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This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Protestant missions to China template. |
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Can someone tweak the code so that these admin controls appear within the box boundary? DFH 19:41, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
Someone please delete this box. Watchman Nee was not a protestant.
Coming back to this again after a long time. This article states that Nee & the Christian Assembly, founded by Watchman Nee, was one of the fastest growing native Protestant movements in China during the early twentieth century This seems to be an instance of being "Protestant" in the sense of being non-Roman Catholic. This article seems to make the case that the Little Flock was more like the other unregistered Protestant groups. Interestingly, the current head of the TSPM grew up in the Little Flock movement. So, aside from Nee's distance from denominations, I think that one of the main reason to not call him "Protestant" is that his movement was "Chinese", not Western. But, the Chinese Government and Western media see him and his movement as "Protestant", possibly for lack of a better word.Brian0324 (talk) 19:09, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
Is Hong Xiuquan really a representative of Chinese Christianity - let alone Protestantism? He believed that he was Jesus' brother. His teachings, however they were inspired, clearly deviated from the Christian Bible so much so that he was disregarded by prominent Christians in China at the time. I don't think that he belongs on the template for missions.Brian0324 13:42, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
There are a couple of major omissions in this article that need to be addressed: one is no mention of James Legge, the British missionary who was also one of the first English translators of Confucius' analects and other classics of Chinese philosophy. There should be a link included to the Wiki article about him, as well as mention that his work was repeatedly censured by other missionaries who thought his work was too favorable towards Chinese "idolatry." Two is no mention of criticism of the missions by postcolonial scholars like Mary Louise Pratt or even Edward Said. This would be a necessary balance to the overall favorable tenor of the content given here. The article reminds me a bit of the textbooks seen in seminaries and religious schools: it leans too much towards the positive and hardly mentions the Chinese perspective of the missionaries' work. For the sake of good scholarship, more should be done to make the Wiki article more comprehensive. (Fengxi (talk) 20:30, 25 November 2007 (UTC))
Regarding the criticism, it is addressed in the Christianity in China article as well as the article Mission (Christian) which is linked to nearly every missionary biography article. If there is a specific article critique of Protestant missions to China, it would certainly fit on the template, but the examples of scholarship that you mention do not refer to China or Protestant missions in a significant way that would warrant it belonging to the navigation tool for this series of articles.Brian0324 (talk) 15:15, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
The nav box should only appear on articles that are listed on the template. Hence the "Part of a series on..." at the top. The ((portal|Christianity)) link should appear on related articles that are not part of the series proper. This is consistent with nav box usage throughout WP - see the current clean up going on with ((christianity)). Best. -- SECisek (talk) 01:26, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
Ooh, a portal! How about a general Christian Foreign Missions portal, include Africa and all of Asia, S. America. If that is to broad, perhaps limit the scope to the 19th + 20th centuries? If we tried to start a work group at the wikiproject Christianity, perhaps we could get more help...you are a one man work group right now as it is! I would love to help with a portal...what do you think about the scope, though? -- SECisek (talk) 17:46, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
I think we are not going to have enough high quality material (in a perfect world, portal articles whould be GA or better) to split it into regional portals - not at first. I also don't agree that we would end up with something that closely resembeled the Christianity portal.
I do like portals and could easily do the code, the question remains the scope. Check out Timeline of Christian missions#1800 to 1849 and Timeline of Christian missions#1850 to 1899 for articles and ideas. Is there a catagory:Global Christian missionary movement of the 1800s or anything like it? I think that would be a good period portal to start with, perhaps in the future we could break it further by region or time. What do you think? -- SECisek (talk) 22:00, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
I hear what you are saying about Video Games and Fantasy Land portals, but keep in mind who edits Wikipedia, I want to share this passgae from a fellow editor who responded to a proposal to split off an Episcopal project from the Anglican project we belong to:
I doubt there are enough 'obsessive' editors to make a ECUSA-specific project work. There are very few Wiki Projects that work very well and most of those seem to involve masses of twelve year olds: see Wikipedia:WikiProject Harry Potter. This is not to disparage the Harry Potter fans. I am involved with the project. Wikipedia has skewed demographics.
“ The average Wikipedian on English Wikipedia is (1) male, (2) technically inclined, (3) formally educated, (4) a native or non-native English-speaker, (5) white, (6) aged 15–49, (7) from a nominally Christian country, (8) from an industrialized nation, (9) from the Northern Hemisphere, and (10) likely to be employed in intellectual rather than practical or physical jobs (see Wikipedia:User survey and Wikipedia:University of Würzburg survey, 2005) ” So pop culture and gamer culture topics attract a lot of effort. Anglicanism attracts some effort. Horticulture and gardening, which I tried to resurrect as a project, attracts no one at all. I suspect ECUSA would be between Anglicanism and Horticulture. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast 04:53, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
I think that is what a Christian Missions of the 19th Century portal/task force would attract, more than Protestant Missions in China and less then Christianity. I'll set up the work group, send you and some other folks an invite and we will see how far we can take it. Look on your talk page in a day or two. I am looking forward to working with you on this. -- SECisek (talk) 23:05, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
This discussion prompted me to create the Portal:Christianity in China. I did not intend it to replace this more focused template regarding the Protestant missions movement, there - but rather to provide a better place to bring this subject together in one place and provide background & structure within Wikipedia. The template is now collapsible and links to the portal as well.Brian0324 (talk) 16:00, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
I've removed the picture, as it looks weird on the pages that transclude this navbox. For example, standard layout for bio pages is an infobox in the top-right, with a picture of that person. When this navbox has the image, every bio page displayed Morrison's picture there...quite unexpected and confusing!
I know he's important (I placed his name in the list of key people, but using his image as the icon for the whole navbox gives undue weight to one particular aspect of the topic, rather than a representative or more general image for the topic as a whole.DMacks (talk) 06:05, 10 August 2008 (UTC)
This template is informative, but very long. On many pages it finishes way past the end of the text (see Carstairs Douglas for an example) and really looks ungainly. It would be better if editors could enable the hide function when appropriate, so that the template would start hidden when the page is first loaded, then be available when readers click "show". Perhaps someone can edit this template to provide such a function (I lack the skills).
If this functionality is already available, can someone please tell me how to do it? Taffy (talk) 09:37, 22 August 2008 (UTC)
I think it would be better if this template were replaced with a more convential navbox, as the original causes formatting problems and looks ungainly. I have prepared an example at User:Taiwantaffy/Protestant missions to China and will be happy to hear any comments. Taffy (talk) 04:29, 24 April 2009 (UTC)