Talk:Iglesia ni Cristo

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Good article Iglesia ni Cristo was one of the Philosophy and religion good articles, but it has been removed from the list. There are suggestions below for improving the article to meet the good article criteria. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.

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Contents


[edit] Politico-religious sect

Coffeemaker, I've reverted your edits because you replaced "independent, non-trinitarian Christian church" which has references with "politico-religious sect" which doesn't have any. --Quess 02:17, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

  • Comment

I am new to wikipedia but not to religion. To start any intro with "non-trinitarian" seems itself to be a point of view issue. Historically, there are as many Christian groups who believe in the Trinity as those who do not. So to say 'non-trinitarian' would be the same as saying 'non-catholic, non-baptist, etc. While the INC is a strange sect. It does seem that they are followers of Jesus Christ (or claim to be). They are certainly large enough to be a church in their own right and not a sect. So, the intro independent, Christian church is accurate. Also, I am not saying tht non-trinitarian must be removed. It just seems like whether they believe in the Trinity or not should be covered in their doctrinal or beliefs section. Thanks for listening. That is the view from my porch. (Seenitall 15:30, 13 November 2007 (UTC))


[edit] obsolete

We've discussed this a while ago, that the size of INC no longer warrants it as a sect (as sect is a small group of people who spun-off another religion. The source is very old and i've tagged it as obsolete. --wL<speak·check> 03:43, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

WikiLeon, please explain how the INC has changed by size, doctrine or organisation to make this reference Study of the Iglesia Ni Cristo: A Politico-Religious Sect in the Philippines obsolete? Are all sources about the INC that are older than 1968 obsolete? Note that there many newer sources about the INC that speak of a religious sect. Eg [1] [2] Are all sects small? How small is small? Why using two references for the opening line? Why do you prefer an editoral article from university newspaper about the faith of students in general above a scientific work about the INC itself?

The exact term "nontrinitarian Christian church" in google gives 8 hits only. All INC wikipedia related hits. Searching on "iglesia ni cristo" and "religious sect" gives around 470 hits.

What does independent means here. Independent of what?

Quess, did you try to search for references for a politico-religious sect yourself before you undid my edit?

See also Religion, sect, cult or denomination? in the archived talk page.

Coffeemaker 22:32, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Sorry for jumping on your edit like that but you could've just included the link as reference even though it's being tagged as obsolete. I would've had second thoughts on reverting it. --Quess 19:38, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Coffeemaker's Rant

First of all I would like to say that this article uses way too many references. Fifty-one at this moment. Many of these references are of a disputable neutrality. For example the article Iglesia Ni Cristo celebrates 90th anniversary is a complete joke. It has the line: Jesus Christ is the founder and head of the church, hence the name 'Iglesia Ni Cristo'. I think should lower the number of references signifantly.

Second the reference regime on this article that started in 2005 did this article no good. It demotivates and did scared some new promising editors away. I seems I am the only critical one left doing edits like these [3] [4]. I am sure this reference Manual for new members of the Church of Christ would be rejected now because it is an anonymous posting on a forum. I think we should re-consider our reference criteria. This reference Study of the Iglesia Ni Cristo: A Politico-Religious Sect in the Philippines was recently removed for being obsolete (see section above).

Third the references are used like the INC ministers use the Bible. Only using those parts of the article the Pro-INC like while ignoring or even denying the rest. The opening sentence use two! references for this simpel statement: The INC is an independent, nontrinitarian Christian church that originated in the Philippines. The first reference talks about a independent, nontrinitarian religious organization that originated in the Philippines The second reference doesn't even has the term 'christian church'. Even if it did this article also says it has several distinct teachings which place it outside the realm of traditional Evangelical Christianity.

Forth I don't think this article meets the criteria of a good article. It's poorly written and structured and misses vital information about the subject.

Coffeemaker 21:21, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

A common convention at WP is "the more references, the better". Also, references are used to avoid edit-wars, and the article is not a short one. Long ones have a reference count well over 100. It is a WP:GA requirement. I've put this article under GA reassessment becuase of this rant. It would most likely be delisted as GA's standards have changed over time. --wL<speak·check> 13:45, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Is there anybody out there?

