Talk:Christian terrorism/Archive 14

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Trivial claim

[2] Bryonmorrigan's analysis of that change was correct, you have a reliable citation for that and other user had reverted other change in good faith, not that he brought something new. Bladesmulti (talk) 14:54, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

Indeed. Collect is proving that I was correct about his motives, as he just attempted to delete sourced material, from a peer-reviewed article (printed as a collection of such in a book), that specifically uses the terms "religious terrorism" and "Christian terrorism" in regards to the issues. I'm sure he'll say now that, because it's written by Indians, it's not "reputable", or some other nonsense. --Bryon Morrigan -- Talk 14:56, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

And nemo me impune lacessit - you appear to be evincing a strong battleground attitude with your iterated claims about me. And your implication that I am biased against "Indians" is harmful to Wikipedia. Cheers. Collect (talk) 15:12, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

You're doing EXACTLY what I predicted you would. You're chipping away at the article, because you want this article to go away. You created the "battleground" by your constant deletions and reversions of reputably sourced material on this page, which is based on nothing but 100% POV. The purpose of Wikipedia is not to protect Christianity from criticism. I suggest you go to "Conservapedia" if you want to force your positions on people with impunity. --Bryon Morrigan -- Talk 15:21, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

Collect is not biased, he is one of the well informed user I have seen here, same with Brynomorrigan. Maybe he didn't knew that the change was not new. Bladesmulti (talk) 15:29, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

"The purpose of Wikipedia is not to protect Christianity from criticism." Exactly. But that refers to criticism reported in reliable sources, not our personal criticisms. By all means present material that claims the Christian religion is the cause of conflict in Northern Ireland, NE India and elsewhere. Then at least we can present opposing views. But adding a list of terrorist attacks by people who happen to be Christian makes an implicit claim that Christianity is the cause, which is tendentious. TFD (talk) 15:43, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

No. Do not present material that claims the Christian religion is the cause of conflict in Northern Ireland, because it isn't. And isn't this article about "Christian terrorism" anyway, not just "the cause of conflict"?Yes, you can find sources that claim the NI conflict was religious, and even one or two claiming it was Christian terrorism, and you can report on them - as long as for balance and NPOV you point out that these views are in a tiny minority, verging on WP:FRINGE, that isn't reflected in the vast majority of sources. Likewise, you can find sources that point out that one or two actors in a conflict are or were motivated by their own religious beliefs - but that doesn't make an event or a conflict as a whole a religious conflict, let alone religious terrorism.

Bryon, you're right, I know next to nothing about intra-Indian conflict. Unfortunately, the extreme POV that was present in the Northern Ireland section (which basically and simplistically listed off any vague source implying "Christian terrorism" as justification for inclusion) made me wonder about the accuracy of the rest of the article. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 17:37, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

Manipur section

I have removed this for now since the only source given [3] is essentially an editorial from a (presumably opposition) politician passing on a lot of what has to be called hearsay. I'm also confused because it is unclear that there is anything religious about the supposed Kuki ethnic cleansing given that the Kuki are, according to our article them at least, also Christians. Just for some frosting on the cake, a good chunk of what we had in the article was copied word-for-word from the source. Mangoe (talk) 19:26, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

Norway

The section says Brevik described himself as "not very religious". The ref says he's an athiest. Capitalismojo (talk) 03:00, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

The article on him states that his manifesto claims that ABB considers himself:

"100 percent Christian", but he is not "excessively religious" and considers himself a "cultural Christian" and a "modern-day crusader".

That said, I personally considers him a political loony, not a religious one. WegianWarrior (talk) 06:09, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

You don't understand. The fact that there's a single source in existence claiming that Breivik (or the IRA, or the UVF, or whoever) are "Christian terrorists" means it'll be used to justify the narrative that's being driven on this article. "Look, this is a valid source backing up my point of view!" As very few academics or commentators set out with a premise of declaring a negative (they tend to say "this person or event was x", and not "this person or event wasn't y"), it's then hard to state "but all of these other sources don't, so that one guy is a fringe minority." Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 11:40, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

He talks about "Christian atheist". Absurdity. Capitalismojo (talk) 23:50, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

The ref above says "Anders Breivik Manifesto: Shooter/Bomber Downplayed Religion, Secular Influence Key." I think that alone is enough to require his removal from this list. Capitalismojo (talk) 23:52, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

It would be constructive to say that a minority of experts consider him and similar people as CTs, while explaining that most experts do not accept that analysis. Just saying he was a CT and explaining his crimes is POV.

The fact is that there are very few CTs and very little literature about specific groups. The Maronite Monks are one of the few examples I could find, although they are not mentioned in the article. I imagine that is because the POV of the article is that all terrorism carried out by Maronite Christians was religiously motivated, hence the actions of a small group of 200 members is insignificant.

I suggest we remove all sections that claim certain groups were CTs when reliable sources generally do not group them as such.

TFD (talk) 02:48, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

I agree with TFD. Capitalismojo (talk) 04:11, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

Also agree (and I'd also include individuals). However, the proposal is likely to run into opposition. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 12:50, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

Dubious

The article which quotes John Joseph [4] is being completely misrepresented in the text we have now. Joseph is saying that the level of violence is being overstated. I don't see how he can be used as an authority for the statements given. I also point out that this article is almost fifteen years old and is therefore rather dated. Mangoe (talk) 19:47, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

I've removed it; the vast majority of the reference talks about violence against Christians; the small section that talks about intra-Christian violence does not call it terrorism. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 13:03, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

"Old Testament" mention inaccurate

The last sentence of the lede paragraph was

As with other forms of religious terrorism, they have cited interpretations of the tenets of faith – in this case interpretations of the Old Testament, as their inspiration to justify violence and killing.[1]

"Interpretations of the Old Testament" hardly applies to the argument used by, say, those who bomb abortion clinics on the grounds that "abortion is murder". Of course the O.T. forbids murder, but so do the law of the land and common morality.

The phrase "in this case", where no specific case is in being discussed, strongly suggests that this sentence was taken from a discussion of a particular case; it has no applicability here. So I've taken out

– in this case interpretations of the Old Testament,

And I've changed "the tenets of faith" to "tenets of their faith".

1. Not "of faith": it's specifically the faith of the terrorists, not of all Christians, let alone of all the world's faithful!
2. Not "the tenets": presumably the terrorists' faith includes more tenets than the one(s) they use to justify their deeds.

To discuss this, please {{Ping}} me. --Thnidu (talk) 22:22, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

I agree with your change but for different reasons. Christian terrorists can find inspiration in other sources than the Old Testatment - God may have spoken to them personally for example. But saying that they cannot have found inspiration in a text because they have misinterpreted it is certainly not how sources define religious terrorism. TFD (talk) 04:41, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

• Comment: The teachings of Christ are located in the four Gospels, which are located in the New Testament. Anybody preaching fire and brimstone out of the Old Testament could claim to be a Christian, but that would be bollocks. Pax 22:10, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

New to the party

Upon my first reading of the article I came away more confused on the topic than enlightened, I'm pretty sure I'm missing something so obvious that I don't see it at all. The definition is very unclear to me. Can someone answer with a simple yes or no to the following questions, and of course, above all else, assume good faith on my part.

Let us say someone commits an act of terrorism. Are they a Christian terrorist if:

• they say they are?
• they do/did what they do in the name of Jesus Christ?
• someone else says they are?
• their church 'tells' them to commit the terrorist act?
• they are mentally ill and say God told them to commit the terrorist act?
• their church does not tell them to commit the act of terrorism but they go against their church's teaching, anyway?
• they act alone?
• call themselves a Christian, but never made a profession of faith (that anyone can find) in Jesus Christ?
• they claim to have simultaneous beliefs in other deities such as Allah or Vishnu?

Thank you ahead of time for taking my questions seriously and helping me be able to re-read the article with a possibly different perspective. With The Best of Regards,   Bfpage |leave a message  23:19, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

Why are you asking editors' opinions on whether or not someone is a Christian terrorist? We go by what reliable sources say. Really, the same question could be asked of a Muslim terrorist, Jewish terrorist, Hindu terrorist, etc. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 23:27, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

NeilN thank you very much for the quick response and the time it took for you to answer my questions. Yes, I do have the same questions concerning the definitions (not necessarily opinions of other editors, really) concerning how all terrorists and their affiliations are defined. Does this mean, then, that if a primary source, written by the person labelled a terrorist in which he/she declares states that he or she is a 'x-terrorist' but the Wall Street Journal calls them an 'activist', we go with the Wall Street Journal's definition?

  Bfpage |leave a message  11:32, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

We would look at more sources. If a person professed to have Christian motivations for their act, and sources explored/explained their motivations as Christian and said it was terrorism, then yes, we should classify that as Christian terrorism. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 12:29, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

Your explanation seems quite reasonable. I can also see how your explanation would cover terrorism by other sects also, that the person committing the terrorist act would have to have 'x-motivations'for their act. If an act of terrorism is classified by motivation, I am then thinking that this 'motivation' has to be referenced in someway from a reliable source. A reliable source that describes the motivation of someone almost always makes me uncomfortable (only my problem) because sometimes it seems like speculation. I don't see anyway around it, though.

  Bfpage |leave a message  13:38, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

The article is a bit garbled. Acts of terrorism are classified by their motivation, in this case religious. Since individual motivation can be complex, rarely would a lone wolf terrorist (who typically is psychopatholigal) be classified as a religious terrorist. And, as with other crimes, we rely on reliable third parties to determine their motivation, not the offenders themselves. TFD (talk) 01:25, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

Bfpage, my answer to your question would be a simple "no" in every case except the third, which I would heavily qualify. They would be a Christian terrorist if, and only if, an acknowledged authority on that person's organisation, or the conflict in which they were involved, said clearly and unambiguously that they were a Christian terrorist (as opposed to saying, for instance, that the conflict was primarily a religious conflict). If an acknowledged authority on terrorism in general said clearly and unambiguously that they were a Christian terrorist, then you could say that "X calls them a Christian terrorist", but no more.

I hope when you've read the responses to your question you will give us your own view.

TFD, if a lone wolf (who typically is a psychopath) is "rarely" classified as a religious terrorist, what makes Anders Breivik exceptional, that he is still in this article? Scolaire (talk) 11:14, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

The Four Deuces, I am quite flattered that you would ask for my own view since even still, I have only read through the article once and if I were all of you (those who have put much time, energy, thought, research into this topic) I wouldn't put much stock in my opinion. Today I am going to read through it again and not comment. I will do a third reading on another day and then at that point I might have enough nerve to formulate an opinion even worth mentioning among those who have been so much more involved in this topic. I probably will be able then, after the third reading, be able to provide a 'new set of eyes' to possibly help with some of controversy that may be part of the topic. My goal is to cooperate to make an article that informs and defines so that when someone, like I did, reads through the article will be defined, clear, concise. It can't be easy to work through such controversy and I really just want to help.

