Talk:Christian views on poverty and wealth/Archive 1

Archive 1

Comments on the early draft

Rather robust article. The main problem, I think, is the lead/introduction. It does not seem to establish a reason for the article, if it is going to be an article.

I had thought Catholics had outlawed Liberation theology, but I will take your word for it.

IMO, Properity Theology seems cruel IMO because it seems to measure one's standing with God by physical/material criteria. If one has spina bifida, then God didn't love me/my parents, and I (or my parents) did not act in Holy Ways. And no, I don't have a reference. Emmet Fox was talking this way in the 40s. While dogmatic, he does allow for the fact that not everyone is perfect. "If we were spiritually perfect we could/would...." he seems to say, then often drops back into reality. :)

Interesting. Good luck! Student7 (talk) 18:30, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Richard asked me at my talk to take a look at this, and I too have the reaction that the main body of the article is pretty good, and the main area of weakness is in the lead and introductory sections. I tend to think that the scriptural quotes just after the lead may be criticized as having been selected subjectively; I'd rather see more emphasis on what secondary sources say about how money is treated in the New Testament instead of editor-selected quotes. And that, in turn, points to what I see as an issue with the lead. I don't really see sourcing to secondary sources that are about (or at least titled as being about) Christianity and wealth. Rather, they are sources about things having to do with Christianity more generally, or about wealth and money more generally. It's a good mental exercise to imagine this version of the page going through an AfD—what issues would be raised, and how would they be handled? I'm pretty sure that editors would want to see scholarly/book search results for things like "Christianity + wealth", where both terms occur together in the same source. Otherwise, there could be COATRACK concerns. You need to make clear through secondary sources as cited, that there is an existing topic in which Christianity and these other things have been treated as being, together, a single topic in the view of multiple secondary sources. In the later parts of the draft page, the historical survey reads as encyclopedic and interesting, but the opening parts seem to me to be weak with respect to the coatrack issue. Although I don't think this page is particularly at risk of attracting the kind of concerns that the previous, deleted, pages did, it is still important to be able to address that issue. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:50, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

OK... thanks to both Student7 and Tryptofish for reading the early draft and providing constructive feedback. Here are some responses:

• Catholics didn't outlaw liberation theology per se; they just stepped on the parts that were getting too wrapped up in political action to overthrow regimes and expropriate property (that's probably a gross over-simplification; read the article on Liberation theology for a better exposition).
• Yeh... not everyone is a fan of Prosperity Theology but it's out there and we have to mention it even if we don't personally subscribe to it
• Yeh... the opening part is weak...I am currently working on fleshing out the early sections regarding the Greco-Roman and Jewish attitudes towards poverty and wealth and linking it to the attitudes of the Christians. There's some good stuff in the sources; I just haven't had the time to write it up yet.
• The scriptural quotes are not "editor-selected"; they are from sources but I need to provide surrounding text to locate the quotes in the sources.

I'll be bugging you guys again for additional feedback once I've pushed this article a little bit further down the road.

Thanx again. --!!!!! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pseudo-Richard (talk • contribs) 00:36, 26 April 2011

Glad to help. I've got this, as well as the Judaism-related one (be careful there!) on my watchlist, but I'm not paying attention to them edit-by-edit, because of other demands on my time, so please give me a shout when you are ready for me to pay close attention again. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:57, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Comments on the revised draft

Responding to your message at my talk. Yes, I think the page has been significantly improved with respect to the points that I raised above. I guess I don't see any compelling reason not to go ahead with a move into the main space, although you should certainly be prepared for some pushback when you do, and just react to it cooperatively.

You ask about naming it, instead, in terms of poverty and wealth. Yes, I think that would be the right call, the way the material has evolved.

<digression> Actually, there are a lot of ways one could think about placing this material, in terms of page titles. I can note that we currently have Economics of religion, Wealth and religion, and Religion and business (just observing that, not recommending you do something based on any of it). I suppose that latter issue will be more critical with the possible page about Judaism, especially with respect to whether there should be a stand-alone page, or whether that material should instead be incorporated into existing pages about, among other things, anti-semitism. </digression>

Good luck! --Tryptofish (talk) 23:36, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Civil Rights and human rights

It occurs to me that it would be appropriate to add material about the US civil rights movement and the role of Martin Luther King Jr., et al. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:36, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Ummm.... I think we need to give this some thought and I clearly need some education to fill gaps in my knowledge and understanding. My initial reaction to your suggestion was one of "well, how exactly has MLK influenced Christianity's views towards poverty and wealth"? There is an argument that, as long as MLK was talking about racial equality and civil rights, there was significant support for him amongst white Americans. However, towards the end of his life, he started to turn from civil rights towards economic equality and some argue that this caused some of his support among white Americans to ebb away from him. Of course, we'll never really know how effective this new emphasis would have been since his life was cut short tragically.