So far nobody did refute my aguments against the text "independent, non-trinitarian Christian church". So far I did not see any valid arguments against "Politico-Religious Sect" either. How do we proceed with this article? How can we have a discussion on reference criteria? Coffeemaker 14:30, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

The only gripe I have with it being called a sect is that a sect usually refers to a smaller group of people who defected from a larger religion. Yes, it was true that it was a sect during its first fifty years. But now that it has grown into the millions with many countries served, it has outgrown its "sect" status. INC has grown and is doing their own thing. This is similar to original Christianity, where its no longer called a sect of the Judaism. If INC is a sect, what is it a sect of?--wL<speak·check> 19:38, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
Also, /Archive05#Religion, sect, cult or denomination? contains a detailed discussion back in 2005 of how we decided to refer to the church. It may help from repeating discussions. --wL<speak·check> 19:48, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Concerning the 'incidents' section

I just added to the 'indicents' section that the prosecution's star witness was also an INC member who, even though she had originally been barred from testimony by the presiding judge, notified her locale minister and later spoke to Bro. Eduardo Manalo about the murders. Her conduct was in strict accordance with INC doctrine, and the reference is the SAME Supreme Court document that is referenced for the incident in the first place. The statement that her conduct was in accordance with INC doctrine is NOT referenced by the document; the only assurance of its accuracy is my own as a deacon and longtime defender of the Iglesia ni Cristo.--gcessor 20:39, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

I have just deleted the previous edits to the 'incidents' section and added the "INC defense to the 'incidents' section". All sources are the SAME EXACT sources as used as references for the 'incidents' section. As in my previous edit, the statement that Elena's conduct was in accordance with INC doctrine is NOT referenced by the document; the only assurance of its accuracy is my own as a deacon and longtime defender of the Iglesia ni Cristo.

Moreover, I call into question the impartiality of the reference used for the first 'incident', for it:

- states how three out of four of the protesters were INC members, though it does not state how the police were able to determine that 75% percent of the protesters were INC members when the article itself said there were hundreds of thousands of protesters.

- implies that just because an INC member was at a political rally, that the Administration wanted to support that candidate, and that this assumption was supported by an unidentified INC member. Several of us at my locale here in the U.S. are strong supporters of the Democrats. Some of my brethren in the Church are strong Republicans. Does this mean that if I attend a Democratic, Liberal, or Progressive rally here in the U.S., the Church must then be supporting that political party? No.

The article is riddled with anonymous references - he said, she said - and as such does NOT belong in an encyclopedia. Encyclopediae are to be based on PROVABLE FACT, and NOT on rumor, NOT on what appears to be the personal opinion of the reporter. I recommend the Wiki editors delete the first 'incident' and the INC defense to that 'incident'.--gcessor 21:49, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Welcome back to Wikipedia. Please look at Wikipedia:Footnotes for information about how to make references for the article. It has changed since 2006. I'll reformat it later if someone else does it. Also, you must know that all original research (content of the article based on personal experience and not external sources other than published INC materials is prohibited. By the way, I'm doubting the notability of these incidents. Since most of them are isolated, and not those who were authorized or initiated by the Church Administration, I feel they should be taken out due. I mean members of any religion can fight with members of another, but it's because of their own problems, not those that INC as a whole caused. If Manalo or Some district minister conspired an attack, that's a different story. --wL<speak·check> 21:56, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
Might as well. With the killings (basketball), the chapel compound was apparently used for the torture and killing of the 5 youths [5]. That COULD fall under "some district minister conspired". But it only makes the article look like a tabloid IMO. --Quess 06:48, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
Also, unlike the Roman Catholic church's sex scandal (which is included on that particular article), this is not notable enough. --Quess 06:51, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Isolated incidents?

These are NOT isolated incidents and they surely have notability. I removed them because a numbered list of INC offenses+excuses does not belong in wikipedia. These incidents are notable because they are caused by a “inbred, ghetto view” the Iglesia has. To quote Sanders: "Iglesia has little or no serious interest or concern for the world outside its bounds with respect to righting wrongs, encouraging the administration of justice and raising the lot of the underprivileged.” This should be mentioned in this article explaining these kind of incidents. Coffeemaker 12:53, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Reference for Nontrinitarian Christian church

Can somebody give me the reference for The INC is an independent, nontrinitarian Christian church. I got lost. Thanks Coffeemaker 20:55, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

You mean this one? --Quess 00:07, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
And this one? (registration required) -wL<speak·check> 17:14, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Ok, let's have a serious look at this article by Stephanie Guzowski acting features editor of the Daily Targum a student newspaper of Rutgers University in New Brunswick. An article not about the INC but about religious life at this university in general. This is what it says: Chin, a member of Iglesia Ni Cristo, an independent, nontrinitarian religious organization that originated in the Philippines, has attended the 6:45 a.m. services since she was a first-year student. Magically 'religious organization' suddenly changed into 'Christian church'. Only the vague adjectives independent and nontrinitarian are used. Independent from what? Other christian churches, the pope, goverments, financial support, the rest of the world? Nontrinitarian; Why not use antitrinitarian or restoration or arian? It just doesn't fit! Coffeemaker 18:13, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