  Bfpage |leave a message  13:53, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

It was not The Four Deuces but me, Scolaire, who asked you for your own view. And yes, I think a "new set of eyes" would be very welcome right now. Scolaire (talk) 16:22, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

Breivik is not exceptional. The most we should say is that one expert has called him a Christian terrorist. I think too that experts are more likely to talk about religious terrorism than religious terrorists - terrorism is an action not an ideology. There is extensive discussion of definitions and sources at the stalled Wikipedia:Requests for mediation/Christian terrorism. TFD (talk) 16:34, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

Some might say excessive discussion. Three and a half months, and still no agreement there on what the definition of Christian terrorism is. Regarding Breivik, there's only the one source (one is a dead link). Mark Juergensmeyer has an agenda - which is absolutely fine - but it does probably mean he's more likely to call things religious terrorism than others. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 16:43, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

If he's not exceptional, he doesn't merit a separate section. I've zapped it. Scolaire (talk) 17:05, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

Unzapped. We're taking editors' opinions now on who is exceptional and that a lone wolf is rarely classified as a religious terrorist? --NeilN ^{talk to me} 17:15, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

See for example Audrey Kurth Cronin (former Specialist in Terrorism at the Congressional Research Service): "There are four types of terrorist organizations currently operating around the world, categorized mainly by their source of motivation: left-wing terrorists, right-wing terrorists, ethnonationalist/separatist terrorists, and religious or "sacred" terrorists...." Most of the literature uses the classifications for groups, not individuals. Anyway to save you reading through pages of previous discussions, I will summarize the problem with the section.

Beginning the section by listing Breivik's crimes implies that he is a Christian terrorist, which, since there is no consensus he was, is tendentious. The neutral approach would be to explain why some writers think he was a Christian terrorist and why others disagree, and explain the degree of acceptance the two views have. Even better would be instead of repeating similar arguments across a range of alleged Christian terrorists, to have a single section that explains why Juergensmeyer and others consider people such as Breivik and organizations such as the IRA to be Christian terrorists and why most scholars disagree.

If you agree with Juergensmeyer, then the best approach is to ensure that his views are presented correctly. Using this article to attribute Breivik's actions to Christianity is not going to persuade readers, it is more likely to irritate them. Better to present the arguments and hope that some readers will be persuaded by your preferred ones.

Here is a link to the disputed section. Notice that it says Brievik said he was a "Christian crusader" and also that he was not very religious. But why mention that unless you are going to provide expert opinion on how to interpret it? Probably best to delete for now.

TFD (talk) 02:39, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

"Myself and many more like me do not necessarily have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and God. We do however believe in Christianity as a cultural, social, identity and moral platform. This makes us Christian...You don’t need to have a personal relationship with God or Jesus to fight for our Christian cultural heritage." You can violently fight for a cause if you believe the alternative is worse. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 02:45, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

What TFD says still goes: it's no use just quoting the man's rant unless you can provide expert opinion on how to interpret it. See WP:PRIMARY. --Scolaire (talk) 08:51, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

Hmmm. You were pretty quick to remove the section based on an unsourced assertion of an editor. And why are you ignoring Mark Juergensmeyer's view? --NeilN ^{talk to me} 13:35, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

Because "Juergensmeyer's testing of his theory is plagued, however, by conceptual stretching that calls into question his findings. First, his case studies span Aum Shinrikyo, Al-Qaeda, Babar Kalsa and the Irish Republican Army (IRA)....the last two might be only nominally religious, drawing into question whether their actions can be ascribed to 'cosmic warfare.' Certainly those of the IRA cannot." ('Alex P. Schmid,The Routledge Handbook of Terrorism Research , pp. 132-133)[5] IOW he includes groups under religious terrorism that most writers categorize differently. TFD (talk) 16:59, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

Which again highlights one of the main problems with the page - there'll always be somebody to say "X was a Christian/Islamist/Buddhist/the other side/ terrorist incident", whether that's a tabloid, or an "expert" such as Juergensmeyer, who seems to see religious terrorism everywhere. It is, in fact, the main topic of his recent books... Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 22:24, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

It is not that bad. Obviously experts will disagree, then we need to determine if their views are consensus, majority, minority or fringe. We do that by consulting standard texts such as The Routledge Handbook of Terrorism Research. TFD (talk) 05:46, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

The terminology Christian Terrorism is vague and very misleading.

Hi I edited the part where it generalized Christians as bombers, and put instead radicals and cults who refer to themselves as Christians. Reason behind that is Christian theology and it's core teachings denounce killing and violence of this sort of nature. To label this as Christian Terrorism misrepresents Christians and Christianity as a whole. Since wikipedia is used as a reliable source of information, a reference of this topic can be abused in an appropriate way just by its very name as an arguement that Christians bomb and kill when many would argue saying you cannot be a Christian if you support terrorism. The only true way to cite refrences is to quote the bible. Being that the bible is indeed the very source of Christian faith, it would be a very unreliable source for those that aren't religious. I think a more appropriate title would be Radical or Cult Terrorism. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.189.175.96 (talk) 03:18, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

You are aware that every mainstream religion says they denounce terrorism, right? --NeilN ^{talk to me} 03:23, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

While it may be that terrorism is contrary to Christianity, Islam and other religions, experts still call it religious terrorism. TFD (talk) 05:50, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

Half of the events mentioned in the article can hardly be classified as terrorism. --Yerevani Axjik (talk) 23:00, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

If an event doesn't have sourcing that clearly and unambiguously calls it an act of Christian terrorism, please remove it. It is not enough to synthesise that an act is described as a terrorist attack, and it was carried out by a nominally Christian group, therefore it should be included here. The same, obviously, should apply to List of Islamist terrorist attacks and other similar articles. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 09:50, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

Bastun, did you mean to say "it is not enough to synthesise"? Scolaire (talk) 15:40, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

I did indeed, thanks. Fixed now. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 17:42, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

Proposal to stubify

All credit to Bastun for removing some of the more egregious sections recently. However, nearly all the sections are essentially descriptions of a smorgasbord of violent incidents with "so-and-so said this was religious" added. The Northern Ireland and Anders Breivik sections are two examples of this that I can see are rubbish without having to read up on the situations described, but even from reading what's in the article I can see that Odisha, Sabra and Shatila, and Uganda are equally bad. The mediation, currently suspended for good reasons, had not in February even come up with a working definition of "Christian terrorism" after three and a half months. I therefore propose that all of the three sections, "Global ideologies", "Historical" and "Contemporary", be removed until it can be established – either on this talk page or at mediation – what this article is actually about. If there is an immediate and clear consensus that any specific situation - the bombing of abortion clinics, for instance - falls under the scope of the article, then in can be added back in an appropriate way. Scolaire (talk) 14:37, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

Oppose. The article could be expanded, not stubbed by removing sourced material. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 23:23, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

Expanded how, when we don't even have a working definition of "Christian terrorism"? The material in those sections may be sourced, but they are SYNTH, and in several instances show the opposite of what they purport to show. The Germanwings Flight 9525 says that there is no evidence the co-pilot's actions had been motivated by a religious background, so by current criteria this is an ideal candidate for inclusion (cf. Northern Ireland paramilitaries). --Scolaire (talk) 10:53, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

Straight from Islamic terrorism: "Christian terrorism is, by definition, terrorist acts committed by groups or individuals who profess Christian motivations or goals." --NeilN ^{talk to me} 12:23, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

By whose definition? If mediation can't produce one after three and a half months, how did one drop into your lap? I haven't looked at "Islamic terrorism" and I have no comment to make about it, except to say that you can't just import a sentence from it and change a word. Scolaire (talk) 16:30, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

Support: I wholeheartedly agree, and propose that we listify the article: essentially treat it like a better-sourced List of Islamic terrorist attacks (which should hopefully be moved shortly to the less PoV List of Islamist terrorist attacks) - with the provisos that we use the definition listed by NeilN above (how it takes 3 months to discuss a definition without reaching agreement, I don't know), and also Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Stand-alone_lists#Selection_criteria, using #1 of the common selection criteria, namely: Every entry meets the notability criteria for its own non-redirect article in the English Wikipedia. Red-linked entries are acceptable if the entry is verifiably a member of the listed group, and it is reasonable to expect an article could be forthcoming in the future. This standard prevents Wikipedia from becoming an indiscriminate list, and prevents individual lists from being too large to be useful to readers. Many of the best lists on Wikipedia reflect this type of editorial judgment.

What this would mean:

• Removing the "Global ideologies", "Historical" and "Contemporary" sections as proposed by Scolaire.
• Changing the intro to essentially listing the definition as proposed by NeilN.
• Editing the article to include an itemised list of terrorist attacks where a WP:RS describes each attack as a "Christian terrorist" attack, and where there is already an article (or likely to be an article) on that attack.
• Moving the article to List of Christian fundamentalist terrorist attacks (or similar title, and obviously this would require a WP:RM).
• Expanding the 'See also' section with some of the links that are under section headings at present and aren't repeated in the existing 'See also'.

Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 15:23, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

• Disagree, I'm afraid. There's nothing wrong with creating a separate "List of terrorist attacks", but there are good grounds for keeping an article, per se, because it is a topic that passes GNG. When the mediation finally concludes, there will be consensus among the involved editors as to the appropriate scope and format of such an article. Pending this agreement, the article should simply say, "Christian terrorism comprises terrorist acts by groups or individuals who are motivated by Christian scripture or theology,^{[Best available source]} or within a more basic context of sectarian violence and/or prejudices such as religious intolerance.^{[Best available source]} The foremost writers on the subject are X, Y and Z." The completion of the mediation is going to result in a wholesale re-writing of the article anyway. There's just no reason to keep content that has been described by several editors as COATRACK, SYNTH, POV etc. Scolaire (talk) 17:00, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

• Support It is far easier to write a neutral article from a blank slate than to transform a biased article into a neutral one. A neutral article would provide a definition, history and information about groups where there is consensus that they are Christian terrorists, as well as a description of the dispute raised by Juergensmeyer and a few others that for example the motivation of Northern Ireland terrorism is religious, rather than disagreement about whether Northern Ireland should be part of Ireland or the United Kingdom. TFD (talk) 21:43, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

RfC

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Policy-based arguments are solidly against inclusion of this text; to claim this as religious in nature is credibly argued to be an impermissible synthesis. Guy (Help!) 07:28, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

