similar to the meetings of Smith's Friends, which he had seen in Norway. The meetings started in his house as meetings of the Smith's Friends. The meeting house later came to be known as CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIP CENTRE (CFC)[11]."
The justification for this edit are the following reasons.
Irrelevant Information: This content is entirely irrelevant to Brunstad Christian Church. IF it was accurate and IF there was a Wikipedia page regarding Christian Fellowship Church or Zac Poonen it might be relevant there but not here.
Inaccurate Information: The only provided external link is in question: The paragraph is entirely sourced from "Paragraph (d) Judgment LawyerServices". www.lawyerservices.in. [1].which contains ONLY the initial portion of a judgment i.e., the allegations by the complainant. The full judgement (available here [2] ) shows clearly that the complainant’s version of the facts was NOT accepted by the court who ruled in favor of the petitioner. The court relied among other things on the affidavit, of Mr. Stephen Craig Timmons (See paragraph 8) to the effect that Zac Poonen i.e., the petitioner “never joined SF and that he has even declared that he was not interested in joining a western movement and he did not wish to make the work in India, an appendage of SF and that he stood for the independence of Christian Fellowship Centre as a distinct Indian Church, with no official links to any group outside India.” The version of events in this paragraph is also entirely unsupported by other sources such as sites about the Brunstad Christian Church e.g., ( https://activechristianity.org/about-us/brunstad-christian-church) or ( https://bcc.no/en/) or Zac Poonen’s biography ( https://www.cfcindia.com/books/the-day-of-small-beginnings). The comment supporting the addition of this section on 25th August 2018 is inaccurate. “Added supplementary information on the beliefs of Smith's Friends, the inspiration behind the Brunstad Christian Church. All information has been gathered from the legal briefs available online.” This paragraph is NOT supplementary information on the beliefs of Smith's Friends.
The contentious material about a living person, and the material is potentially harmful: This paragraph contains inaccurate information about a living person i.e., Zac Poonen, including speculations about his intentions and the nature of meetings he started. As per the relevant Wikipedia policy “Contentious material about living persons (or, in some cases, recently deceased) that is unsourced or poorly sourced—whether the material is negative, positive, neutral, or just questionable—should be removed immediately and without waiting for discussion” [3]. .
User:Cfcr October 17, 2018 1:30 PM IST
These Sentences have been deleted.
User:Cfcr October 23, 2018 12:00 PM IST
References
"In many aspects, they follow a distinctive and characteristic way of explaining their teachings." "The denomination has little to nothing to do with other Christian groups." These are not very scientific or objective statements, but rather opinions. I porpose that someone expains waht the distinctive and characterisitc way is, and what the group does have in common with other groups and what it does not. Moreover, references to few studies that have been made about this group are lacking. to mention a few: Steinar Moe, Lowell Streiker (even though his research was commissioned by the group, not uncritical) and Geir Lie, "The Christology Among Smith's Friends: A Misunderstood Impulse from the Keswick Movement, AJPS7:2 (2004).'
The changes of October 10 made to my contribution (paragraphs 5 and 6) are very interesting. They were probably made by someone for whom English is a second language. My guess is that the person is probably a Scandanavian Smith's Friends member. For example, the phrase, "...and extolling having many children over and above the practice of birth control..." is typical of a Scandanavian speaking English. The use of the word "extolling" is typical of a Smith's Friends member, who hears such expressions many times a week at meetings, and now, over a private satellite TV network. The net effect of the changes were to ameliorate what were probably perceived as critical comments about the group's practices.
Unfortunately, the person who made the changes left no comments or ID info other than the default IP address. It seems to escape them that most of the comments they "softened" pertained to practices I clearly indicated had improved since the group's leadership change in the early 1990's. I got a chuckle, actually, since their wording leaves "stressing the unhealthy effects of access to popular media and extolling having many children over and above the practice of birth control" labeled as "extreme attitudes and practices." The implication is that current practice is not so dissimilar to common practice in the 1970's and 1980's. This is flat out inaccurate. However, this type of spin is characteristic of the approach to presenting their group that members normally take, and so is itself of interest.
