Talk:Sermon

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Contents 1 Removed section 1.1 Sermons and sexual psychology 2 WP:NPOV: Sermon is not only a Christian Concept 3 Recent change to external links... yes but no....

[edit] Removed section

The section "Sermons and sexual psychology" doesn't fit in this article, and it's unsourced. Anyone is welcome to fix it and put it back. Greg Price 03:29, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sermons and sexual psychology

In addition, numerous studies have been done on sermons and their connection to other topics such as psychology, linguistics, and gender. One such example is Frances Lee Smith's "The Pulpit and Woman's Place: Gender and the Framing of the 'Exegetical Self' in Sermon Performances," published in Framing in Discourse.

[edit] WP:NPOV: Sermon is not only a Christian Concept

This entry is really wonderful, but it is a Christian persepctive. Therefore, I suggest changing it to reflect that.

I do not know the history and practice of of Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist or even atheistic and humanistic sermons, but I think they should be acknowledged under the general topic "Sermon", and the fact that this is a "christian" perspective should be noted.

Thanks,

Eric Jennings (Ej444, 2006-11-21)

I totally concur with Eric Jennings. This article, as it stands, should be renamed "Sermon (Christian)" or something similar. Sermons are a fundamental part of Jewish, Islamic and Buddhist history and practice but are ignored here. This article is heavily biased and misleading as a result. Have you not heard of Buddha's Sermon in the Deer Park at Sarnath? Sermon is a general term in English: its use is not restricted to Christianity, as this article definitely implies. It is sad that nobody could even be bothered to reply to the previous comment. Enaidmawr 22:52, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

I also agree. Even Indian religions have sermons called Satsang although these events are structured differently than a Christian sermon in that there's more give-and-take between master and audience.

I have renamed this talk section. If it hasn't been done already, I'm adding an NPOV tag to this article.

If nobody objects over the next month or so, this article will be renamed Sermon (Christian) or something appropriate, if anyone has suggestions. -Amatulic 23:11, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Tagged for NPOV check. Apologies for neglecting sermons in Hindu tradition. You have my full support for renaming the article. I think a summary of the present article should then be incorporated in an article entitled simply Sermon and dealing with all relevant religions. Enaidmawr 23:17, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

I thought I would go and ask google and yahoo about sermons. It's quite interesting that the results on the word "sermons" display websites dedicated to Christian sermons not other religions. I think we should ask ourselves why this is. If we can answer that question, maybe we could answer the question as to why the article is leaning towards a Christian stand point. Maybe it is because their is a massive focus on sermons within Christianitity, which isn't present in other religions. Maybe other religions use other terminology for "sermons". Before making alterations, we should get answers to these questions and make alterations that coincide with our research. That's not to say that I don't agree with the above suggestions. I just want us to make the right decision. I've got a friend at work who is a muslim - I'll ask him about sermons and Islam and see what he says! People in my dept say he's an expert!!... WikiJonathanpeter 09:40, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

I spoke to my Muslim friend and I had to describe what a sermon was to him! He said that they do have something similar and that he wouldn't refer to it as a sermon. If this is also the case for Judaism, Hinduism etc... I would leave the article as it is. In answer to the original question, it appears that a "sermon" is Christian terminology for a concept that refers to lectures/teaching/... After somebody has done more in depth research and can confirm that this is indeed the case, the article should be edited so that this point is made clear. WikiJonathanpeter 12:50, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

The Islamic equivalent for 'sermon' is Khutba, usually given before Friday prayers but also on other occasions. The discourses of the Buddha and other Buddhist teachers are usually described as 'sermons' in English, the Buddha's sermon in Sarnath being the most obvious example. The satsang of Hinduism referred to above is actually more correctly used for the chief form of worship or "service" in that religion. The authorative modern encyclopedia of Hinduism Hindu World[:] an encyclopedic survey of Hinduism (by Benjamin Walker, 2 large vols., first published 1968) describes satsang as "communal worship... with hymns, prayers, and a sermon". Of course that is not to say that these are identical with Christian sermons, but the fact is they are usually described as such in English as the word sermon is not restricted to Christianity alone. The article here is a perfectly good introduction to the Christian sermon tradition and practice (a bit weighted towards English language and Protestantism perhaps, but that's a relatively minor point). However a new Sermon article should give an overview for all relevant faiths, incorporating a summary of the present article in a section on the sermon in Christianity with a link, of course, to it under its new name (Sermon (Christian) perhaps); similar links would be given to khutba etc. One final point. I'd just like to make it clear that I am completely neutral here, having no pro- or anti- agenda for any particular religion (or none). Enaidmawr 00:41, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Would you also propose that we changed Khutba to Khutba (Islam), with a Khutba pointing to sermon, and other religious terms that are equivalent to sermon? The point of the potential change would be to make people aware that other religions have the equivalent of sermons, but are just named differently e.g. Islamic one above. However, if we this line of reasoning, we should also think about changing Khutba so that people who are just know about Khutba's are familar that the equivalent also applies to other religions? Perhaps a better solution to the problem would be to put a note at the top of the sermon article to say that other relgions also have similar ways of teaching e.g. Islamic, Khutba. If someone could give examples of other religions that specifically refer to their form of teaching as sermons, and not using other terminology, then we are indeed justified in making changes like changing Sermons to Sermons (Christian) etc... The case with Hindism above, the encyclopedia says that Satsang involves having sermons etc... Would Hindu's refer to their sermons using the that word? or would they use other terminology? WikiJonathanpeter 15:59, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure I quite follow the logic of your argument. This is the English-language wikipedia and sermon is an English word. It would be ludicrous to rename khutba to "Khutba (Islamic)" as khutba is an Arabic word and is not used in English to refer to sermons generally: a khutba, however, could be called a sermon in English in order to describe what it is (which the article khutba does, if I remember rightly). As to whether Hindus would refer to their sermons by that name, that is a matter of familiarity with the word and its meaning; an English speaker would describe it as a sermon as that is the equivalent word in English.