---

Does the bolded material belong in the article on Christian terrorism

Nagaland is a Christian majority state in India. Many terrorist incidents have been documented there as a result of an insurgency against the government. This insurgency was originally led by the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN), who has indulged in terrorist activities varying from kidnapping, illegal drug trafficking, extortion, etc. The group has committed religious violence, as a part of NSCN's described mission of forcibly converting the animist Naga to Christianity, which has been described by B. B. Kumar as Christian terrorism. Other goals include the formation of a greater Nagaland. There are occasional reports of the NSCN using force to convert locals of neighboring states to Christianity. 15:43, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

discussion

On its face, the added material gives no basis for asserting it is Christian terrorism. In fact the first part provides no statement of what the "violence" was in any respect to advancing Christianity. And it is reasonable to assume that a "socialist council" is actually "socialist" in nature, rather than being specifically Christian in nature at all (most Christian groups are mainly Christian in membership, and use the word "Christian" somewhere in there name). The publisher (ISHA Books) has been discussed in the past at Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_70#Circular_references:_Gyan_Publishing_and_ISHA_Books where it was deemed unreliable as it has published recycled Wikipedia articles in the past. WP:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_70#Circular_references:_Gyan_Publishing_and_ISHA_Books, Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_113#List_of_books_that_plagiarize_from_Wikipedia, and so on. The publisher is not a WP:RS publisher at all. Second issue is that the material is not even clearly related to the topic of the article. Cheers. Collect (talk) 15:43, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

The text misrepresents the source. Kumar writes in Problems of Ethnicity in the North-East India, "The separatist/secessionist ideologies in the North_East are of the following type: (i) Ethnic, (ii) Ideological/leftist/Communist, and (iii) Religious." In other words, he sees the terrorism as ethnic/nationalist rather than religious in motivation, but notes religion and leftism can both be used as unifying forces for ethnic groups. He does not claim that religion is the cause of the conflicts, and that is clear in the title of his book. And the sources specifically about terrorism identify do not this as religious violence, they group it under ethnic/nationalist terrorism. TFD (talk) 16:02, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

The only "misrepresentation" is your comments, as you cherry-picked a comment from a different page than the one cited, in order to pretend that the actual cited page does not include the following sentences:

"NSCN and National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT) under the leadership of Bishwamohan Debbarma promoted Christian terrorism. NSCN and NLFT worked for forcible conversion to Christianity. These outfits were responsible for the religious oppression of the Hindus and Buddhists in Arunachal Pradesh and Tripura respectively. Jamatiya Hoda and its leaders, to a large extent, were able to control NLFT run religious terrorism. NSCN's religious terrorism continued unabated" (p.23, as cited in the article).

The book by B.B. Kumar is not published by ISHA Books, but rather Concept Publishing. You guys are completely mixing up two different sources. The SECOND source was the "Encyclopaedia of Scheduled Tribes in India: In Five Volume", by P. K. Mohanty (published by ISHA), that was only used to cite the sentence "There are occasional reports of the NSCN using force to convert locals of neighboring states to Christianity.", which is sourced to page 253, and states quite a lot about NSCN forcibly converting people to Christianity. I don't see how that could be an example of "circular sourcing" to Wikipedia though, as the information presented on that page is not found on WP. Mohanty's book was published in 2006, and the WP discussion of ISHA was in 2010, so this activity might not have been occurring at the time. In either case, that book is simply "collateral" to the other sources, such as B.B. Kumar, which state the same things. --Bryon Morrigan -- Talk 16:40, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

The "Encyclopedia of Mandipur" which you cite is published by Gyan Publishing House. As discussed at WP:RS/N in the same places as ISHA. Fails.

So the first one fails. Leaving us your second source as the only one to hang a hat on. "Problems of Ethnicity ..." B. B. Kumar, editor. The section divides the problems into Ethnic, Ideological and Religious. The paper lists NSCN as having all three groups in it.

Kumar specifically blames "the Britishers" for all discord in the region (p. 18). On page 19, Kumar then blames Christians and animists for the ethic division between India and Nagaland. Page 21 has him discussing what he views as the fact that ethnic identity of Nagas was the problem and that India had failed to put down the "insurgency." Kumar apparently bales the "insurgency" on the "Britishers" and the Naga who perceive themselves as not being of Hindu ethnicity.

Page 25 - He stresses that the Naga were never an independent group but were always ruled by the Hindus. He then says (kitchen sink style) that the insurgents are ideological (seeking Communism( ethnic (while he had just denied that any Naga ethnicity exists( and religious (last of his points) and (again) accuses the Britishers of keeping the Naga from being the same ethnicity as the Hindus, which they should be because the Hindus ruled them. On page 35, Kumar blames "Human Rights Organizations" for fomenting the insurgency, that China, Pakistan and Bangladesh were backing the insurgents (source does not note that all three are not exactly heavily Christian nations).

Page 38 - Kumar calls for a stronger hand in dealing with insurgents. And after saying foreign countries and groups aid the insurgents, he says (p.41) they use bank robbery, extortion, drug trafficking and all sorts of criminal activities, and that their goal is the destruction of India. (covering what Kumar actually states)

Which does not appear to accurately support the claim you use for it when it has passages which clearly are in conflict with the claim. Cheers. Collect (talk) 20:40, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

Then we look at how many people have referred to the source. [6]. Two -- One an international journal says: (neither is anything more than a bibliographic entry)[7]. The second one[8] is also a simple bibliographic entry. Neither appears to have actually cited it for anything at all. So it is likely that the work is not widely used in the area of study at hand. Collect (talk) 20:50, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

(1) The ISHA Books citation is not "my source". It was added by Bladesmulti in 2013. [9].

(2) Nothing you've said about the B.B. Kumar source (which I did add originally) discounts it as a source. It is a collection of peer-reviewed journal articles, edited by Kumar. The article that I cited just happens to also be by Kumar, but the rest of it was composed by other authors.

(3) The authors of the articles in that book are eminently qualified to report on Indian issues. You are not. You don't get to decide that they aren't. That's not how WP works.

(4) The fact that Indian books and journals are not widely-cited in non-Indian books and journals is irrelevant, and has a lot more to do with: (a) Few people outside of India care about these issues; (b) Racism; (c) The various different Indian languages and alphabets, which are not as often converted into Internet documents, and do not show up on English language search engines. In any event, you just linked to two journal articles that cite the book, proving its reliability. Thanks!

So really, you're just proving my earlier point that you would just make up some excuse to deem the source "untrustworthy" because it's Indian. Just admit you really have no understanding of this subject and move on. We all understand that you want to delete everything off this page, and you are always doing your best to whittle away at it, but you really need a new hobby. --Bryon Morrigan -- Talk 21:04, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

3. Wikipedia does not say "Only Indians can edit Indian-related article." While it is true that I am Indian, that has nothing to do with my editing.

4. Who cares -- when a work gets listed in a grand total of two bibliographies, it is quite likely that it has not been widely used or cited.

5. I suggest you read and abide by WP:AGF. You do not appear to have any consensus on your side on this. Cheers.

FYI: Just for the sake of anyone attempting to competently research the author, "B.B. Kumar", keep in mind that due to the vagaries of transliterations from Indian languages to English, his name is listed in different ways. His full name is Dr. Braj Bihari Kumar, but sometimes his surname is written in English as "Kumara". Sometimes it's written as "BB Kumar", and other times as "B.B. Kumar". He's pretty much the pre-eminent specialist in the Naga people, and has written many books and articles about them.

I have tried to WP:AGF with you on many occasions, but you will have none of it. You resort to deleting every edit I make, regardless of how many reputable sources I add, and you consistently attempt to eliminate any wording that does not agree with your pro-Christian weltanschauung. We've both been editing this page for years, and you've been quite consistent in your edits. I don't need "consensus" to overcome your personal opinions regarding the NSCN. I need reliable sources, and I've been adding them...and you've been deleting them. Again, that's not how WP works. --Bryon Morrigan -- Talk 21:46, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

I read the sources, and expect any claim made from them to be fully supported by the source. I have problems when sources are not used in an absolutely NPOV manner. That is how Wikipedia works. And your accusations that I an religiously based, or ethnically biased, or whatever, are abhorrent. Collect (talk) 22:11, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

Even if Bryon Morrigan's interpretation of Kumar is correct, and it is a big if, the fact remains that experts on terrorism identify the conflict as ethnic/nationalist, as indeed Kumar appears to. You are better off using a source such as Juergensmeyer who unambiguously claims it to be religious. But to say as a fact that the conflict has its roots in religion when most sources reject that view is contrary to weight. TFD (talk) 03:05, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

You two continue to prove my assessment of the situation correct. You're deleting Reputably Sourced sections off of the India section, piece by piece. You're PRETENDING that the items hadn't been thoroughly vetted and sourced for months or years prior to your sudden deletions based on your "Consensus of 2". You are everything that is wrong with Wikipedia. I guess the Christian terrorists in India will applaud your actions at minimizing and covering up for their murderous activities, and give you a nice big "thumbs up". My blood pressure can no longer take this kind of deliberate POV abuse by you two. I'm taking a break from WP. I'm sure when I come back, you will have completely destroyed this page, and all references to anything Christians have ever done wrong in the history of the planet. --Bryon Morrigan -- Talk 12:50, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

I thought I had been clear in my position but will repeat it once again. No one disputes that acts of terrorism have been carried out by Naga Christians. What is in dispute is whether it is the consensus in reliable sources that the motivation for this terrorism is Christianity. You say that your source, Problems of Ethnicity in the North-East India claims that ethnicity is not the cause of terrorism in NE India, only Christianity is. I have presented sources, and maintain your source says the same thing, saying that the cause of the conflict between ethnic Indians and ethnic Sino-Tibetans is ethnicity. While we should explain why a minority of scholars attribute the conflict to religion, it violates weight to maintain as a fact that that is the cause. TFD (talk) 02:46, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Abortion-related murders

See Talk:Anti-abortion_violence#Terrorism. --92slim (talk) 22:02, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

Drive by POV tag

I've removed the POV tag that was added without any specific justification for which section of the article was objected to, or which sources used are POV (or are not Reliable Sources), or how source reliability or neutrality is to be improved.

The POV tag is not just for "I don't like this article" - if there are shortcomings in particular areas then changes should be proposed. -- Aronzak (talk) 06:10, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

Please see the talk archives from January; the RFC; the "mediation"... Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 10:52, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

I pretty much agree with Aronzak. I suggest that editors who have now-archived concerns should be patient, and wait to see what comes out of the mediation process about this page. Of course, that does not preclude also raising new issues here in this talk. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:14, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

Gunpowder plot

Tryptofish restored a section on the Gunpowder Plot, with an edit summary of "please see the mediation discussion about it." Is that still ongoing? Can you provide a link, please? While I was not a participant in the mediation and am not bound by it, I'll certainly have a look. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 07:03, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

Sure, I'm happy to discuss this. The place to look is at Wikipedia:Requests for mediation/Christian terrorism#Time Period, and un-collapse the discussion leading to the mediator's conclusion. Given its extreme length, I'll recapitulate what I think is relevant here. What's important is how secondary, scholarly sources treat the Plot. As cited on the page, Aghai treats the plot as having played a seminal role in the history of terrorism, going so far as to say that "The beginnings of modern terrorism can be traced back to" it. And Mahan and Griset place the motivations for the terrorism firmly in religion, in this case the view of Christianity held by Fawkes and his collaborators.