For example, the statement, "Thousands of lifelong members were ostracized and labeled as opposers to God and his servants." was changed to, "Many lifelong members left because they felt they were labelled as opposers of God and His servants." The inference is that they weren't actually labeled "opposers," but merely felt that they had been labeled as such. I was present in Norway during the "revival" and personally heard the Norwegian term "motstander" repeatedly used by older leaders to refer to members who voiced disagreement to Kaare Smith and the "revival" he was leading. InterTran ( http://www.tranexp.com:2000/Translate/result.shtml) translates "motstander" as "adversary". Common practice within the group at the time was to translate the word "motstander" as "opposer." The very real experience of several thousand members at the time was that they were ostracized, even shunned, and treated as enemies by the "revivalists." It is difficult to understand how the person who changed this statement was thinking that he/she was adding to the content or accuracy of my original statements. I feel that his/her changes served more to obfuscate than clarify.
Another interesting change was to make, "social separation from other organizations and the world at large," to read, "spiritual separation from other religious organizations at large." Clearly, the term "at large" is not familiar to the person who made the change. In fact, the members of Smiths Friends have never mixed socially with the population outside their organization, much less with other religious organizations. This practice has continued to present. Marriage within the group is encouraged, and marriage outside the group is very much frowned upon, although not prohibited. Social functions are almost without exception for members only, the exception being visitors introduced by members for the purpose of proselytization. Events or functions where members mix with those outside the group are unheard of, as are organizational partnerships with other churches or charitable organizations for any reason.
Finally, I strongly object to the removal of the expression "staunch homophobia" in reference to the group's unequivocal stand that homosexuality is an evil perversion of nature and God's order. This was a clear and unmistakeable tenet of Smith's Friends, as it is of many fundamentalistic religious groups. Members were regularly warned from the pulpit not to allow members of their family who were engaged in a homosexual relationship to have normal access to family life, e.g., they should not attend family functions with their partner, they should not be allowed to spend the night with their partner during visits, etc. I was actually being generous to include it as one of the attitudes that has moderated in recent years. I hope it has.
To the person who made the changes of October 10, if you again wish to change the content of my contribution, please have the decency to explain and justify the changes. And please, make changes that will add content and increase the clarity and accuracy of the information, not just whitewash it.
I (the person who put in the changes about the opposers) put them in since I felt that the explanation about them leaving was not enough, and it should have been mentioned why they left, and what they did when they left. Change it if you don't believe it belongs on the page, but I believe it should be left.
User:Skeptic23 October 16, 2005 10:20 PM PDT
This entry for Smith's Friends seemed to contain more information about Smith himself than about the group. If you feel that more information about Smith should be known, it can be added to his personal page. Although it may appear as though many things were changed, I kept most of the information but changed the tone to something more closely resembling accurate documentation. Raingirl85 4:25, 19 June 2006 (PDT)
'Teachings' requires work so it is purely about their teaching. It starts off well but gets distracted. Moved "...leadership..." to 'Organization' and "...extreme attitudes and practices..." into 'Criticism'. Coigrich 17:13, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
I question the value and quality of the last three external links. The Google discussion group is more of a hate site, e.g., comparing Smith's Friends to Al-Qaida, etc., and the last two links are in Norwegian. Coigrich 05:41, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
It would seem that there is an individual or individuals who intend to keep adding the link to the google discussion group about "smiths friends". This link is full of negativity and hatred towards the "smiths friends" organization, and perhaps the intent in adding this link repeatedly, is that the discussion group will affect the opinions of those who are interested in learning about "smiths friends". Please feel free to comment on the validity of this musing if you are such a one who insists on making repeated changes, to an otherwise effective page of encyclopedic information. After all, this is the intent of the removal of the link: a facts first look at the "smiths friends" organization, and their place in todays world. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wholegraind ( talk • contribs) 03:08, December 6, 2007 (UTC)
It seems that everyone is happy about the state of this page except for the link to this Google discussion group. That being said, i have read all English discussions contained in this group and have found hatred towards smiths friends and intention to slander them in the public arena. There are some thoughtful discussions and comparing of beliefs, but these are peppered with distasteful, unfounded accusations regarding not only the organization itself, but specific members as well. If the individual(s) adding this link are a member(s) of this discussion group, and truly are interested in objective conversation, then they would do well to start a new discussion group where slander, hatred, and illegitimate claims towards Smiths Friends or any other organization or individuals are prohibited. It is one thing to share beliefs and faith, or lack thereof, but it is another thing to accuse anyone of anything that violates your belief system. Encyclopedic presentation of the facts is the intention of this website, so this link will be continue to be removed. Please consider. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wholegraind ( talk • contribs) 01:53, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
- Discussion on kre-j-smith-om-a-laget - a fun challenge —Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.200.249.136 ( talk) 18:29, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
The request for comment concludes with the following statement. "I think its pretty clear that when WP policy states that discussion groups are not to be linked, discussion groups should not be linked. How simple is that?" (Phyesalis) This seems like an ultimatum to me. Any comments? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wholegraind ( talk • contribs) 15:57, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
Does link to Google Discussion Group comply with the WP:EL?
