Changes

==writing in first person==

:It's quite true that I do write opinions often. I try to make it clear that it is an opinion - which is why I write my name next to the article - so that a user can skip stuff I write if they don't want to read opinions, or so they can click on my name and read my background and understand my biases. You're also right in saying that using the first person doesn't always come off as scholarly. But when discussing Christianity, does it always have to be scholarly? Can experience or a testimony or even just a gut feeling be as worthwhile?

:I guess I disagree with you on one point. You say that this is an Encyclopedia. My hope is that this is not only an encyclopedia - if it were only an encyclopedia then why not just write in Wikipedia? I hope this is a place where people can write their views and opinions including their understanding of history. The way I am going to write about about the Reformation is probably going to be quite different than the way a Roman Catholic would write about the Reformation, or again different from the way an atheist would write about it. Although there are historical facts involved, I think there will usually be a slant in one direction or another. I think it is best to allow multiple articles on the history of the reformation (or any other topic). Perhaps there should be the main article that is dry and factual only, but I think it is fine also for there to be lots of other articles which tend to have a slant in one way or another. Sometimes that will be "preachy" but hopefully at least it will be open for dialogue, discussion and rebuttal. I also don't think making this a purely factual Encyclopedia is likely to help brng people to Christ. Maybe I'm wrong - I'd be interested to know if anyone has been significantly drawn to Jesus by looking up information about Christianity on wikipedia.

::Hi Graham, I worry that I may have overstated the problem in my first post. In the vast majority of your articles I don't see anything to worry about. But take, for instance, in the conclusion section of [[Church History (G.G.)]]. The rest of the article is mostly factual, but the conclusion is definitely composed mostly of opinion. It's an opinion I share completely, so I'm not objecting to the content of it, but it seems to me that the best place for that section would be in a separate article discussing your opinion on the unity of the Church, etc. And though it does not sound particularly preachy to me, I can almost guarantee you that some of my atheist/agnostic friends would read it as trying to "explain away" the "fact" that Christianity just "can't figure itself out," or something to that effect. Would minor reorganizations like this actually convert them? Probably not, but it would remove that small objection they may have.

==vandalism==