Actually, I just realized that the page previously also included an additional sentence, citing Steinfels (in the New York Times) as calling it religious terrorism. I see that you removed that before you removed the entire section, saying that Steinfels only mentions it in passing, referring to a book.[10] I looked again at the source,[11] and I think you were looking lower down in the source, where he cites a book by Sharpe. But look at the lead of the source, where he says: "one of the most notable episodes of religion-based terrorism in Anglo-American history." That's a very clear statement of Steinfels' own assessment, not attributed simply to Sharpe. But we can reasonably regard Sharpe as being yet another source for this assessment.

So, we have Aghai, Mahan and Griset, Steinfels, and Sharpe, who all agree. Can you cite comparable sources that consider the Plot to be something other than Christian terrorism?

(About whether or not editors who do not participate in the mediation are bound by it, I guess the Wikilawyer parsing of it is that, strictly speaking, you are not, but if editing becomes difficult here, an unwillingness to work with whatever comes out of the mediation will likely come to be seen as tendentious.) --Tryptofish (talk) 21:21, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

Well, let's be clear - the "mediation" was a handful of editors (six at its most active) generating acres of bytes that for several months debated the definition of "Christian" "Terrorism". Only four participated in the argument about timeframe, with apparently a 3:1 vote saying that it is ok to impose a modern concept onto a historical event. It's as legitimate as me trying to insert into George Washington that he was demonstrably a racist, as he owned hundreds of black slaves; or that the Tribes of Israel committed genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity on many other Middle Eastern tribes in Biblical times.

At best, if we were to go down that route, Fawkes' actions could perhaps be characterised as "Catholic terrorism", seeing as it was perpetrated by Christians against other Christians. There's also the "history is written by the victor" maxim; if things had gone differently, we might have a "Parliament Night" commemorating the liberation of Catholics instead of a "Guy Fawkes Night" commemorating the defeat of a "terrorist".

Can you cite comparable sources that consider the Plot to be something other than Christian terrorism? No, of course not, because scholars and academics rarely, if ever, set out to prove a negative. The problem, as with other sections (e.g., Northern Ireland), is that you can find anyone promoting any idea, leading to WP:FRINGE and WP:UNDUE positions being given prominence in the article. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 14:23, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

Could be the phrasing. The term terrorism only came into use long after the event and the concept of religious terrorism even more recently. We should begin the section by saying that terrorism experts see it as an early example of Christian terrorism and explain why they say that. To use the example of racism in America, while that term too is modern, that article would be incomplete without mentioning slavery. It would only become tendentious if we were to edit the George Washington article to say he was a racist. TFD (talk) 14:46, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

I think TFD makes some very good points here. Bastun, whatever you personally think of the editors who are still participating in the mediation, what matters are the sources. What you call possibly "Catholic terrorism" is still Christian terrorism, which is not limited to terrorism committed by Christians against non-Christians. So we have Aghai, Mahan and Griset, Steinfels, and Sharpe, all reliable sources who call it Christian terrorism, and you appear to agree that no sources exist that dispute that characterization. And they are not remotely "fringe" authors! --Tryptofish (talk) 21:13, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

You've just repeated yourself without answering any of my points :-) Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 22:00, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

No, that's patently untrue (although you have not responded to any of my points). I showed that you misrepresented the Steinfels source; maybe that was an honest mistake, but going forward you now know that you were corrected. You've attacked the editors participating in the mediation and suggested that you could edit George Washington to say that he was a racist; I don't think there's much more I can say to that. To your concern about imposing "a modern concept onto a historical event", TFD gave a very good explanation, and I agreed with TFD. You've contended that Catholic terrorism might be different than Christian terrorism, and I responded to that. You raise the point about the victors writing history, and I guess I can point you to WP:RGW. I've asked you to come up with a reliable source that says that the Gunpowder Plot was not about religion, and you responded with a specious argument about proving a negative, but you essentially admitted that you don't have those sources. You've argued that Peter Steinfels, writing in the New York Times, is a fringe source, but you cannot come up with a reliable source refuting him. I think it's pretty clear that you made a mistake in deleting the section, and I've corrected it. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:48, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

I have not attacked the editors participating in the mediation! My remark about George Washington was to demonstrate the folly of applying modern standards and/or concepts to historical people or events, nothing more. My point about proving a negative is not specious. I'm being asked to provide references stating that the 'Gunpowder Plot' wasn't "Christian terrorism." How, exactly, is one supposed to do that?! The concept of it being "Christian terrorism" (or terrorism at all) is so alien to something happening over 400 years ago that the Gunpowder Plot main article uses the term "terrorism" exactly once in the whole article: " It was then considered prudent to search the cellars on the day before each State Opening of Parliament, a ritual that survives to this day, although now retained as a picturesque custom rather than as a serious anti-terrorism precaution."

Yes, you have sources describing the plot as "Christian terrorism". You also have a tiny number of sources describing the Northern Ireland conflict as Christian terrorism, vastly outnumbered by sources saying it isn't. Fringe. This is the same - except that rather than a modern conflict, it's over 400 years old, so rather less people are writing about it. Hey, you can find sources saying the earth is flat, too. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 15:53, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

Bastun, you may not think that I am trying to engage with you, but I really am. It just isn't that easy. In the thread just below, you put "mediation" in scare quotes. You previously responded to me with a sarcastic smiley emoticon. As TFD and I have pointed out, it is indeed a noteworthy issue that "terrorism" as we understand it today would have been an unfamiliar term in the early 1600s. But I made an edit yesterday, with a reliable source, to try to put that issue in perspective. I hope that it addresses what you said now about that. How do you provide a source stating that it wasn't Christian terrorism? As I explained previously, a good way to do it would be to find one that argues that the motivations of Fawkes and the others were unrelated to the religious dispute between Catholics and Protestants. Here, we are talking about the Gunpowder Plot, not The Troubles, so your comparison does not prove anything unless you can actually provide such sources about the Gunpowder Plot. (As for The Troubles, I've always argued for presenting sources on both sides of the issue, and for indicating which are "majority" and which are dissenting views. Your edits (which, by the way, I have not yet reverted) seem instead to be intent on selectively removing all mention of the views by authors who see it as Christian terrorism.) There is absolutely nothing "fringe" about any of the sources we are discussing here. To compare, for example Peter Steinfels (I pick him as an example because we have a blue link), to someone from Boko Haram seems to me to be very wrong, but if you want to see if other editors agree with you, you can try WP:FTN. In the meantime, we have a preponderance of reliable sources that support how the page treats the Gunpowder Plot. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:31, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

Why would the views of a writer be of more relevance than those of a leader of a militant faction that controls large swathes of Nigeria? The trouble with "presenting sources on both sides of the issue", even where you indicate which are "majority" (scare quotes!) and which are dissenting, is that the tiny number of people saying that the Troubles were religious in nature is used to justify the inclusion of a whole section that just shouldn't be in the article in the first place - WP:FRINGE and WP:UNDUE. You don't accept that, hence we have just such a section. As the Gunpowder Plot was due to a religious dispute, I'm hardly going to be able to find sources that say it wasn't, am I? The problem is its classification as "terrorism" when the concept didn't exist at the time - to the extent that the main article doesn't use the term except when talking about modern anti-terrorism measures. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 13:32, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

Bastun, I think a person from Boko Haram may well be a primary source, as a spokesperson for terrorists, but they are not a reliable source for whether or not the earth is flat. A writer such a Peter Steinfels, writing as a staff expert for the New York Times (as opposed to someone from the general public who writes a letter to the editors) is a secondary source, and that makes him, and the other source authors currently cited in the Gunpowder Plot section, appropriate sources for Wikipedia's purposes. I know that you are angry at me over the NI section, but let's please not confound it with the Gunpowder Plot section. You ask about finding sources to present other points of view. If you concede that there simply are not sources to say that the Plot was unrelated to religion, then we have to accept that calling it related to religion is not a fringe view. As for the word "terrorism", I hope that you've noticed the edit, [12], that I made to try to address your concern. If you can find reliable secondary sources that say something like the Gunpowder Plot was religious violence, but not religious terrorism, I'll be happy to give them due weight. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:07, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

NPOV Tag

Adding back the NPOV Tag the issues raised in the AFD ,Mediation ,DRV and in tlak earlier have not yet been resolved .Hence Please let the Tag remain until the issues are resolved ,I am not removing any content .There are severe content issues. Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 04:06, 12 July 2015 (UTC)

Agree with the restoration - but is the mediation even talking about NPOV issues? Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 08:21, 12 July 2015 (UTC)

At this point, I'm OK with it either way: with the tag or without. Whatever. There seems to be an "are we there yet" recurring theme on this talk page, objecting to the fact that the mediation process hasn't resolved everyone's concerns yet. The short answer to Bastun's question is yes, the mediation is about NPOV issues. For editors who do not understand why it is taking so long, I will explain that now: in February, my mother died, and I needed time off from Wikipedia. The other editors in the mediation kindly reached a consensus to suspend the mediation until I got back. When I did get back, the mediator, Keithbob, had taken on another mediation case, and we agreed to wait until that case was concluded before resuming this one. In the mean time, one of the participating editors was banned by ArbCom, which is a good reason for all the rest of us to make sure that we conduct ourselves within policy here. Let's face it: this page is inevitably going to be contentious. We have had multiple deletion discussions, and it is clear that there is not going to be a consensus to delete the page; there also are going to be numerous editors who will be sincerely unhappy so long as the page exists in pretty much any form. We have an IP editor (geolocating to Dublin) who is edit warring over completely deleting the Northern Ireland section, in spite of the ArbCom sanction requiring 1RR, and in spite of reliable and uncontested sourcing that says that 3 loyalist splinter groups are Christian terrorists. I feel very strongly that the mediation process needs to play out, however long it takes, and that editors see where we stand then. Until that time, whatever, tag away! I have a feeling that, even after the mediation is over and the page changes in response to the decisions made there, this page will still be contentious. And if that happens, I'm quite prepared to take this all the way to ArbCom. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:26, 12 July 2015 (UTC)

My condolences on your loss.

Thanks for the update on the mediation. It might be worthwhile putting a banner link to the mediation on this page, so people can find it.

I want to see the section on Northern Ireland deleted, because the vast majority of sources state that the NI conflict was an ethno-nationalist one, not a religious one, while one source claims that three tiny players on one side of the conflict were motivated by religious imagery - WP:UNDUE and WP:FRINGE. Despite holding this view, and editing from Dublin, I am not the anon IP editor, and as a rule never edit when logged out.