Does the Smith's Friends official website or the book written by someone paid by the group contain n utral and factual information? The credibility of those resources are as questionable as the discussion forum. Ugaboga ( talk) 16:22, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
Thanks, Lampje and Ugaboga. OK, I read that, but I don't understand it the same way. To me, the discussion group itself would have to be the subject of the article in order for a discussion group to qualify as a "page that is the subject of the article". It doesn't say "a page that relates to the subject of the article". Again, if this were an article on the Smith's friends Google Group, the link would be appropriate. Are there GA or FA pages with links to discussion groups that relate to the subject but are not themselves the subject of the article? I don't know. That might be a good way to seek out precedent. Thoughts? Phyesalis ( talk) 23:46, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
WP:EL is clear on this one "Links to social networking sites (such as MySpace), discussion forums/groups (such as Yahoo! Groups) or USENET." are links to normally be avoided. So the norm on this is exclusion, please provide compelling reasons for an exception, for inclusion. Sethie ( talk) 01:18, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
What should be linked
[edit] Links to be considered
Which of the above are you thinking make it a good and helpful link? Sethie ( talk) 16:34, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
Sethie, you forgot something:
"What to link" (quote from
WP:EL):
"There are several things that should be considered when adding an external link.
I think the answers on these 3 questions is 'yes'.
And please reply on the exception issue in
WP:EL I was talking about above.
Lampje (
talk)
18:18, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
Lampje, should we get a third opinion? Phyesalis and Sethie have contributed, but maybe we need one more opinion (an administrator) to wrap it up. Coigrich ( talk) 02:25, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
Ugaboga ( talk) 06:27, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
This is a relatively straightforward policy question, and it should require very exceptional circumstances and a strong consensus to consider including a link to a forum like this. It appears that only those associated with the group have supported inclusion, while a stream of independent commentators oppose. This has gone on long enough. The answer is 'no.' Cool Hand Luke 07:13, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
Those who are associated with the group (members) oppose the inclusion, as they prefer the article to be biased in their favour, as oppoesd to neutral, which means linking relevant sources of information. Ugaboga ( talk) 15:51, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
I wouldn't consider a running commentary on the actions of Smiths Friends, and varying opinions on their beliefs/views to be a "relevant source of information." Wholegraind ( talk) 15:49, 01 January 20 08
The name Christian should not be used to describe or categorize the Friends since they do not believe in the deity of Jesus Christ. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Happyformerfriend ( talk • contribs) 21:31, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
The new criticism contribution has been undone and redone a few times. It was originally undone by me due to the content not appearing encyclopedic and the link being to a google group which it was recently concluded should not be used with the following comment from administrator Cool Hand Luke: This is a relatively straightforward policy question, and it should require very exceptional circumstances and a strong consensus to consider including a link to a forum like this.
The statement doesnt seem to be supported by the link, and for that reason I dont think this contribution is encyclopedic - it seems to be unverified statement as far as I can tell. WP:Verifiable states All quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged should be attributed to a reliable, published source using an inline citation
( Wordwizz ( talk) 23:18, 30 January 2008 (UTC))
Removed External link to the FriedrichGriess.mp3.
Friedrich Griess has been convicted on 5 separate accounts of defamation against the Smith's Friends. WP:VER "Questionable sources are those with a poor reputation for fact-checking. Such sources include websites and publications that express views that are widely acknowledged as extremist, are promotional in nature, or rely heavily on rumors and personal opinions."
Coigrich ( talk) 04:51, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
And what is your explanation for removing the "Freedom Of Mind Resource Center" link? It is far more reputable then the link to the book which was paid for by Smith's Friends? The links you have that attack Friedrich Griess credibility are not reliable.
Norweger.at is the website of the Smith's Friends group in Austria.
Indymedia is a liberal left wing organisation which holds no credibility and the points made in that link are through anonymous comments. The wiki article should be unbiased, I understand you are trying to bias it in favour of Smith's Friends by removing all forms of valid criticism.
The speech that Griess made in the link is to the highly renowned Fair Conference, I am sure they pre-vet their speakers before providing them a platform.
Please come up with better sources then a random google search.
