Presbyterian Church in the United States of America

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch peer review

This peer review discussion has been closed.

I've listed this article for peer review because I would like for this article to one day reach Featured Article status. While I have nominated good articles before, I have never nominated an article for FA status and would like input on what sort of improvements I would need to make to get this article ready. Basically, I'm looking for any advice on issues with prose, sourcing, article layout, illustrations, coverage (is it detailed enough?) and anything else that might keep this article from moving forward.

Thanks, Ltwin (talk) 18:06, 10 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Charles Edward

I am reviewing the article now and will offer some feedback. I have conducted a few FAC reviews over the years and wrote a few FAs, so I hope you find my comments helpful. (Perhaps you could return the favor at my William Branham peer review. :) No worries though if you can't) —Charles Edward ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 13:01, 6 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Prose: The prose of the body of the article is overall very good. The prose in the lead is mediocre though. I will offer some suggestion for improving the lead here:
  • "The Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (PCUSA) was the first national Presbyterian denomination in the United States, existing from 1789 to 1958. In that year, the PCUSA merged with the United Presbyterian Church of North America, a denomination with roots in the Seceder and Covenanter traditions of Presbyterianism. " - instead: "The Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (PCUSA) was the first national Presbyterian denomination in the United States. Established in 1789, it merged with the United Presbyterian Church of North America in 1958."
  • "The new church was named the United Presbyterian Church in the United States of America. It was a predecessor to the contemporary Presbyterian Church (USA)." - instead: "The merger renamed the denomination the United Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, which was a predecessor to the Presbyterian Church (USA)."
  • "Over time, traditional Calvinism played less of a role in shaping the church's doctrines and practices—it was influenced by Arminianism and revivalism early in the 19th century, liberal theology late in the 19th century, and neo-orthodoxy by the mid-20th century." - suggested: "Over time, traditional Calvinism came to play less of a role in shaping the church's doctrines and practices as it became influenced by Arminianism and revivalism early in the 19th century, liberal theology late in the 19th century, and neo-orthodoxy in the mid-20th century."
  • "Conservatives dissatisfied with liberal trends left to form the Orthodox Presbyterian Church in 1936." - suggested: "As a result of the doctrinal conflict, conservatives dissatisfied with liberal trends left to form the Orthodox Presbyterian Church in 1936.

• Ambiguity
  • "...a denomination with roots in the Seceder and Covenanter traditions of Presbyterianism." - as written it is unclear if this is talking about the PCUSA or the UPCNA or both.
  • "...to the contemporary Presbyterian Church (USA)." - "contemporary" is unclear in this context. As written I would interpret this to mean contemporary with 1958, but I suspect it means contemporary with modern times. This likely needs reworded
  • "Despite the PCUSA's designation as a "Northern church", it was once again a national denomination in its later years." - was it ever not a national denomination? If if at some point it ceased being so, I would include that fact in the lead before saying "it was once again...."
• "The writings of Swiss/French theologian and lawyer John Calvin (1509–64) solidified much of the Reformed thinking that came before him in the form of the sermons and writings of Huldrych Zwingli." - This sentence is unwieldy. Perhaps it should be" "The writings of Swiss/French theologian and lawyer John Calvin (1509–64) solidified much of the Reformed thinking that had began in the teachings of Huldrych Zwingli."
  • "The Synod still had no official confessional statement. The Church of Scotland and the Irish Synod of Ulster already required clergy to subscribe to the Westminster Confession" - it is not clear what the connection between these two sentences are. I assume the Synod had no confessional statement because they adhered to the Westminster Confession, or felt that it was good enough. If there was a way to explain the relation of these sentences that would be useful to the reader. I think perhaps this could be fixed by changed to this: "The Synod still had no official confessional statement because the Church of Scotland and the Irish Synod of Ulster already required clergy to subscribe to the Westminster Confession"
  • The disambiguation statement at the top: "This article is about the historical denomination. For the contemporary denomination, see Presbyterian Church (USA)." - perhaps say modern rather than contemporary. Contemporary is a word that requires context to understand its meaning, there is no context here.