My views in summary: There should be an article on Christian terrorism, so long as it's not used in a WP:COATRACK manner to tag on anything and everything where a couple of sources claim something is religious or terrorist in nature, and that WP:FRINGE views are clearly labelled as such, not given equal or undue weight. It would be much better addressed if split into two articles - one in the same manner as List of Islamist terrorist attacks and one on the "concept." There was discussion on this previously - see Archive 14. (Is it possible to slow down the archival of talk page material)? Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 08:46, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

Thank you, Bastun, and I think that you may be pleasantly surprised at the extent to which I agree with what you have said here. In my next edit, I will follow your suggestions of providing a link to the mediation page, and of slowing down the archiving. I also want to make it absolutely clear that I never implied that you and the IP are the same person (indeed, there are behavioral editing clues that the two of you are unrelated). I objected to deleting the NI section, under the present organization of the page, because, under the present organization, it seems to me to be dishonest to omit mention of the three loyalist splinter groups. (By the way, as I said earlier in this talk, I was planning not to edit the present-day parts of the page, as opposed to the historical section, until after the mediation ends: [13]. But when the IP blanked the section and I restored it, I then saw that you made some edits, and that's what prompted me to edit it further, in turn. But now that the IP has deleted it again, I plan to leave it be.) But all of that pertains to the present organization of the page. In now-archived talk, I said what I would eventually like to see the page become, and it's something that I plan to advocate for during the mediation: [14]. I'm actually in favor of doing away entirely with what might be described as a "wall of shame" of present-day countries, and replacing it with an organization based on what secondary sources say about the concept of "Christian terrorism". The reason I haven't just gone ahead and done it now is that I want the mediation process to proceed and establish a consensus for whatever we can agree on there. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:32, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

Rapoport and the contemporary section in general

The opening section of the contemporary section is rather confused and has a lot of synthesis and editorializing in it. In particular the Rapoport "wave" thesis does not belong here at all, because he specifically talking about terrorism driven by Islam, not Christianity. There are also problems with the SPLC report, which considers right-wing and not specifically Christian terrorism, though it does deal with one right-wing Christian movement. Nearly everything in the opening paragraphs of the section needs to move down into the USA subsection; I haven't had time to deal with that yet, but the Rapoport has to go. Mangoe (talk) 20:26, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

"Has to go"? You appear to be edit warring over it. And you are misrepresenting the source – rather badly, in fact. Rapoport ([15]) certainly does discuss Islamic terrorism, and he devotes more of his text to it than to other forms of religious terrorism, and treats it as contributing more by a significant amount to the total amount of terrorist violence than other religions. But he is very explicit in making it clear that his "fourth wave" is about "religious terrorism" rather than just Islamic terrorism. And he has a paragraph on the same page as the page where you quoted him about Islam being "at the heart of the wave", where he places Christian terrorism as part of the wave as well, saying "Christian terrorism, based on racist interpretations of the Bible, emerged in the amorphous American "Christian Identity" movement." (He also discusses Jewish, Sikh, and partially Buddhist-and-Hindu acts of terrorism, along with Christian, as having been influenced by Islamic terrorism.) It is entirely appropriate to cite Rapoport in explaining the context of contemporary Christian terrorism, explaining how contemporary terrorism differs from earlier terrorist "waves", by focusing on religious, rather than non-religious, motivations. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:50, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

Rapoport does include Christian and other non-Muslim religious terrorists. However, he does not seem to say much more than some elements of Christianity Identity practice it, without providing any examples. Most if not all of the examples in the section are identified in the literature as either right-wing or ethnic/nationalist groups, and should be removed. TFD (talk) 01:46, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Agree with Mangoe and TFD. "Without this differentiation, one is left to draw one’s own conclusions about which actions are terrorist activity by Christian groups." Really?! This is unencyclopaedic blatant editorialising. Same with the last paragraph. "Christian activists tend to see themselves as engaged in a war against godless society..." Activists, or terrorists? If activists - remove. If terrorists - well, yes, maybe, but so does everyone from the Westboro Baptist Church to the Legion of Mary. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 08:51, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

But my recollection is that it was TFD who first drew attention to the Rapoport source as being a good source to indicate that contemporary Christian terrorism is part of a contemporary wave of religious terrorism. I'm not talking about Westboro, or any of the specific examples. I'm talking about Rapoport. I'm not necessarily arguing that we use that source to justify specific examples, as there are other, better sources. But to explain the context of contemporary versus historic terrorism, Rapoport is a good source. And, as TFD just said, "Rapoport does include Christian and other non-Muslim religious terrorists". That seems to me to invalidate the original argument, that Rapoport is "specifically talking about terrorism driven by Islam, not Christianity." --Tryptofish (talk) 21:11, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Honestly, I'm not finding Rapoport's thesis as coherent as all that. His mention of the Christian Identity groups is simply dropped into a series of other non-Islamic groups, all of which he then ignores in favor of discussion of the Islamic groups. It's possible that the CI groups may have picked up some tactical pointers from the Islamists (though I tend to doubt that: the connections to the KKK and to their fellow right-wing paranoids are obvious); it remains the case, however, that as far as the fourth wave he identifies is concerned, he is only interested in analysis of the Islamists, and does not care to make connection between them and their, um, infidel counterparts.

Besides, we still have to deal with the question of whether Rapoport's "wave" thesis is widely accepted. I could, without much effort, theorize that Christian Identity arises out of purely American antecedents and owes nothing to contemporary foreign groups. I could further posit that the focus in it, especially in the USA, is exaggeration in the cause of opposition to right-wing politics in general. The latter is an issue with relying much on the SPLC, because they are, after all, part of that opposition. In any case, nothing that Rapoport says is in contradiction to this! Mangoe (talk) 21:58, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

It certainly is the case that there is some lack of coherence in the source material about Christian terrorism, and it's not limited to Rapoport. But Rapoport is pretty widely cited in the terrorism literature, and he is notable enough to have a page about him, and he has significant academic credentials. We have been discussing his degree of acceptance at the mediation page, and if you want to also cite an author who questions the wave theory, that would be fine. But there really isn't much in the way of outright rejecting Rapoport's theory; it's more like some authors saying that there is more overlap between waves than what Rapoport says. And I do not read him as somehow "dropping" the mention of CT into his longer discussion of Islamic terrorism, as if he does not know why he is saying it. He is clearly saying that the religious terrorism is religious terrorism that includes CT, and not that it is Islamic exclusively. I doubt that you are right about the groups in India or Uganda being influenced by the KKK, and you need to have a source for that. I hope that you've seen that I changed the material [16], so that the focus on the US, and on the SPLC, isn't there any more. But where you say they are the "opposition", are you asking that we find secondary sources that support Christian terrorism? --Tryptofish (talk) 22:58, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

I think you were not reading me quite carefully enough, and perhaps I should have spelled out "Christian Identity" instead of abbreviating it to CI. Rapoport (at least in the fourth wave section) doesn't mention any Christian terrorist group but the very American Christian Identity groups, which have no organizational connection to the foreign groups.

And in this wise the SPLC are most assuredly oppositional to Christian Identity groups. It is part of their base purpose; they are a legal advocacy organization, not a socio-historical research facility. This doesn't mean that the data they collect isn't good, but they are not a neutral party. The article now says that "The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) lists 34 terrorist incidents that have occurred within the U.S. since January 1, 2010", but the pamphlet itself describes it as a "detailed listing of major terrorist plots and racist rampages that have emerged from the American radical right in the years since Oklahoma City." It's not clear that more than a few have any Christian component, and they go flying past 9/11/2001 without blinking. The map at the end of the pamphlet, which counts fifty-five Christian Identity groups in 2008, is grist for our mills, but the remainder requires a great deal of sorting to come up with incidents which are or are not "Christian". Indeed, the whole thing tends to argue that "right-wing" violence is the point, and that religion really doesn't matter that much. I don't think they entirely think that, but .... Mangoe (talk) 03:32, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Rapaport said Christian terrorism emerged in the Christian Identity. He did not however identity and Christian terrorist groups or actions, and it is synthesis to say that there is Christian Identity influence in the KKK, therefore it is Christian terrorist. No need to knock the SPLC here, they do not call any groups Christian terrorist either and do not list any groups as motivated by Christian doctrine. TFD (talk) 14:00, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

I think that you both make a very good point, that the SPLC numbers are not uniquely about Christian terrorism, which is something I didn't realize, because I mistakenly AGFed the editor who added the material. But you are quite right there, so I went ahead and deleted the sentence. Thank you.

TFD, to my knowledge the page does not say anywhere that the Christian Identity movement influenced the KKK, but if it does, we should correct that. Mangoe, I take your point about CI and the non-mention of foreign groups. But I hope that we can now agree that what the page says, now, about Rapoport accurately reflects what Rapoport says and also is relevant to the page. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:03, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

Well CI has influenced the KKK and other far right groups, and some elements of CI are CT. I thought that was the implicit reason for including the KKK. TFD (talk) 02:02, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

Nazi Germany

An editor just added a section to this page about Nazi Germany. I realize that any discussion about this is going to be fraught, so I raise this question cautiously. However, although what happened was unquestionably atrocious, I'm having trouble seeing evidence that sources specifically consider it to have been terrorism, and I would lean towards deleting it. What do other editors think? --Tryptofish (talk) 20:00, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

Agree. The section does not even mention terrorism. TFD (talk) 21:08, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

"Christian terrorism comprises terrorist acts by groups or individuals who profess Christian motivations or goals." (The Wikipedia intro.)

Terrorism - "the use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims."

Nazi Germany - several millions of their own dead, and genocide.

Are you under the impression that genocide is not terrorism? Kⁿo_wl^ed_ge B^at_tl^e 05:42, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

First, the sources do not say the Nazis were terrorists, terrorism is normally seen as political violence by non-state actors. Secondly, the Nazis, while mostly Christian, did not profess Christian motivation. It is unlike religious terrorists such as al Qaeda, where members must adhere to Wahabi Sunni Islam, Nazis could be Lutherans, Calvinists, Catholics or atheists. Most importantly, it violates synthesis to combine to conclude they are Christian terrorists - that conclusion must be found in sources. Please do not revert back until you have consensus. TFD (talk) 05:48, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

"We are a people of different faiths, but we are one. Which faith conquers the other is not the question; rather, the question is whether Christianity stands or falls.... We tolerate no one in our ranks who attacks the ideas of Christianity... in fact our movement is Christian. We are filled with a desire for Catholics and Protestants to discover one another in the deep distress of our own people. -Adolf Hitler, in a speech in Passau, 27 October 1928, Bundesarchiv Berlin-Zehlendorf" Kⁿo_wl^ed_ge B^at_tl^e 03:49, 10 October 2015 (UTC)

A state political campaign to suppress some churches and create others is not "terrorism" per se, and there aren't sources using the term.-- Callinus (talk) 10:35, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Orphaned references in Christian terrorism

I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Christian terrorism's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "adl":

• From Christian Identity: "Extremism in America: Dan Gayman". Anti-Defamation League. 2005.
• From Islam and antisemitism: "Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad: On the Jews". BBC News. October 27, 2003.