121.209.179.107 ( talk) 18:34, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
The court case only condemned him for copyright issues (due to publishing material from Smith's friends literature.) What is your reasoning for removing the link to the freedom of mind resource center? The article must remain unbiased, I understand that it is your intention to portray the article in a favourable light of Smith's friends, but that is fraudulent. It must be fair and balanced. 121.209.179.107 ( talk) 21:44, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
Here's a summary of Friedrich Griess's defamation and other convictions including links to the original court documents. Some other web sites (in addition to those mentioned above) also reference these court cases. Since Griess has a record of expressing extremist views, I'll remove links to his material.
Date | Court Case | Description | Court Documents |
---|---|---|---|
Sept. 1996 | 17Cg 15/96d, Vienna Commercial | Conviction for defaming Christian Family Fellowship, Styrian Christian Fellowship and the Life Fellowship (Norwegian Movement) including that they enlist people by "flirty fishing", engage in incest, adultery and deceit. | [1] [2] |
March 1997 | 17Cg 15/96d, Vienna Commercial court | Conviction for defaming the Christian Family Fellowship, Styrian Christian Fellowship and the Life Fellowship (Norwegian Movement). | |
Sept 1998 | 37Cg 77/98x, Vienna Commercial court | Conviction for defamation for alleging that the Christian Family Fellowship, Styrian Christian Fellowship and the Life Fellowship (Norwegian Movement). Fine of 60,000 Austrian shillings. | [5] En: [6] |
June 1998 | 17 O 85/98, Stuttgart County Court, Germany | Conviction for defamation against the "Norwegian movement". | [7] |
March 2000 | 37Cg 19/00y, Vienna Commercial court | Conviction for defamation and ordered by court to publish a correction statement on his web page and establish a link to the web page of the Norwegian Movement. | [8] |
GZ 8E 3407/00w, Klosterneuburg District Court | Violation of settlement agreement. He did not pay a fine and was ordered to remove false information from his web page and from search engines. | [9] | |
GZ 8F 2687/02 s-3, Klosterneuburg District Court | Violation of settlement agreement and ordered to pay a fine. | [10] | |
July 2004 | 16 Cg 115/02 | [11] | |
April 2005 | 4 R 315/04d | [12] | |
August 2005 | 4 Ob 146/05g | [13] |
Coigrich ( talk) 19:41, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
As some of you have noticed (cf. my talk page) I have done some major edits to the article, adding quite a lot of text directly translated from Norwegian Wikipedia's article on Smith's Friends ( Smiths venner). The article on no.wikipedia was for a while disputed but has been changed a lot to the better, and may within short time be nominated as a good article. The content was totally re-written with references to reliable sources from brunstad.org, Kjell Arne Bratli's books, Johan Velten's book, Lowell's report, Norwegian media, Steinar Moe's book and texts, Geir Lie's text, Alf Gjøsund's web page, Karl Erik Nylund's book and even Friedrich Greiss' web pages (as a reference on his oppinions, not as facts). The most of the references used are available in English, and as long as it's possible I will refer to English language sources.
The text I'm translating from, no.wiki's, is a result of consensus between different parts with involvement from third party administrators of the Norwegian Wikipedia, and the final result has thereby become a good article on a disputed subject. There is still quite some text to translate, but it will be done as soon as possible, and hopefully some of the other users here will be kind and help with some proofreading :) -- EivindJ ( talk) 21:50, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
I've put the POV-template in the article. Wikipedia is not a propaganda-site for religious groups. 213.84.147.9 ( talk) 11:28, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
I'm offering an third opinion, as requested on WP:3O. I guess in this case it helps to check the policy linked on the POV box. In a nutshell, this tag doesn't necessarily mean that the article is POV. It says that there is a dispute over whether it is POV or not. Such a dispute seems to exist here. However, it also states that
Everyone can agree that marking an article as having an NPOV dispute is a temporary measure, and should be followed up by actual contributions to the article in order to put it in such a state that people agree that it is neutral.
The editor who put the POV tag didn't specify what he/she thinks could be done to make the article NPOV. The accusations that criticism is systematically deleted seems a bit handy-wavy to me.
My opinion is that this editor should come up with specific suggestions about what could be done to make the article neutral. I don't think that English will be a problem; if in doubt you can put the things here and I'm sure that one of the other people can transform it into presentable English. But if you don't let the other people know what exactly you think is wrong and how you would it resolved then I think it's fair to remove the tag.
Please remember that removing unsourced statements is not a POV violation. If you want to include criticism you have to provide third-party sources for - otherwise it does not exist for Wikipedia and not including it is not a POV issue. So please let us know which part of the criticism you want restored and give us the sources for it.
