Talk:1830s in Mormonism

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article was nominated for deletion on 3 September 2007. The result of the discussion was merge.

[edit] Suggestions

Two points:

• You can't refer to Mormonism or The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as "the church". It is not "The Church"; it is A Church! Please specify which religion you are talking about. If any religion deserves to use the epithet "The Church" it is the Catholic Church because of its size and longevity (I'm not Catholic, I'm just making a point). Calling Mormonism "the church" is naive, ethnocentric, and ignorant.
• When writing about past events, use the past tense: was instead of is, were instead of are.

submitted by RTCearly (Talk | contribs) at 08:35, 27 November 2005.

Also, there are several instances where events are claimed but they are not well-known enough to be claimed without references. I have noted those events with the following: (reference?).

In response to the above, I moved POV tag to this page for discussion. In my opinion, the article did have a casual LDS slant and used familiar LDS terminology. &&&&&& did make some improvements but also added his own POV in selected places. The complaints noted above are relatively minor and I consider the tagging inappropriate. This is a pet peeve of mine, I'll acknowledge. People plant these templates on pages very casually. My response to them is generally negative -- and I attribute (rightly or wrongly) their use to animosity or simple laziness. I will remove this tag after allowing a couple of days for response. However ---------

a) Use of "the church" for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Days Saints is appropriate within the context of this or any other Mormonism related article. Once the identity of the church in question has been established, as ex-moron did, then the use of "the church" is understood in context -- i.e. in articles about Methodist topics, the Methodist church would be "the church."

b) the tense on a list like this is generally irrelevant, as long as the tense remains consistent throughout -- so this is a style choice and not a point of dispute. &&&&&&'s changes to the date style are also a choice issue and not a true dispute. I prefer the original format myself.

c) tags or questions about reference do not belong in the article itself. Requests for references belong on the discussion page, along with an explanation of why they are needed. These are areas &&&&&& believe need references:

3 Nov 1838 -- reference on Joseph's Smith's prophecy.

13-25 Nov 1838 -- 1)judicial process irregularities 2) robberies in Far West.

WBardwin 21:48, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] The Church discussion

Yes, the tense needs to be consistent. What do other decade and year articles do? I agree any neutrality problems are mild. It has been long settled that the church we are taking about should be referred to as church, not Church. Whether the article "the" or "a" is used is simply a matter of grammar and context. Basically, it looks like WBardin is following Wikipedia goals and procedures. Tom Haws 19:33, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Agreed, I think this issue is that &&&&& thinks that "the" here is used to indicate uniqueness, rather than the actual use which is to denote particular, specified persons or things. See uses 1 and 3 in the wikipedia article on "The" Trödel|talk 21:24, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

I am taking issue with the use of "the church" because, from a sociological perspective, it is not accurate. Mormonism is not a "church" (see Church-sect_typology) in the sociological sense of the word. Mormons who use the phrase "the church" are speaking as those everyone else shares their sense of understanding as Mormons. I don't think most Mormons realize they do this, but they do. If you look at the articles on Methodism or any other denomination you'll notice that the authors do not refer to the religions in those articles as "the church." The only exceptions to this rule, of course, are when they refer to religions like "The Church of England" or "the established church." In short, if you are a Mormon writing for a general audience, you will need to step out of the viewpoint that Mormonism is "the church" and speak of it as another religion, because for the overwhelming majority of people on this planet that is exactly what it is!

Please note that the name of the religion is "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints," as in your example of "The Church of England." Mormon's do refer to "the church" as a reference to the organization, religion and the culture(generally in all religious contexts), it is part of Mormon vocabulary and unlikely to change. I believe the LDS project group generally tries to balance the usage of "the church" with the formal name of the church and the "Mormon" nickname in Wiki articles. So, your objection is the usage of the term "the church" by Mormons in all articles rather than just this article? If so, why not take your discussion to the project page - Wikipedia:WikiProject Latter Day Saint movement? We establish policy/rules on usage there and would probably be willing to review past decisions and practices. WBardwin 22:58, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

I did some reading and found that "the church" is used in other articles as well, even Methodism that you refer to uses "the church" in several places, although like Mormonism, there are several denominations that make up methodism. See also (for a sampling) Anglicanism, Lutheranism, and Baptist. I think that the average person coming to an article about a church would expect it to refer to itself as "the church" rather than realize that "the church" refers only to a specific term of art as described by the Church-sect typology which proscribes a specific definition to church for a specific discipline, rather than the defintion that most people use for the term - which is 1) a specific building, or 2) a denomination. Mainly I object to changing the article to get rid of "the church" because the sentences will not read as well. Trödel|talk 23:24, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Move

It appears that this should be moved to 1830s in Mormonism to be brought into line with similar articles, any thoughts? Paul 20:51, 7 June 2006 (UTC)