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT⚡ 04:02, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Odisha

I think the section does not belong to this article as the acts mentioned, does not fall in the category of Christian Terrorism as defined in the first paragraph. Need your views on deleting the whole section.~ ScitDei^{Wanna talk?} 06:14, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

For as long as I can remember, this page has had sections about Odisha and other areas of India, and they have been added, then reverted, and so on repeatedly. It gives me a headache, frankly, trying to keep track of it. Some of the problem is that the section, currently, is clumsily written, so it does not sound like CT. My preference would be to not sweat anything that isn't atrocious until Wikipedia:Requests for mediation/Christian terrorism eventually resolves things. If it bothers you in its current form, how about researching and rewriting it? --Tryptofish (talk) 13:47, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

This is what always happens, and why this page will always be under attack, and why I have given up on it being in any way "objective". People "snipe" at these sections, making minor changes and deletions, until it makes little sense. Over time, these edits obfuscate the original meanings of the sentences, and are often deliberate misrepresentations of the citations. ...and then someone comes along and says, "Hey, this doesn't look right. Let's delete the whole section!" and the Christian Supremacists cheer, and the atrocities are white-washed. The India section used to be the most perfectly-cited section, where every single sentence was backed up by RS. But certain Christian Supremacist editors didn't like that, particularly since they are opposed to the very existence of this page. This is why people laugh at WP. --Bryon Morrigan -- Talk 15:47, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

To be "Christian" and "terrorism" there needs to be clear sources applying both concepts - the 2008 news article India Today says "Christian youths" but does not use the word "terrorism" once in the article - this is a WP:SYNTH issue - Terrorism in India says that the maoist group is designated as a terrorist group by the government, but does not list any Chrisitan groups as terrorist groups.

To list a source as a "Christian" and "terrorist" attack, then a source needs to use both of the words "Christian" and "terrorism" in the article at a minimum - otherwise it's OR applying the term - this fails WP:SYNTH. -- Callinus (talk) 05:52, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

Agree. TFD (talk) 15:29, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

Utøya Island killings in Norway

Stop removing well sourced material. Also tag team editing by scolaire and bastun needs to stop.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.225.107.1 (talk • contribs) 03:33, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

Also bastun needs to look up WP RS. The IBT article is very iffy as it is cited to an anonymous author. The sources removed by bastun included scholarly material, and continued blanking and edit warring over the section is not advisable. I understand that Christians are offended by the article, but keep your religious beliefs off the wiki please. If you can't do this, stop editing.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.225.107.1 (talk • contribs) 03:37, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

The well sourced articles that bastun and scolaire keep blanking state that breivik was a self professes Christian crusader. How on earth can you keep blanking that from the page and still call yourself a neutral editor. This is classic Christian apologetics in action. Stop blanking the section. This is getting ridiculous.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.225.107.1 (talk • contribs) 03:40, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

This is yet another reason why this article should be stubbed. As long as it remains in its current format, any attempt to improve it will be reverted with arguments like "this content is well-sourced (except for the part that suggests he wasn't actually a Christian)". In fact, the content was not removed because Breivik isn't a Christian but because, as a lone wolf, he is not a good illustration of the article's subject. Scolaire (talk) 07:21, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

Please also cease the ad hominem attacks. I am not a Christian. Though it is amusing to be called a Christian apologist on this article, and an editor with an anti-Catholic agenda on others. Guess I must be doing something right if I'm pissing off everybody. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 09:35, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

@Bastun: And you're still relying on an unsourced opinion of another editor. [17] --NeilN ^{talk to me} 10:03, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

Neil, it is the opinion of three editors: TFD, Bastun and myself. And opinion is always unsourced; only facts can be sourced. Scolaire (talk) 12:18, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

No, opinions are sourced. Articles are full of opinions and each one needs to be sourced. Surprised you don't understand that. Bastun can say X is the greatest Y in the world and you can agree with them but that matters little if you don't provide reliable sources sharing that opinion. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 14:19, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

One of the main arguments that was used for removing the section seems to be that the terrorist was a "lone wolf", acting as an individual, rather than acting as part of a group. I don't think that's a good reason. Terrorists can exist as individuals outside of organized groups. I don't think that the secondary source material supports a claim that individuals cannot be terrorists; there are sources that look to groups to study what motivates terrorists, but those sources do not define terrorists that way. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:12, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

Sometimes it is difficult to classify lone wolves, since their motivations may not be clear. But the consensus is that Brievik was motivated by politics rather than religion. TFD (talk) 01:23, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

About consensus, it's a temporary consensus that I'm happy to let stand for the time being, but I want to make it very clear that, following the mediation, I may push for it to be reevaluated. (It looks to me like, in the time I was away, there were a lot of decisions that may ultimately turn out not to last for very long, because they were based on original research. Wow, there was even yet another AfD! But I'm in no hurry.) If one looks at what the section had said, before it was removed, it cited 3 secondary commentators on the question of whether or not Brievik was motivated by religion (whether instead of by politics, or in addition to politics, since terrorists can have more than one motivation). We cited two commentators (Juergensmeyer and Reynolds) as writing that it was Christian terrorism, and one (Hirschfield) as writing that it was not. Maybe some editors are quick to discount anything attributed to Juergensmeyer, but we base such decisions on reliable sources and not on editors' personal opinions. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:51, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

Breivik's objective, if we believe him, was to force a change in immigration policy. See also "Taking Anders Breivik Seriously as a Political Terrorist." There is a debate whether he or any lone wolf can be seen as a terrorist or just a disturbed person. TFD (talk) 22:26, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

Where you point out the debate, my view is that that debate and others need to be clear on the page, instead of the way the page is organized now. But we unavoidably do have reliable sources that attribute a Christian terrorism component to that "change in immigration policy". --Tryptofish (talk) 21:04, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

• In my opinion it's a bad idea to edit war to re-include this material without consensus. Breivik was not part of a group like a violent non-state actor, but was a lone wolf/stray dog attacker. Breivik had political aims to reduce immigration. He says that he is only culturally Christian, and did not believe in the divinity of Jesus (a core claim that is central to all mainstream versions of Christianity).

Violent extremism (terrorism) has been described as an outworking of non-violent extremist ideologies. Religious nationalism means the forcible imposition of certain religious codes on people not of that religion.

Christian nationalist groups seek to topple secular governments and replace them with societies that impose their agenda. Terrorist attacks to promote such an agenda are violent ways of attempting to bring about religious nationalism.

This article should not COATRACK into inclusion of lone wolf terrorists who were neofascists and possibly cultural Christians. -- Callinus (talk) 09:12, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

Agreed, and consensus is against inclusion. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 09:19, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

NPOV Tag

[Note: Copying this section back from Talk - Archive 14; NPOV concerns are still valid and haven't been resolved, but tag had been removed because "reasons must be added to Talk first before placing tag." ~ Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 09:25, 8 December 2015 (UTC) ]

Adding back the NPOV Tag the issues raised in the AFD ,Mediation ,DRV and in tlak earlier have not yet been resolved .Hence Please let the Tag remain until the issues are resolved ,I am not removing any content .There are severe content issues. Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 04:06, 12 July 2015 (UTC)

Agree with the restoration - but is the mediation even talking about NPOV issues? Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 08:21, 12 July 2015 (UTC)

At this point, I'm OK with it either way: with the tag or without. Whatever. There seems to be an "are we there yet" recurring theme on this talk page, objecting to the fact that the mediation process hasn't resolved everyone's concerns yet. The short answer to Bastun's question is yes, the mediation is about NPOV issues. For editors who do not understand why it is taking so long, I will explain that now: in February, my mother died, and I needed time off from Wikipedia. The other editors in the mediation kindly reached a consensus to suspend the mediation until I got back. When I did get back, the mediator, Keithbob, had taken on another mediation case, and we agreed to wait until that case was concluded before resuming this one. In the mean time, one of the participating editors was banned by ArbCom, which is a good reason for all the rest of us to make sure that we conduct ourselves within policy here. Let's face it: this page is inevitably going to be contentious. We have had multiple deletion discussions, and it is clear that there is not going to be a consensus to delete the page; there also are going to be numerous editors who will be sincerely unhappy so long as the page exists in pretty much any form. We have an IP editor (geolocating to Dublin) who is edit warring over completely deleting the Northern Ireland section, in spite of the ArbCom sanction requiring 1RR, and in spite of reliable and uncontested sourcing that says that 3 loyalist splinter groups are Christian terrorists. I feel very strongly that the mediation process needs to play out, however long it takes, and that editors see where we stand then. Until that time, whatever, tag away! I have a feeling that, even after the mediation is over and the page changes in response to the decisions made there, this page will still be contentious. And if that happens, I'm quite prepared to take this all the way to ArbCom. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:26, 12 July 2015 (UTC)

My condolences on your loss.

Thanks for the update on the mediation. It might be worthwhile putting a banner link to the mediation on this page, so people can find it.

I want to see the section on Northern Ireland deleted, because the vast majority of sources state that the NI conflict was an ethno-nationalist one, not a religious one, while one source claims that three tiny players on one side of the conflict were motivated by religious imagery - WP:UNDUE and WP:FRINGE. Despite holding this view, and editing from Dublin, I am not the anon IP editor, and as a rule never edit when logged out.

My views in summary: There should be an article on Christian terrorism, so long as it's not used in a WP:COATRACK manner to tag on anything and everything where a couple of sources claim something is religious or terrorist in nature, and that WP:FRINGE views are clearly labelled as such, not given equal or undue weight. It would be much better addressed if split into two articles - one in the same manner as List of Islamist terrorist attacks and one on the "concept." There was discussion on this previously - see Archive 14. (Is it possible to slow down the archival of talk page material)? Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 08:46, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

Thank you, Bastun, and I think that you may be pleasantly surprised at the extent to which I agree with what you have said here. In my next edit, I will follow your suggestions of providing a link to the mediation page, and of slowing down the archiving. I also want to make it absolutely clear that I never implied that you and the IP are the same person (indeed, there are behavioral editing clues that the two of you are unrelated). I objected to deleting the NI section, under the present organization of the page, because, under the present organization, it seems to me to be dishonest to omit mention of the three loyalist splinter groups. (By the way, as I said earlier in this talk, I was planning not to edit the present-day parts of the page, as opposed to the historical section, until after the mediation ends: [18]. But when the IP blanked the section and I restored it, I then saw that you made some edits, and that's what prompted me to edit it further, in turn. But now that the IP has deleted it again, I plan to leave it be.) But all of that pertains to the present organization of the page. In now-archived talk, I said what I would eventually like to see the page become, and it's something that I plan to advocate for during the mediation: [19]. I'm actually in favor of doing away entirely with what might be described as a "wall of shame" of present-day countries, and replacing it with an organization based on what secondary sources say about the concept of "Christian terrorism". The reason I haven't just gone ahead and done it now is that I want the mediation process to proceed and establish a consensus for whatever we can agree on there. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:32, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

Robert Lewis Dear

I know it's a small line at the bottom of the section, but of the three sources citing this chap as a Christian terrorist, only the first even mention a link between him and religion, and even that seems to be from a fairly biased source which only assumes a relationship between Dear and Christianity as they share ideals (i.e. both are anti-abortion). It is obviously a leap of faith to assume that simply because someone is anti-abortion in the US that they are Christian. I could link an oppositely biased article that investigates whether Dear is Christian with the opposite view. http://www.redstate.com/2015/11/28/robert-lewis-dear-never-talked-religion-abortion/ 86.10.203.23 (talk) 15:41, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

External links modified

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Assam

Please do not introduce material to the article that is not properly referenced by reliable sources. To be included, attacks should be described as both Christianist/Christian fundamentalist in nature and be described as terrorist. Sources that include blogs and that do not describe an attack, much less a Christianist terrorist attack, should not be added. This should not need stating, but apparently it needs to be explicitly pointed out here, too, just as at at List of Islamist terrorist attacks. Discussion, if necessary, should take place here and not via edit summaries on null edits. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 18:46, 6 August 2016 (UTC)

I get the feeling that you are directing at least some of that at me. I never introduced the material about Assam. It's been here for years, and I did not write it. All that happened was that I saw an IP blank it with an edit summary criticizing the sources, and I undid the blanking while adding a "better sources needed" tag. You reverted me, which is fine, but you used an uncivil edit summary, and I called you on it in the edit summary of a null edit. I don't much care whether we leave it in or out, but it seemed to me that at least two of the three sources described what could reasonably be regarded as religiously motivated terror. You can disagree with me about that, without being disagreeable. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:55, 6 August 2016 (UTC)

I support removing the section. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 19:04, 6 August 2016 (UTC)

Are we there yet?