Bottom Line: It's fair to put an NPOV tag, but there must be a way to actually resolve the issue.
(My personal opinion on the page: At face value, the tone seems quite balanced). It's clear that this is kind of a fundamentalist fringe group, but the article simply describes what they do without praising or condemning them. That such groups are always viewed critically by some is an automatic fact. I feel that such general criticism (that is valid for any conservative Christian group) does not need to be included. When you write an article about a specific model of car you also don't include a criticism that it burns fossil fuel and emits CO2... it's the default. So I think only criticism specific to the group should go in here.) Averell ( talk) 12:48, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
I see that you removed the POV link very quickly, and that it was re-added equally quickly. In order to get to the bottom of this, I've checked the article's history a bit. I supposed that these are the relevant edits for putting the POV tag: [14] (the one removing the "criticism section") and this [15]. With these I can (probably) understand the motivation a bit better.
Some parts of the content in question could be seen as "critical", such as the the statement that their views coincide with conservative christianism and that they have a kind of creationist stance - if true these would certainly be relevant to the article. I'm also disconcerted by the latter edit by Coigrich. It's a wholesale revert of the previous addition with the comment "Please explain edits". While I see that it re-introduced some of the content that was "condensed", I fail to see why an editor adding sourced content must explain himself before doing so. It's fine if you re-phrase and re-write content. But of you completely revert something someone else has added in good faith I think that this should be explained on the talk page, preferably before reverting. In this light the decision to put a POV tag seems at least better than to engage in a revert war.
Maybe the anonymous editor could say if that were really the edits that triggered the POV tag, and Coigrich could explain what triggered his (or her?) revert. I would also suggest that you just leave the POV tag alone for the time being ;-) Averell ( talk) 19:04, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
I've now removed the POV tag, since the IP hasn't given any further comments. However, it may be set back if anyone acctually comes with proper improvement suggestions or criticism of the article. -- Eivind ( t) 08:33, 27 July 2008 (UTC)
(That's just some ideas... :-) Averell ( talk) 09:44, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
According to the official website, this group is actually called Brunstad Christian Church and not "Smith's Friends". I suggest it would be better to change the wikipedia article page title to reflect this and to make Smith's Friends a redirect to it. The first para should also change to reflect this information Wordwizz ( talk) 08:58, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
Hi, being a member of this church (North American) I thought I'd give my observation. No one (including schools and the whole local community) knows us as Smith's Friends. They refer to us using our local name or as Brunstad Christian Church. Anatocis ( talk) 17:42, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
The whole article was very disjointed and messy, and didn't sound at all encyclopedic. I've started a fairly savage rewrite, which takes out a lot of the jumble, many uncited statements/paragraphs and have tried to improve the structure. I've expanded the "Background" section and renamed it "History". Unfortunately a lot of this material comes from brunstad.org, their own website. It would be nice to have a bit more third party reference here.
I've also culled a lot of the theology. I think this should remain relatively brief and provide an overview of the group's teachings. As it was, it sounded like a (badly written) tract! I've also taken out the Bible references - again these made teh article less encyclopedic and more like a tract. The purpose of the article isn't to convince anyone of a particular teaching, but to lay out the facts of the organization. The shorter and shaper this section is, the less likely it will be POV, which is always a risk with this type of article.
The sections on Mission and the "A-Team" remain untouched, but need work too. Maybe I'll get time to look at those too, but if anyone else has the energy . go for it! I think too much is included in both these sections, especially the latter. Wikipeterproject ( talk) 22:06, 20 September 2009 (UTC)
I removed the edit by User:Marshwiggle23:
The main contentious points of difference in the theology of the Smith's Friends from that of other groups is regarding their interpretations of kenosis, and of Jesus having carried sin in the flesh, essentially dissolving faith in the Trinity unbeknownst to themselves, and their belief that the church is only made up of themselves and not of any other group, because of their present day refusal to accept other writings, and placing writings of their church elders on the same inspired level as Scripture.
As it is unreferenced, it must be taken as original research. If a secondary source can be provided, of course it can go back in, altghough it would probably need some copy editing. Wikipeterproject ( talk) 13:22, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
Please take a look at the Dutch page. There is a lot of information about recent and not-so-recent lawsuits. The Dutch former members who have participated in in the recent documentary have a lot of important things to say about this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:981:B6D7:1:2C56:62EC:3503:6B36 ( talk) 10:53, 16 December 2020 (UTC)