I've just come here via WP:COI/N. I think it's a red herring to demand precise verbatim citation for basic descriptions; all that's required is a neutral collation of what reliable sources say.
Apart from clearly hostile sources that will call any non-standard religious movement "a cult" or similar, I don't think there's any significant opinion that the InC is anything other than a church. For instance, the Encyclopedia Britannica calls it "the largest entirely indigenous Christian church in the Philippines", and the Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions calls it "The largest Protestant church in the Philippines". So we can scratch making a minority description of "politico-religious sect" part of the basic definition. (I notice, by the way, that the Oxford Illustrated History of Christianity you cited uses the phraseology churches which have been called only "quasi-Christian" - in context he's clearly referring to other unspecified parties having used that description, not opting for it himself).
As to "nontrinitarian": this was thrashed out as consensus way back - see the archives - as a conveniently neutral description. Again, reliable sources (and even hostile ones) agree that the InC isn't trinitarian: "nontrinitarian" avoids connotations of alternatives (e.g. small-c "unitarian" is confusable with Unitarian with which InC has no affiliation, "antitrinitarian" implies some kind of active opposition rather than a neutral statement of stance, arian refers to a specific historical period and is taken by some as pejorative when referring to modern churches ... and so on). Gordonofcartoon 12:55, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Further to that, the following needs assessment:

The Oxford Illustrated History of Christianity,in the chapter of Southeast Asian Christian religions names the INC as the most important of "quasi-Christian" churches (ref McManners, John (Ed.) (2001). The Oxford Illustrated History of Christianity. p. 503, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001) ISBN 0-19-285439-9) a term used by the religious community to classify groups whose beliefs differ from the organizations belonging to mainstream Christianity.(ref Crampton, Gary W. "A Biblical Theodicy" The Trinity Review] (PDF), ref Robinson, B.A. "Who is a Christian", Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance, March 19, 2000

This looks to me like WP:SYNTH: one cherry-picked reference from the Oxford Illustrated History of Christianity (which as I said above is not shown to be representative) backed up by a sample of two polemical websites which fail WP:RS. Gordonofcartoon 19:33, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Hello Gordon. You may call me paranoia, but I am curious about the reason you logged out between your edits here and why you created a fresh username after a long break. Please understand that I sometimes feel like David here fighting a wikipedia Goliath. The good news is we all know how the story ends in the bible. Now let's face the issues. You called "politico-religious sect" a minority and hostile POV definition. I don't know what is so hostile about this, okay organization sounds betters than sect but even that was reverted. Maybe they are not a minority in terms of membership, money or power they are certainly a minority in terms of religious credibility. Where is there official website? I advice you to do a thorough research on the subject in question. For a user of wikipedia that has never heard of the INC and only reads the first line of the article this is a right and truthfull definition in my opinion. I challenge you to give me examples of doctrines, rites or actions of the INC to make "Christian Church" a better definition. Please read SOCIO-RELIGIOUS DISTANCE BETWEEN CHARISMATICS AND OTHER RELIGIOUS GROUP MEMBERS: A CASE STUDY OF THE PHILIPPINES IN THE 1980S. How come the Charismatic movement in the Philippines feels socio-religious more related with Muslims,Hindus or Jehovah’s Witnesses than with INC members. This article from the Apologetics Index says: Sociologically, Iglesia ni Cristo is a sect of Christianity with cultic elements; Theologically, Iglesia ni Cristo is a cult of Christianity. For every source defining the INC as a christian Church I can give you a multiply of sources saying religious sect, organization or even cult. Did you googled already for "Nontrinitarian Christian church". You gotta lot of nerve my friend to say the reference from the Oxford Illustrated History of Christianity is cherry picked. While I agree with your WP:SYNTH argument, I don't agree with you removing the quasi-Christian remark. I thought NPOV is about showing both sides. Now let us try to make wikipedia better and more credible. Greetings - Coffeemaker 02:03, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