I haven't visited this article for a long time. I note that the mediation was closed on 23 December. Is there any reason not to go ahead with what was proposed in July of last year: 'doing away entirely with what might be described as a "wall of shame" of present-day countries, and replacing it with an organization based on what secondary sources say about the concept of "Christian terrorism"'? Scolaire (talk) 15:20, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

Seems reasonable. TFD (talk) 16:14, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

I agree. JimRenge (talk) 16:56, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

Just to clarify, I won't be the one doing it. I still don't have the expertise. I just thought I'd throw out the suggestion. Scolaire (talk) 18:26, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

Thank you very much for bringing this up, and you are quite right (in one fish's opinion). Shortly after the Mediation fell apart as a total failure, alas, I became extremely caught up in the disputes about GMO content, which have only very recently been resolved. I've had it in mind that I wanted to work on this revision, but I simply have not had the energy or bandwidth to do so. With luck, I'll get to in in the next month or so (famous last words). What I think I will do is to start a draft in my user space, so that there won't be problems with half-way edits on the actual page here, and when I feel like it is sufficiently developed, I will post about it here. Then other editors can weigh in, and hopefully that will lead to a major revision of this page. Thanks again. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:33, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

Sounds good. The best of luck. Scolaire (talk) 09:27, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

Robert Lewis Dear

Robert Lewis Dear

In November 2015, Robert Lewis Dear killed three and injured nine at the Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Dear, described as "delusional", had various online accounts, including on a cannabis and BDSM websites, occasionally posting rants about end times and the apocolypse. He had praised the Army of God, saying that attacks on abortion clinics are "God's work." Deer's ex-wife said he had put glue on a lock of a Planned Parenthood clinic before 1993, and in court documents for their divorce she said "He claims to be a Christian and is extremely evangelistic, but does not follow the Bible in his actions. He says that as long as he believes he will be saved, he can do whatever he pleases. He is obsessed with the world coming to an end."

References

Key details are that the man is delusional, a BDSM practitioner, and a cannabis user. These are not the hallmarks of a "typical" conservative Christian - these details go against the narrative that there is a typical persona for violent extremists.

POV issues have been raised on this article in the past. The general consensus is that source quality should be raised - and that editors should try to find official groups (govenrment agencies eg DHS/FBI) to use the term "terrorism" - rather than political blogs and opinion columns.

For a person to be a "Christian terrorist" then you need sources calling them both "Christian" and a "terrorist". For a person to only dubiously be a "Christian" or dubiously be claimed to be a "terrorist" is a synth issue - pronouncing conclusions that aren't actually there.

In Colorado_Springs_Planned_Parenthood_shooting#Reaction John Hickenlooper said the shooting was "a form of terrorism" - bbc. Dear has been called a "domestic terrorist" by some sources - but asserting that a man who propositions women for sadomasochistic sex on a pot-smoking forum represents a typical conservative Christian is a SYNTH and POV issue.

tryptofish, you should be aware that this article has gone for mediation before due to POV issues.

-- Callinus (talk) 10:51, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

On a point of detail, having "various online accounts, including on a cannabis and BDSM websites," does not necessarily mean that he himself is, "a BDSM practitioner, and a cannabis user." There may be other evidence that he is one or both of those things, but not on the basis of the quoted text. Nick Cooper (talk) 11:51, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

It is not enough to have sources saying that someone is a "Christian" and a "terrorist," but we need a source calling them a "Christian terrorist," before even considering inclusion. A lot of Palestinian terrorists for example happen to be Christian, but they are never described as "Christian terrorists," because the motivation of their groups is not religion. Also, since classification of terrorists is based on motivation, it is difficult to classify lone wolf attackers. While terrorist groups always have a clear motivation, it is less clear with individuals, particularly if they are delusional. TFD (talk) 13:02, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

I am most definitely aware of the past mediation about this page. I was the editor who asked for it. So I do not need to be reminded. And TFD and I were both participants, so I am also well aware of TFD's concern about characterizing persons as "Christian terrorists" unless a source actually describes the person as both a terrorist and as a terrorist whose motivation was Christianity. And for that reason, I'm in favor of a major rewrite of the page, as described in the talk section directly above this one.

The reason that I previously made an edit that restored some of the language about what Dear had said about Christianity, and removed the language about cannabis and BDSM [20], was because this is a page about Christian terrorism, not Cannabis terrorism or BDSM terrorism. I get it that these interests are not typical of observant Christians. But neither is terrorism. If anyone is looking for a terrorist who performed the terrorism in conformance with Christian scriptures, lotsa luck with that. For that reason, I still do not see much point in retaining the phrase "and had also written about smoking marijuana and propositioned women for sex", but I won't make a big issue of it.

The reasons that I reverted the revert of my own edit started with the fact that the edit summary was simply WP:NOTCENSORED, which was a non-sequitor [21]. The revert of my first edit also restored a variety of formatting and grammatical etc. errors, which I have now fixed ([22], [23], [24]). However, with the subsequent edits that make clear that the postings on the cannabis website included postings about the end times etc. [25], I have no objection at all to that part.

In any case, the way the section is written as of when I make this comment ([26]) is fine with me, pending a complete rewrite of the page, which will make arguments such as this one moot. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:32, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

The reason for adding his other ideas is that he could have had motivations other than Christianity. But really determining whether or not he was a Christian terrorist is something that we should take from reliable sources, not editor speculation. Certainly Christians are capable of terrorism but there are so few cases because of the power imbalance Christians have. Similarly, individual American non-state actors do not go to Iraq and carry out terrorist acts, because it is more effective to use U.S. state power to achieve their goals. TFD (talk) 23:58, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

Yes, this is why the page organization based on naming "examples" is a losing proposition. I'd prefer to see a section about what reliable secondary sources have said about terrorists who have, in part, expressed Christian motivations, but whose motivations are much more complex than just that. If a source uses Dear as an example of that, then it would be worth mentioning him in that context. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:06, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

If we make this article about terrorists who have expressed in part Christian motivation then it becomes implied synthesis. It should really be about the concept of Christian terrorism and how various writers have applied the concept. In this case for example I would expect to see information about why some writers (assuming they do) consider the actions Christian terrorism, explaining the degree of acceptance that view has and what other writers say. That is the only way to achieve neutrality. TFD (talk) 00:18, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

I agree. I realize that when I just wrote "a section about what reliable secondary sources have said about terrorists who have...", my wording was unclear. I really meant "a section about what reliable secondary sources have said about the concept of terrorists who have...", rather than about listing such terrorists. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:35, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

Dear is a particularly poor example where the media has a quote from an ex-wife asserting that Dear might be a Christian, but she said he doesn't live by the bible (and there is him propositioning women for "sm" (sadomasochistic) sex on a cannabis forum).

Looking briefly on google books (http://books.google.com?q="robert+lewis+dear"), I see no academic publications linking Dear to the label of "Christian terrorist"

If a source uses Dear as an example of that, then it would be worth mentioning him in that context

Note that despite the Dear shooting being ~10 months ago, there are no high quality sources I can see linking Dear to the concept of "Christian terrorism"

-- Callinus (talk) 07:28, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

That's a good explanation of what I think is wrong with the entire organization of this page. I did some further searching based on your comment, and I found that some results come up if one searches for "Colorado Springs" instead of for his name. Interestingly, what comes back is some scholarly commentary by Muslims discussing religious terrorism and criticizing how events that they regard as Christian terrorism are not described as religious terrorism in the way that Islamic terrorism is. Example: [27]. Technically, that does give us a reliable source saying that Dear should be classified as a terrorist and citing his wife's testimony that he had "radical Christian ideology" as the primary motivation for his terrorism – but also saying that this view is not widely agreed upon. That just barely meets our minimal criterion of a source placing "Christian" and "terrorism" together so that editors do not have to synthesize passages from different part of the source. But it would really be much better in the context of a page section about how sources compare and contrast Islamic and Christian terrorism as concepts, instead of a page section listing putative examples. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:09, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

Should Srebrenica And The VRS Be Considered For Inclusion

I'm wondering if the Srebrenica massacre and the actions of the VRS (as well as that conflict as a whole) should be included in the article. JamusDoore (talk) 13:29, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

No, because this was generally seen as an ethnic/nationalist dispute, hence the term "ethnic cleansing." In this case religion was one of the attributes of ethnicity. Also, government sponsored terrorism is usually put into its own category, if it is considered terrorism at all. Note that the Serbian leaders were not usually referred to as terrorists, even by people who accused them of crimes against humanity. TFD (talk) 19:05, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

Contemporary

References included in the first two paragraphs apparently have no contemporary relevance.

References 19 and 20 are to publications from before 2000 (New Cold War, Christian Violence In America), and so do not include organizations such as Al Qaeda and the islamic state for purposes of comparative analysis. References 18 and 21 are about historical events and trends (Oxford Handbook of Religion and Violence, Four Waves of Modern Terrorism), not specific to Christianity nor the present day and recent past.

Both the Oxford and Cambridge dictionaries define Contemporary as referring to the present or "happening now". Neither events preceding today's situations or circumstances, nor historical events and trends, meet the definition of 'Contemporary'.

Does it not appear that the first two paragraphs of the "Contemporary" section of this page should be eliminated? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mrtony77 (talk • contribs) 13:59, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

A Contemporary Encyclopedia of Christian Terrorism Listing Present Day Christian Terrorists with the Christian Terrorist Groups' Affiliation and their groups' Literature including Bible Verses used for inspiring Christian Terrorists is http://ChristianTerrorism.com ChristianNews (talk) 01:11, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

Ku Klux Klan History as Rendered

This historical section is a shoddy mess. There's no evidence the founders of the Klan (who are not named here but were Capt. John B. Kennedy, Capt. John Lester, James Crowe, Calvin Jones, Richard Reed and Frank McCord) were "members of the Democratic Party" or any political party at all. For the most part they would have been too young to vote anyway.

