Talk:Restoration branches

Thanks

Thank you, Nerd42, for writing this article! Oh, how I wish the Spanish Wikipedia could begin to approach this level of LDS completion! Tom Haws 17:51, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Number 7 on Google for "Restoration Branches" - OH YEAH!! --Nerd42 (talk) 23:11, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

oops, that was the wrong search link - here is the actual one, on which this article is now result 6 and this talk page is 7 LOL. --Nerd42 05:06, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Help wanted

I've started a Restoration Branches-specific wiki called "RLDSWiki" to document the view of the Restoration Branches in detail. I could use help with this project from anyone who wants to help regardless of whether they're a church member or not. I have no idea whether the idea will work or not but I do know one thing: it depends on whether I can get people in the church to see the great potential the wiki idea has and to actually participate. --BenMcLean 19:20, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

• Update: It's become a Wikia WikiCity! --BenMcLean 19:20, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Wiki software error

The only edits made by me at 20:05 UTC, 8 June 2006 were to the first paragraph. Others listed there were done by another editor, either due to an edit conflict or a database error. --Blainster 21:35, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Clean-up

This article has grammatical and punctuation errors that need to be addressed. There is also a need for citations to support claims. --Kmsiever 18:53, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Which claims? --Nerd42 (talk) 15:20, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

For example: "Many members of Restoration Branches believe they have been disenfranchised in church government by the Community of Christ". How was it determined that it was many members, and what constitutes "many"? There are other such statements using similar adjectives, such as some and most. These are also referred to as weasel words and should be avoided. --Kmsiever 16:34, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Hmm ... I see your point. At the same time, there are many different opinions out there, and who precisely is in the movement and out of it often depends on who you ask. Even many of the strongest doctrines have a few detractors. Saying "many" and "most" was an attempt to maintain NPOV.

There are two major organizations that sort of guide the whole movement above the branch level right now. The Conference of Restoration Elders and the Joint Conference of Restoration Branches. There are branches that support one of them but not the other, both of them and neither of them. Both of them have voting members in them from branches that do not support the group. Both of them exist in order to represent the movement, if not the RLDS church in general. I personally am leaning towards the Branch conference, since any member (not just Elders) can vote there, but I have tried to remain neutral when writing for Wikipedia. It is a very complicated political situation.

I could cite legislation passed by the Joint Conference of Restoration Branches as a demonstration of what members of the movement believe, but since there are no solid numbers of how many people are actually in the movement, it is hard to say whether the Branch conference represents a majority or not. I can't cite legislation passed by the Elders Conference, much as I would like to, because it is not published, and permanent records of CRE legislation are not kept. It's really rather a puzzle how to go about proving things, apart from going around asking people. --Nerd42 (talk) 16:21, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Which is precisely why we try to avoid such phrasing. If a claim cannot be supported/verified, it needs to be removed or rephrased. --Kmsiever 17:04, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

yeah my basic question there is what qualifies as support? --Nerd42 (talk) 16:58, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Some sort of publication. Even a newspaper article would suffice. Wikipedia is not a source of original research, so any claims should be supported by research from other sources. Especially ones using weasel words or are assumingly POV. --Kmsiever 17:09, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Same problem there: there is no official publication for the movment, but there are countless newsletters. To be honest, none of them can be trusted either for accuracy or to not be blatantly or covertly POV whenever they are dealing with current events of any substance. And each publication represents even less of a consensus than a vote by one of the conferences, since publications, by their very nature, are controlled by a small number of people who simply write what they think. --Nerd42 (talk) 17:45, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

It doesn't have to a publication from the churches. It can be from anyone who's done original research. --Kmsiever 18:04, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Wait a second, I thought your objection was against original research. What is the difference between original research by a Wikipedia editor (which you seem to be objecting to) and original research done by anybody else? --Nerd42 (talk) 18:47, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

He means published original research. Wikipedia editors should only be citing material published in professional journals, books, newspapers, etc. or in this case, published records of the denomination in question would be appropriate. If there are no published records, or no newsletter that everyone agrees is representative, that would be a problem for Wikipedia, and I would think for the group as well. Perhaps we should just say that there is no consensus on beliefs right now, except of course with regard to the general agreement about RLDS beliefs. --Blainster 03:00, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Alot of this stuff is common knowledge, at least for people accquainted with the RLDS. Would recorded sermons count as legitimate sources? --BenMcLean 16:14, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

recent pov edits

This is an edit to a previous remark I made here... I changed the Theology designation in the sidebar to Trinitarianism instead of Nontrinitarianism. This is a topic of great debate within the Restoration Branches. Officially, the Restoration Branches do not believe in the Holy Trinity, and therefore should be considered "Nontrinitarian". However, my POV (as well as that of many others in the Restoration Branches) is that the Nontrinitarian designation is practically erroneous, albeit technically correct.

Trinitarianism is the belief in the Holy Trinity. The Holy Trinity is defined by the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed, which essentially says that the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are three equal persons who all receive equal worship. This is contrary to the official belief of the Restoration Branches, which is that (1) The Holy Spirit is not a personage (difference between "person" and "personage" is up for debate); and (2) Technically speaking, we worship the Father in the name of the Son, being filled with the Holy Ghost-- which is different than equally worshiping all three persons equally. For these reasons, it is technically accurate to say that the Restoration Branches are Nontrinitarian.

However, it is unreasonable to expect that, without further study, the vast majority of Wikipedia users will actually understand the difference between the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Holy Trinity and the Restoration Branches' belief. The vast majority of society also recognizes the "Holy Trinity" as simply "the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost"-- without the technicalities of the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed. For this reason, in the interest of most accurately representing the official belief of the Restoration Branches, it is my POV that the Trinitarianism designation is the most appropriate. This accurately represents the Restoration Branches beliefs to the average viewer; those who wish to credibly understand the details ought to do deeper research than the Wikipedia sidebar anyway.

"But what about Modalism and other such beliefs?" There are those in the Restoration Branches who believe in true forms of Nontrinitarianism-- Modalism is one of the most prevalent of such beliefs. However, those are individuals' opinions and not the official beliefs of the original RLDS Church / Restoration Branches. 138re9g81w6e8 (talk) 02:36, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

---

Someone has recently been editing the article to make it say that the Restoration Branches are the original RLDS church. While I may personally agree with the sentiment behind that, to make statements like that in a wikipedia article is against the NPOV policy. --BenMcLean (talk) 21:52, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

References

"prophet"

This article says no known restoration branch recognizes a functioning prophet. This needs to be explained whether it means none will accept any new prophecy or if it's only about the prophetic office. --75.19.152.114 (talk) 20:53, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

It's about the prophetic office. I will change that. --BenMcLean (talk) 17:49, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

liberal theology

I think this is one occasion where it is appropriate to link to a disambiguation page because from the Restoration Branches perspective, it is an open question whether the new theology of "Community of Christ" is really a form of "Christianity" or not, particularly since some expressions of it occasionally incorporate elements from other religions including eastern ideologies. --BenMcLean (talk) 17:24, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

"laying on of hands ... analogous to confirmation"

Why is the laying on of hands analogous to confirmation? In churches that have confirmation, anointing with oil is usual; the laying on of hands is used for ordination. --Richardson mcphillips (talk) 04:41, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Confirmation is within the category of laying on of hands for Restorationists, but is not the entire category. "Confirmation" would here mean Baptism with the Holy Spirit. --BenMcLean (talk) 14:42, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

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