Furthermore, I am not really cognizant of how his views on social equality have impacted Christianity over the last 40 years. Maybe this is just ignorance on my part. In the United States, MLK is widely revered as a secular civil rights leader. There is sort of a blurring between his role as a religious leader and his role as a secular civil rights leader. Yes, we call him "the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr." but I think many people downplay his role as a religious leader in order to make him more universally revered among non-Christians.

I did find a source that discusses MLK's assessment of Marx and Soviet-style Communism but I suspect this is not really what you are talking about so I think I have to ask you to point me in the direction of sources that are more directly relevant to what you think we should be discussing. It may be that the source I found does, in fact, discuss the linkage of MLK to economic justice (the title seems to promise that it will do so). Are you familiar with this source?

We might perhaps look to expand the section on social justice to focus on the role of Christian churches (both black and white) in the U.S. civil rights movement. What I'm not sure about is how to link the U.S. civil rights movement with social justice movements in the rest of the world. What is the linkage between MLK and Bishop Desmond Tutu? Between MLK and Liberation Theology? I have the sense that these are all related through the concept of social justice but it's not as if there was a single monolithic movement or a clear evolutionary path from one to the other.

--04:10, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

Here's another source that promises to be even more germane to the topic that you seem to have raised. I think the problem is that the topic is worthy of at least a couple of dedicated articles. I imagine that there could be an article titled Christianity and the American civil rights movement. Of course, an article like that would have to look at both the pro-civil rights and anti-civil rights stances of churches in the U.S. during the civil rights movement. I could also imagine an article titled Christianity and human rights which would look at the more general topic of human rights. Unfortunately, these are not areas that I am very knowledgeable in and so I feel ill-suited to the task of writing those articles. --Pseudo-Richard (talk) 04:26, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

OK... I just read the Introduction to "The Beloved Community: How Faith Shapes Social Justice from the Civil Rights and many of my points above are validated by it. Christianity absolutely played a role in the U.S. civil rights movement but the movement was not exclusively Christian and thus telling the story of Christianity's role in the movement requires some careful and judicious presentation. That is not to say that the story shouldn't be told; just that it will take some work to do it right. --Pseudo-Richard (talk) 04:40, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes, Christianity did influence the Civil rights moves, but what does that have to do with this article? I see it as a valid, yet tangential topic here, while more relevant items like vow of poverty are still missing. History2007 (talk) 00:17, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

I better clarify what I meant (and I'm speaking here unencumbered by any particular expertise in the subject!). I'm pretty sure that a significant theme in the US civil rights movement was about compassion for the economically disadvantaged, for those in poverty. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:50, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

Now that begins to make sense:

• Christianity taught compassion (not to mention guilt feelings)
• Compassion built up sentiment for the poor in the southern US
• Said sentiments helped the Civil Rights Movement.

I think now it is a question of seeing if that argument has been made in WP:RS sources. Then it can get added. History2007 (talk) 19:13, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

Vow of poverty

With my vow of poverty, I do not want any money clincking in my pockets when I come to die. When I bequeath my body - or better, this earth- to the earth, I do not want to be found with even a farthing of my own or anyone else's - Ignatius of Loyola, 1544.

There are a few scattered refs to vow of poverty (now a redirect) but no central discussion of it here. And that article and this one seem to be strangers: time for an intro. I actually think vow of poverty needs to be a separate article. That article refers to Cath encyclopedia which has material not addressed here. I do think that the Franciscans (and other saintly teachings) have been ignored here by and large and it seems that a few mostly modern (20th century) authors seem to be dominating the scene. I think it will be essential to look back a few centuries to monasticism and traditions of poverty to do the topic justice. E.g here, here and here may be beginnings. History2007 (talk) 22:35, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

I agree with you in principle and I will work to insert more about voluntary poverty in this article. I will comment that the sources that you provided are primary sources; that is, they are written by religious figures and instruct believers in the practice of religion. I would prefer to use instead secondary sources that write about the practice of religion and who describe the writings of the religious figures,

I think it would be good to look at the Christianity section in the article on Asceticism.