• Citations needed
  • "The Synod still had no official confessional statement."
  • "During the 1730s and 1740s, the Presbyterian Church was divided over the impact of the First Great Awakening."
  • "Like the First Great Awakening, Presbyterian ministers were divided over their assessment of the fruits of the new wave of revivals. Many pointed to "excesses" displayed by some participants as signs that the revivals were theologically compromised, such as groans, laughter, convulsions and "jerks" (see religious ecstasy, Holy laughter and Slain in the Spirit)." (sentences with quotes should have a citation following it per WP:QUOTE
  • "The Synod of Philadelphia and New York had expressed moderate abolitionist sentiments in 1787 when it recommended that all its members "use the most prudent measures consistent with the interests and state of civil society, in the countries where they live, to procure eventually the final abolition of slavery in America""
  • "The Deliverance reasserted the church's belief in biblical inerrancy and required any minister who could not affirm the Bible as "the only infallible rule of faith and practice" to withdraw from the Presbyterian ministry."
  • "Because the Inquiry had been initially supported by the PCUSA, many conservatives were concerned that Re-Thinking Missions represented the views of PCUSA's Board of Foreign Missions. Even after board members affirmed their belief in "Jesus Christ as the only Lord and Saviour", some conservatives remained skeptical, and such fears were reinforced by modernist missionaries, including celebrated author Pearl S. Buck."
• While Darwinian evolution never became an issue for northern Presbyterians as most accommodated themselves to some form of theistic evolution, the new discipline of biblical interpretation known as higher criticism would become highly controversial.
• "Further controversy would erupt over the state of the church's missionary efforts"

• MOS
  • Add WP:ALT to all the images
  • Remove all forced image sized
  • Review MOS:IMAGES, make sure portraits of people are facing the text, not away from the text.
  • There is also a little image sandwiching. Unless the subject is facing right, try to align all images to the right and that should address that issue
  • The membership table is stacking with the image above it. I think taking out forced image sizes will probably fix that too. (You may need to remove a couple images to stop the stacking though)
  • The last instance of Calvinist is wikilinked, rather than the first. Per MOS only the first instance should be linked. (I did not notice any other such occurrences of this type of issue, by would be a good idea to double check)
  • The citations are no consistently using "pp". and "p." - double check all though and make sure everything using only one page as a "p." and multiple pages "pp."
  • "Commonwealth v. Green" - Per MOS:LEGAL legal case titles should be in italics

• Other suggestions
  • Perhaps add link to Christianity portal
  • The article relies heavily on Longfield for sourcing (Seems about 85% of the article is source from Longfield), it would be beneficial if another source could be used to review the same facts to make sure there is a consensus among historians on the facts of the article. Sometimes when you rely on just one source, you end up with an unintentional bias by only presenting one historians viewpoint. This is just a suggestion for improvement.
  • In the membership table where the membership is broken out by new and old school, I would suggest combining those numbers in the table, and then footnoting their breakdown.
  • I would expect there to be more details concerning the final merger of the church with the UPCNA. There is not really any background given. Why did they want to merge?
  • Were there any prominent members of this denomination? Presidents? Senators? Celebrities? Looks like maybe Eisenhower was. That is notable and worthy of inclusion.
  • Was the General Assembly always held in Philadelphia? Was it held other places? That would be an interesting fact to know.

• Positive notes
  • Great usage of sub pages and see alsos
  • Excellent sourcing, I did a limited fact check and found no issues
  • Overall MOS requirements are well met

Summary I think the primary impediment to featured article status is probably the heavy reliance on Longfield. Adding another substantial source to the article would help take care of that issue and meet the "well researched" criteria. Overall the article is informative and well wrote, the generally adheres to the MOS. Cheers and great work! —Charles Edward ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 15:26, 6 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]