Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Christianity and Racism

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. Sandstein 09:24, 9 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Christianity and Racism

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A new article that violates WP:NOTESSAY. There's no clear redirect target. power~enwiki (π, ν) 21:29, 1 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Christianity-related deletion discussions. Eastmain (talk • contribs) 21:38, 1 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per WP:TNT. It's certainly a notable intersection, but this is an essay with so many things wrong that it's better to delete and start again. St Anselm (talk) 21:56, 1 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per nom. Lacking a clear rationale for covering some issues rather than others (e.g. Catholic Church and Nazi Germany and Christian_views_on_slavery#Quakers but not Racial segregation of churches in the United States or Black people and Mormonism), which makes it an opinion essay. Bakazaka (talk) 23:48, 1 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The article is not an essay. If you believe it is an essay, what would you say its thesis is? Or which detail is an example of an opinion rather than a fact? The article is not US-focused, but you can certainly include the issues about racial segregation in US churches, Mormonism or other American social issues into it.Reesorville (talk) 01:37, 2 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - So much could/should be done with this topic than what this essay—and that is what this is—offers. The article needs a complete do-over with a more competent writer at the helm.TheGracefulSlick (talk) 22:48, 2 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The only suggestion so far as to what could be done differently is by adding things on racial segregation on US churches or Mormonism to it, both of which I have added in. But please, if you are going to say that this is an essay and needs change, then please specify what it is that you specifically think should be different. I am not making an unreasonable request here. I think this discussion should not be closed until someone tries to seriously answer that. Reesorville (talk) 14:23, 3 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

(with regret) Delete -- This is a significant subject, but this is a poor article. Christians do not have an unblemished record in this area. In the past, some Christians managed to justify segregation and apartheid from the Bible. Few would propound those views today, but in their time they were notable and notability is not temporary. Some of these unpleasant things need WP articles, but a general article like this needs to be built up as a summary or other "main" articles on particular aspects of the subject. Perhaps userify, so that the author can work up a series of rather more specific articles on different aspects of the subject. Peterkingiron (talk) 15:32, 4 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

There are numerous articles already on the specific subjects, which I've just added links for. If the issue is that the article is bad quality and deserves better, than that is a different issue than saying the article is an essay. An essay is when someone is arranging facts and details in such a way as to get the reader to arrive at a particular conclusion that is being argued - I am trying my best and I can't understand why the other users see this as an essay, but if someone wants to claim this, then it is reasonable for me to ask for them to be more specific so we know what the issue is. If the issue instead, however, is simply that the article needs improvement because we would like an article of better quality on the subject, then deletion would not be adequate solution - it would make more sense to leave it open so that other users can add improvement to it. Someone created an article with this exact title about 5 years ago, but it was also deleted - if you delete this one, I have a feeling that no one is going to try to make new one and we will be left where we were at the start. Reesorville (talk) 23:51, 4 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Delete, WP:NOTESSAY, WP:TNT. Blow up this paltry personal ESSAY. Perhaps a good article will someday be written, and we do cover the topic on other pages.E.M.Gregory (talk) 13:14, 6 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Could someone please provide examples of something in the article which they think is my own personal opinion alone and not something that exists established sources? If this can't be done, then the claim it is an essay is unfounded. Reesorville (talk) 13:27, 6 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Sure: "in many instances in the narrative, God determines to treat people differently on the basis of their ancestry." St Anselm (talk) 08:08, 7 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I think it is very obvious that this isn't my own invention. How could you claim it was? Are there no Jews in past or present who have ever claimed that they were the chosen people, set apart specially for God? Or Christian churches saying essentially the same thing about God's election of the Jews? I just do a 5 minute search on a search engine and I can find lots of interpretations of the Old Testament from Christians of various denominations that interpret those stories in the Old Testament about generational curses as being punishments from ancestry. If you are claiming that this is an essay, it means that you are essentially saying that all of these things were all my own invention... which is impossible.... I am thinking that your actual issue with this is that you disagree with the idea itself and the way it is stated and perhaps would like to change it so that it says something which might be more neutral to Christians that hold other beliefs and think that the text has a different interpretation. In other words, rather than saying 'God makes distinction in the...' it could say something like 'interpretations of the Old Testament hold that God makes distinction in the...'. In that case I would I agree, and I think it would be very fair to try to reword it in that case.

But please try to understand at the same time why I included those things before I mentioned the ways that racist attitudes actually manifested in Christian theology with things like the 'curse of ham' or 'blood guilt' for the Jews. I think it is necessary to include some reference to those things in the Old Testament when speaking about this topic, because many readers don't know the Old Testament, and if you only just mention those things, without any reference to the context of supposed 'generational blessings or curses', the reader might have no clue where such ideas could have possibly come from when people of past times came up with them and the reader will then be lacking a very critical context in understanding the topic.

If I am right in that thinking, that that is in fact what the real issue is, then I think this discussion properly belongs on the talk page of the article and not here, where there is a call to delete the article because it is supposedly a product of my own personal ideas, which it is not. Reesorville (talk) 14:23, 7 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Delete Plain essay, magnet for WP:OR. Also per WP:AND –Ammarpad (talk) 15:57, 6 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Could you provide examples of things in the article that make it an essay or which are OR? Reesorville (talk) 01:59, 7 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.