Another good source on Christian asceticism can be found in [http://books.google.com/books?id=2kQ_AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA347&dq=%22voluntary+poverty%22&hl=en&ei=ib_ATf7yJsPPiAK4gsiPAw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7&ved=0CFAQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q=%22voluntary%20poverty%22&f=false

History of the Christian Church: From the birth of Christ to the reign of Constantine, A.D. 1-311 by Philip Schaff p. 347-352]. On pages 351-352, Schaff discusses Origen's propounding of the Catholic doctrine of works of supererogation which include: martydom, voluntary poverty and celibacy.

--Pseudo-Richard (talk) 03:02, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes, 2ndary sources are always needed. But this is not my topic really, I was just a tourist. However, the poverty by choice issue was worth mentioning. I think there is also an article simple living and one on affluenza that may be relevant. I added link to get the orphan tag off from this one, but there are other things those articles lead to, e.g. Amish. History2007 (talk) 18:30, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

References

Comments

After a quick read I think the passage from Acts of Apostles which describes the "religious communism" of the early Jerusalem community should be directly quoted. Perhaps in another age such a community would have been called before the House Un-American Activities Committee or subject to something like a Waco siege! Also the "extreme poverty" attributed to some monastic orders I think has to be toned down. Individuals have lived such a life but to describe in general the mere lack of ownership of goods as being "extreme poverty" is misleading - they share in the common resources of the community and this doesn't equate to the genuine poverty we see in a hungry world today. Indeed in times gone past it was the relative comfort of monastic orders that may have been an attraction to genuinely poor people, with questionable vocations, who didn't know where their next meal was coming from. Yt95 (talk) 12:36, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes, in the early period the meals in the monastery certainly influenced some people. But in many other cases of religious/monastic vocation that was not the case, with Francis of Assisi himself as an early example, and the trend that continued to the son of Chandon, from the Moët & Chandon label - the ultimate irony I guess. History2007 (talk) 08:37, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

Prosperity Gospel

Shouldn't this article include at least a reference to Prosperity Gospel tenets? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.225.193.142 (talk) 16:47, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

Look at the section titled "Wealth as an outcome of faith". It links to the article on Prosperity theology. However, we might perhaps include more on the topic in this article. Do you have any specific suggestions? --Pseudo-Richard (talk) 17:24, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

Well if you divided the number of followers of "The Properity Gospel" and divided by the number of Christians who ever lived it comes out to around 0.032 per hundred, and found mostly in late 20th, and early 21st century North America. Not a traditional view and not a widely distributed one in time or space - at least as of yet. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.70.200.65 (talk) 19:44, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

More examples for article section "New_Testament"

The Magnificat, Luke 1:46-55

   He hath shewed might in his arm:
   he hath scattered the proud in the conceit of their heart.
   He hath put down the mighty from their seat,
   and hath exalted the humble.
   He hath filled the hungry with good things;
   and the rich he hath sent empty away.

Parable of the Rich Fool, Luke 12:13-21

Parable of the Rich man and Lazarus, Luke 16:19-31

Jesus and the rich young man, Matthew 19:16–30, Mark 10:17–31 & Luke 18:18–30

On Impartiality, James 2:2-7

The Misuse of Riches, James 5:1-5

—Preceding unsigned comment added by72.70.200.65 (talk) 12:36, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks... these are useful. However, it would be preferable to cite secondary sources rather than are primary sources (see WP:PRIMARY for an explanation of this point). --Pseudo-Richard (talk) 06:26, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

In line with your suggestions, and with WP:PRIMARY, I have cited the relevant Wikipedia articles (with all the sources they contain) thus reinforcing my citation of primary sources, with secondary sources. This makes far more sensible than referencing say Sermon on the Mount and then quoting the whole thing rather than just the few verses that are relevant. And the reader can click on the secondary links to verify any matters in question.

I might add that I added 10 new secondary source links to the article section "Gospels", whereas there were none before.

"Unless restricted by another policy, primary sources that have been reliably published may be used in Wikipedia, but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them"

-- WP:PRIMARY. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.70.200.65 (talk) 17:58, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

I wonder if we have different definitions of what "primary" and "secondary" sources are. I didn't see any secondary sources in the text that you edited. All Biblical references are primary sources. Similarly, most religious writings such as Patristic writings are also primary sources. A secondary source would be one that describes and analyzes the points made in a primary source, citing the primary source. For us to cite a secondary source, we would look for the work of a religious scholar who analyzes scripture or other religious writings. Examples of secondary sources would include: "On Wealth and Poverty and Wealth and Poverty in early Christianity. --Pseudo-Richard (talk) 07:16, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

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