Talk:Timeline of Christian missions

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Christianity Portal Timeline of Christian missions is part of the WikiProject Christianity, an attempt to build a comprehensive guide to Christianity on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit this article, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion. If you are new to editing Wikipedia visit the welcome page so as to become familier with the guidelines.

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[edit] First comments

Can a piece on the "Back to Jerusalem" initiative be added the site? Christianity Today (April 2006) and Intervarsity? See www.backtojerusalem.org or the Wikpedia definition.

Nice idea for an article. Thanks. Might I suggest that changing from Saul->Paul without explanation might be confusing for some? DJ Clayworth 16:35, 12 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Which Clovis is this? There is a disambig page from this link. Mark Richards 18:38, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Adding "Missionary sponsored" junk won't work

Somebody added "1989 - Missionary sponsored Christian separtists groups begin violent campaign in India." - and a link to a very POV article. If you think about it, missionaries have "sponsored" the IRA (via St. Patrick) and the Soviet Union (Sts. Cyril and Methodius).

I'm removing it. --Dbabbitt 17:36, 3 Jun 2004 (UTC)

[edit] "Home" missions

A lot of Mission (Christianity) and this article seem to be about foreign missions. Do we have material about missions to save/help the poor in the "home" country. These are sometimes called rescue missions or inner missions. Thanks for your help. Pcb21| Pete 12:41, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] First Christian nation

You have overlooked the conversion of Armenia c304 at which time the state religion was declared to be Christian.

[edit] Split timeline into sections for easier editing?

Might I suggest that the timeline be subdivided into several sections to make editing easier? DFH 21:02, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Fair warning

As of this posting, some of these entries are (to be blunt) garbage, & much of what is left badly needs copy editting & further work. I'm going to start slapping {{fact}} on a number of these entries, & deleting entries that are not about missionizing in the next couple of days unless someone else beats me to it. -- llywrch 03:19, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] LDS in listing?

Are you sure the Mormons are comfortable with being included in this listing (1839)? It was my understanding they thought the "church" disappeared from the earth with the death of the last Apostles and did not reappear until Joseph Smith re-established it. I don't think they would want to see themselves as one among many events in spreading Christianity around the world.

I'm LDS -- and the one that wrote the original sentence. We are Restorationist and so don't consider ourselves Protestants or Catholics. But we are Christians, and part of the long history of Christian missions. I hope to add more information here about other early missions at least, including three large scale missions to Europe during the nineteenth century. Thank you for placing your question here rather than reverting my entry. WBardwin 19:14, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

That's interesting. It was my understanding that the LDS didn't really consider any of the rest of us as belonging to "authentic" churches. That's why I was surprised to see an LDS entry mingled in with other entries about great Christians of the past. So, are you saying you embrace Patrick, Angskar, Boniface, William Carey, Hudson Taylor and William Cameron Townsend as great missionaries? -- Howard 27 April 2006

Although Restorationists, and Latter Day Saints in particular, believe that an "Apostacy" occurred leading to a break in the line of authority from Jesus, and that many truths were lost, we believe that the Spirit of the Lord has and will continue to aid and direct men of faith. Perhaps most of your impressions come from the LDS assertion as the "true" church -- which means that we believe that God's spiritual authority has been "returned" to the earth, and to the leaders of the LDS faith, through revelation. We admire Martin Luther and other men in the Protestant reformation movement and, in many ways, have our origins in English reformation. Most of the earliest leaders of the LDS church had their religious outlook shaped by Congregationalist, Methodist and Baptist teachings. We use the King James Bible as our scriptural text, along with other "revealed" LDS scripture. Although most of the names listed above would not be familiar to LDS people, we see our missionaries as heirs to the long Christian tradition beginning with the Apostles. Mormons encourage people to seek out and practice a religion of their choice, and rejoice in the teaching of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. While we are active and enthusiastic (some would say obsessive) missionaries about our own faith, the welfare and service functions of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints also works with other Christian churches (and recently, Muslim organizations) to provide aid to inner city missions, foreign service missions, health related missions and disaster relief. So, even though we may seem different, we share many of the same goals. Didn't mean to write an "epistle" -- but hope that helps. WBardwin 21:04, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

I am very confortable with this page. The latter-Day Saints would not agree some basic tenants that other Christians belive in, such as their belief in there being more than one god. They may say that they worship only Jesus Christ, but they do not believe that Jesus is the only god in the whole universe. Though we are friendly to our Mormon neighbors, we cannot agree on that point.

[edit] Restructured

I have split some of the longer sections for convenience of future editing. I also made all the timeine periods into level 3 sub-sections, to distinguish them from the level 2 sections at the end. DFH 14:41, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Comedians have struck

In Wikipedia, articles related to history attract large numbers of wags. Even this seemingly mild and seemingly harmless article on religion has been besieged by comedians who have implanted their jokes within the "Timeline of Christian missions." Falsehoods (when passed off as being historic truths) make the wags laugh. GhostofSuperslum 08:05, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] For God's sake!!!

This article is outrageously evangelically one-eyed. Rather bizzarely, after the Reformation, the over 1 billion strong Catholic church is absent in this article (what! no missionary work??), and the teeny "Church of the Nazarene" appears to have taken over (puhleease!). I will be looking at this article to restore some balance and credibility!!!Cor Unum 11:03, 23 March 2007 (UTC)