We are not referring to INC as a "Christian Church"; its too broad in that sense, even though Britannica refers to them as such. But, they're a type of Christian religion that is not common in the christianity spectrum, they claim to restore the original church, which makes the restorationist. So I hope it is safe to refer them as such. --wL<speak·check> (updated) 18:51, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
"Restorationist" certainly looks a fair classification. However, I'm not happy with over-riding reliable sources. If Britannica and the ODWR (both reliable sources per Wikipedia standards) call it a church, that can't be ignored. Gordonofcartoon 22:10, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
When I think "church", I think of the building, a religious organization is a group of churches. --wL<speak·check> 23:13, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
You may well, but that's not a generally-held definition. Wikipedia's own Church article is about the definition of an association of people sharing a belief system - eg. "The largest church is the Roman Catholic Church" - as opposed to Church (building). Gordonofcartoon 03:36, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
Hello Gordon. You may call me paranoia, but I am curious about the reason you logged out between your edits here and why you created a fresh username after a long break.
Not terribly relevant, but a) simple mistake, which I corrected by logging in again to sign ; b) I was being hassled by an editor I'd outed for conflict of interest in a completely different topic area.
As to the rest, I'm not interested in what unreliable sources say. The Apologetics Index is not reliable by Wikipedia standards: it's a partisan personal website, and reflects no more than the views of the handful of people that run it [6].
Looking at the references, there are a number of other sites that fail WP:RS since they're clearly hostile partisan sources. Gordonofcartoon 16:57, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
I'm taking a wiki break at this moment. I wish you good luck in your search for non-hostile reliable sources about the INC (whatever that may be). In the meantime may I put your attention to the Use common sense rule. Coffeemaker 12:54, 7 November 2007 (UTC)


[edit] WP:GAR

The nomination for this article has been closed early per WP:SNOW. The discussion, now in archive, can be seen here. Lara❤Love 18:57, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

I see... So what's up here? Can you please start any words here so that we could follow the discussion here for comments. Thanks.--Kimguanson 19:01, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] pronunciation

The pronunciation seems to be neither Tagalog nor English, and I can't confirm it, so I'm taking it out for now. Can someone confirm? kwami (talk) 06:52, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

It's pronounced roughly as "e (with a high e) glay sha nee kris (or krees) toe", or that's how I prounounce it. --wL<speak·check> 09:28, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
In English or Tagalog? If English, I'm guessing it's something like IPA: /iːˈɡleɪʃə niː ˈkriːstoʊ/. kwami (talk) 09:53, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
It's tagalog. --wL<speak·check> 22:46, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
As Tagalog, I take it it would be something like IPA: [ɪˈgleʃɐ ni ˈkxɾisto], or maybe final [ʊ]. Does that look good? (I'm going by the Tagalog phonology article.) kwami (talk) 00:23, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
Looks good for me, add it if you wish. --wL<speak·check> 02:53, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Lead section

Please could someone explain how the lead section fails to comply with Wikipedia guidelines?—Theo (Talk) 18:35, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Usually for an article the size of this, it is commonly agreed that the introduction should be at least two paragraphs, also there's a lot of information that is present in the article that is not summarized in the lead, which is needed to provide an accessible overview. There's also a section about church architecture which should also be somewhere in the body in more detail. --wL<speak·check> 19:58, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
...and the Philippines WikiProject wants a better lead so they can feature the article on their portal page. --wL<speak·check> 09:48, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Reversions

[This edit] made some changes with the edit summary, "Controversies: make it sound less harsh on the church". I've made changes / reversions as follows:

  • Reverted "might have" to "had". The cited supporting source says "had", not "might have".
  • Removed inserted word, "Sopposedly" (sic), which is not found in the cited supporting source.
  • Removed the inserted sentence, "No bodies where found to prove such investigation." The cited court decision says, "Three days later, or on 10 March 1992, the victims’ bodies were found floating on the Pasig River, showing signs of foul play."
  • Removed the inserted words "might of (sic). The cited supporting source, titled "INC members beat up Pentecostal preachers" doesn't say "might of beat up".
  • Removed the inserted sentence, "The police found out that it was a hoax". Not found in the cites supporting source. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 02:35, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] edit the word "founder" from the data base

I strongly disagree that FYManalo founded the Church of Christ. The church claims that FYM is the messenger, Lord Christ is the founder. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.217.94.233 (talk) 06:43, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Apparent copyright violation

The image Iglesia Ni Cristo Central.png appears to be an edited version of a Google Earth image centered at about 14.664539N, 121.064097E, looking westwards and tilted slightly. For a rough view rotated 90 degrees counterclockwise (looking north instead of west) and not tilted, see this. Google's terms of service here include provision that "... You may not modify, rent, lease, loan, sell, distribute or create derivative works based on this Content (either in whole or in part) unless you have been specifically told that you may do so by Google or by the owners of that Content, in a separate agreement." -- Boracay Bill (talk) 05:29, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Hmmmm. This looks like the image was created as a derivative work based on Google Earth content in violation of Google's TOS, then released into the public domain and placed on Wikipedia and on Wikimedia Commons. This might not technically be a violation of copyright, but it sure seems like a violation of some sort. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 05:56, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
Image:Iglesia Ni Cristo Central.png actaully Image:TSora2.jpg, with clearer labels. The original uploader says that he got it through "an areal rendezvous" (whatever that means). I'll take a look at the google earth image and see if the position of the cars match the image. If so, I'll mark it as speedy delete at the commons --wL<speak·check> 00:14, 20 March 2008 (UTC)