Maybe we should give some standard dictionary definitions. Here's the Longman Concise English Dictionary for starters: "1. a religious discourse delivered in public, usually by a clergyman as a part of a religious service. 2. a speech on conduct or duty; especially one that is unduly long or tedious." Enaidmawr 00:21, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

ok. fine. We'll leave it at that. I've just never seen a sermon as a concept as such before but as Christian terminology for a religious discourse. Thanks, WikiJonathanpeter 12:59, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

It has been a while since anyone else chimed in. I think the points above make it clear that "sermon" is a generic English word that can be used to describe an event held by other religions called by other words in other languages, and that this article focuses on the Christian tradition specifically. Therefore, to remove the NPOV concerns, we can comfortably rename this article as proposed and create a disambiguation page for the other types of sermons. -Amatulic (talk) 17:37, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Hi. We're discussing this topic at Judaism wikiproject. I think it'd be best to keep this as an overarching article on sermon. It should then get new sections beside the Protestant one: one for summary style to the Catholic article Homiletics, one to Khutba, other religions, and hopefully a Jewish subsection. How does that sound? HG | Talk 04:55, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi again. Please don't flip out, but I've tried to modify the article so that it could mention the various traditions, allow Summary Style links to the longer Islamic and Catholic articles, and keep the current Christian text here. The Jewish sermon section could start here, maybe eventually grow to its own main article. (I think this will avoid us having to write articles on each religious tradition's preaching, since some might not be ready for full articles, and an ungainly DAB page, which sermon already has.) I guess you should revert or Talk if you think I've mucked it up. Thanks. HG | Talk 05:26, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the edits, they seem fine by me, a step in the right direction. I think you're right about leaving Sermon as the main overview article for sermons in all traditions; that would be the easiest solution. However I do feel that no more should be added here on sermons in the Protestant tradition. An intro to Catholic homilies would be good to balance the Christian sermon section out. I would then propose copy and paste the Christian section to a new article (name?). I also feel that the present Christianity template should be removed from here and placed in that article (needs editing so it doesn't lead here). I'd almost forgotten about this - been busy with other things - and I'm glad to see it's not just myself and Amatulic who think this needed changing and that members of the Jewish wikiproject have been thinking on the same lines. I look forward to reading your material on Jewish sermons! Enaidmawr (talk) 00:06, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Recent change to external links... yes but no....

This post is in response to removal of all previous external links and additions to dmoz.

Firstly, I can see where Jon is coming from. The previous list encourages users to randomly add external links to sermon websites without due consideration as to how the addition enhances the article leading to the potentially a long list of links.

However, it has to be accepted that sermons come in many forms and shapes e.g. written, audio, video, protestant, Baptist... the purpose of having various links to *different*, good quality websites was so that the reader could experience what a sermon actually is in the various forms they come in. The problem with adding directories of links e.g. dmoz in the case is:

a.) You haven't got a list of unique websites that are very different to each other in terms of shape and form of sermons. Instead, the user has to wade through a directory trying to find unique websites in order to try and get a broad idea as to what a sermon is in terms of actually experiencing one.

b.) The directories can be very specific and don't cover the broadness of "sermon"

c.) The point that sermons do come in various form is very effectively put across with a short list of sermons websites which are very different in terms of content.

I think a better idea would be to keep the previous list and carefully review every sermon added by users and remove them if there is already one in existence that is similar.

This is very specific to sermons. With most articles, directories (officially repositories) are a good idea.

Thoughts? WikiJonathanpeter 11:31, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the invitation on my talk page to comment here; I must have unwatched the article hours before you started this discussion. I concur with your analysis of the problem with the long list I removed. Instead of adding links back to the list, I suggest adding links of the very best representative types as <ref>…</ref> notes to the appropriate spot in the article. That way we know with which part of the article a sermon example is associated and we don't grow another list that is so tempting to add to.

I don't think the reinsertion of the list of Baptist sermons is a good idea. It is easily found in the main DMOZ list as the first entry, and it is an invitation for other denominations to add their list. I think it should be removed again. ✤ JonHarder ^talk 21:13, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Very neat solution: interlinking the best types via <ref>…</ref> tags :) though the article might have to be slightly expanded in order to cover the different types. By doing that, there wouldn't be the need for any external links to collections of sermons which would make our lives easier in that we could just delete random additions rather than having to wade through the content of the websites to work out their suitability. I'll give some though about which sites would be suitable for insertion over the next few days and post them up. In the mean time, it'll give people a chance to add their comment to this discussion. Thanks, WikiJonathanpeter 17:35, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Had a good crack at it. I've tended to have gone from sites that I've listened to the sermons on them and of which I believe to be of good quality. Topical and Biographical were exceptions but seem good at providing examples of each. Lots more could be said and the section itself could be expanded but at least we have a more manageable article.WikiJonathanpeter 18:39, 17 July 2007 (UTC)