And then in the next section it claims the Klan targeted blacks, Catholics and Jews. While the blacks part is accurate the Catholic and Jews bit, along with several other constituencies such as drunkards and labor unions, came in with the second Klan (1915), not the first (1865). Nor did the 19th century iteration engage in "cross burning". That was contrived by Griffith's "Birth of a Nation" and incorporated into the second Klan in 1915.

I quit reading at that point as a waste of time. It's a train wreck. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.34.135.230 (talk) 04:08, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

29 June 2017 -- I cleaned it up a lot, at least arranging events in proper order. It's better but could still use fine-tuning. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.34.135.230 (talk) 18:22, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

Nagaland error

Only National Socialist Council of Nagaland (Khaplang), NSCN (K), all its formations and front organizations is banned as Indian government home affairs .It is National Socialist Council of Nagaland T. Muivah which calls for Nagaland for Christ’.[28]171.78.183.13 (talk) 23:41, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

Sabra and Shatila massacre

Sabra and Shatila massacre The Phalanges, were ordered by the Israeli Defence Forces to clear the camps this is political massacre not religious terrorism171.78.183.13 (talk) 01:01, 1 August 2017 (UTC) The Phalanges, allies to the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF), were ordered by the IDF to clear out Sabra and Shatila from Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) fighters, as part of the IDF maneuvering into West Beirut. As per srticle . — Preceding unsigned comment added by 171.78.183.13 (talk) 01:02, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

This is another perennial at this talk page. The problem is that a lot of sources say that it was political and a few say that it was religious. I've lost count of how many times that section has been removed and re-added. In any case, it really should not be edit warred over. --Tryptofish (talk) 01:08, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

Most recognize this as politically rather than religiously motivated terrorism, although a very small number of experts say it was religiously motivated. It violates neutrality for the article to claim that it was religiously motivated and while we should mention it, we should state it is a minority opinion. TFD (talk) 01:54, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

United Nations also does not mention Christian terrorism only mentions Isreal171.78.169.174 (talk) 15:04, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

I basically agree with TFD that we should mention it but present a more balanced explanation of the degree to which sources disagree about whether it was religiously motivated. Consequently, it's no big deal to me whether or not, for the time being, we retain that section on the page, as it is currently written. But I want to note that by now multiple editors have reverted 171's removal of the section, and the edit warring needs to stop. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:55, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

• The United Nations resolution does not speak a word about Christian here
• This claim is being made on basis of a comment by Photographer McCULLIN and further it is not realaible as per below.here Further sources are needed.

NB: THIS TRANSCRIPT WAS TYPED FROM A TRANSCRIPTION UNIT RECORDING AND NOT COPIED FROM AN ORIGINAL SCRIPT: BECAUSE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF MIS- HEARING AND THE DIFFICULTY, IN SOME CASES OF IDENTIFYING INDIVIDUAL SPEAKERS, THE BBC CANNOT VOUCH FOR ITS ACCURACY.122.164.149.107 (talk) 10:46, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

Are you the same editor as 171.78.169.174, above? It is unclear. As I said before, this has already been discussed to death, and the solution is neither to leave it as is, nor to purge all of it from the page. Instead, this material really needs to be rewritten, so as to explain how the various sources differ in their interpretations, rather than labeling the massacre one way or the other in Wikipedia's voice. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:35, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

Merge with Christianity and violence

This is article is a mess with ethnic nationalist conflicts should be merged with Christianity and violence.There is nothing about Christian terrorism 171.78.183.13 (talk) 23:49, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose this latest manifestation of a perennial objection to religious terrorism pages. If reliable sources call it "Christian terrorism", then that's what Wikipedia should call it. (And, as for the many times when reliable sources disagree, I have not forgotten my promise to massively rewrite this page, really.) --Tryptofish (talk) 00:45, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

Reliable sources are not calling them "Christian terrorism" more sources call them ethnic conflicts ,white supremacy and other causes than Christian terrorism" in the article .Will list them.171.78.183.13 (talk) 01:16, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

You will probably save yourself a lot of time if you read the talk page archives and Wikipedia:Requests for mediation/Christian terrorism first. --Tryptofish (talk) 01:19, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

the Mediation failed as far as I can see.171.78.183.13 (talk) 01:29, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

Yes, I know that. So will what you seem to be attempting here. But the mediation discussion covers a lot of sources. --Tryptofish (talk) 01:33, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose While Christians have been responsible for a lot of violence, very little of it was Christian-motivated and therefore they are separate topics. TFD (talk) 01:55, 1 August 2017 (UTC)
• Support this article is jigsaw puzzle of various events and and violence is a better term to describe ethnic conflicts where religion is only a minor factor.Jonty rhodes (talk) 15:57, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

What then about the sources that say that Christianity was a major factor, and treat it as terrorism rather than as generalized violence? --Tryptofish (talk) 21:37, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

Weapons owned legally

In 2011, analyst Daryl Johnson of the United States Department of Homeland Security said that the Hutaree Christian militia movement possessed more weapons than the combined weapons holdings of all Islamic terror defendants charged in the US since the September 11 attacks They have guns legally as per the Second Amendment to the United States Constitutionn none of the sources say the guns are illegal.I do not think legally owned weapons need to be mentioned here it is misleading and seems to suggest they posses weapons illegally which is wrong . Hencewill remove it if there is no objection.Jonty rhodes (talk) 02:51, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing this to talk!

The current content is:

In 2011, analyst Daryl Johnson of the United States Department of Homeland Security said that the Hutaree Christian militia movement possessed more weapons than the combined weapons holdings of all Islamic terror defendants charged in the US since the September 11 attacks.

That is a bad use of the source - it actually says: "The killings in Norway 'could easily happen here,' he (Johnson) said. The Hutaree, an extremist Christian militia in Michigan accused last year of plotting to kill police officers and planting bombs at their funerals, had an arsenal of weapons larger than all the Muslim plotters charged in the United States since the Sept. 11 attacks combined, he said." The source is from 2011; they were arrested in 2010.

I looked at the Hutaree article and it says that the accusations fell apart in court and some were convicted of weapons charges only in 2012.

They were described as "Christian terrorists" after the arrest but before the end of the trial. (eg by the editors of the Seattle Times ) but I didn't find anything since then.

I believe i agree that this should not be here. Thoughts from others?

References

--Jytdog (talk) 03:10, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

Yep Remove it per Jytdog.122.164.149.107 (talk) 13:55, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

First of all, the argument made by the OP, that the content should be removed because of the Second Amendment, is WP:OR. Jytdog, I've read what you said multiple times, and I do not understand it. You seem to be arguing that the source, as written, presents what Johnson actually said differently than what the language on the page is. But I'm not seeing the difference. What am I missing? As for the trial, I don't think that the legal issues cast any doubt on the existence of the weapons cache – am I wrong about that? And as for calling them terrorists, my recollection (but I haven't gone back and looked just now) is that the Schbley (sp?) source we started to discuss in the mediation also calls them that. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:49, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

Tryptofish sorry. I was doing 2 things. First, criticising the content that is in the article now, for not actually saying why people thought the group were terrorists and making it clear that they called "Christian terrorists". Second, I was saying that this content was added at a point in time, after they were arrested but before the trial finished. The trial has finished and all the terrorism charges were dropped. So it is difficult to see why they should be discussed in this article. So I agree with the OP that the content should not be here. I agree with you, that the OP's rationale is not relevant. What is relevant is that the terrorist charges did not hold up. Jytdog (talk) 03:00, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

OK, thanks, I understand much better now. I'm fine now with removing that material. But I'll add that I regard any changes such as that to be for the time being, pending looking at more sources about it, and pending the major rewrite and reframing that I will be starting to work on fairly soon. But for now, yeah, it's OK with me. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:19, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Sorry for not being clear the first time. removed per consensus of everyone here. Jytdog (talk) 19:55, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Possession of weapons legally need not be mentioned.If they possess guns why is significant to be mentioned here ?It is just WP:NOTNEWS.122.164.149.107 (talk) 00:08, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Well, in the so-called Islamic State, terrorism is legal, so being legal does not prove anything – and as just noted, some of them were convicted on weapons charges. And there are sources that call them Christian terrorists. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:54, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Remove. Christian terrorist does not mean anyone who happens to be a Christian and a terrorist. Note that most Arab nationalist terrorists in the 1970s were Muslims, but no one called them Islamic terrorists. We would need a source that said they were normally described as engaging in Christian terrorism. TFD (talk) 01:41, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

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• The third change is good, but the first two appear to be incorrect. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:44, 6 August 2017 (UTC)

Compounded statistics

"[...] over 800 abortion clinics have been bombed, invaded or vandalized [...]"

Could we possibly break this down into individual statistics rather than using such a broad and deceptively compounded one? I suspect some readers are going to glance over this bit and assume that over 800 abortion clinics have been bombed. 75.63.209.97 (talk) 19:14, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

I guess it depends on what information is available from the sources. If there is reliable sourcing that bombings were only a very small percentage of the total, then I do see a case that the existing wording makes the frequency of terrorism-level violence sound higher than it really is. I guess there is also a valid case that bombings can constitute terrorism, but routine vandalism does not. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:22, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

Agreed, that stat definitely is phrased misleading. I would suggest: "Of the roughly 800 crimes aimed at abortion clinics [nyt], 38 have been bombings and there have been an additional 7 violent crimes, including murder[ref.

https://prochoice.org/education-and-advocacy/violence/violence-statistics-and-history/

Squatch347 (talk) 18:41, 11 September 2018 (UTC)

Recent addition of "two thirds of American terrorist..."

I've moved this section to the talk page to discuss. There are a couple of issues.

1) Grammar, which is easily fixed, but it definitely needs to be rewritten to be encyclopedic. It also needs to be referenced with a standard citation format.

2) Resolution of WP:RS, "The Atlas" a source I'd like to hear the author add a bit more on why it is reliable.

3) And I think this issue is probably the hardest to overcome. Nothing in the source says conservative Christians. I'm curious how the editor gets there.

Here is the removed text for reference:

Approximately two thirds of american terrorist incidents in the late 2010's have been caused by conservative christians.

References

Squatch347 (talk) 17:17, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

You missed 4) The data is for 2017, not "the late 2010s". --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 17:24, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

In order to include this observation we would need a source that connects it to Christian terrorism. In the majority of cases, the motivation for these attacks is right-wing ideology rather than Christianity. TFD (talk) 17:31, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

First, thanks Sarek for keeping an eye on the edit warring. Anyway, I'm coming down on the side of omitting it, for the same reason as TFD. I looked at the source, and the only place I see a mention of religiously motivated terrorism is for Islamic terrorism. I don't think the source is a reliable source for WP at all, but in no way does it source anything about Christian terrorism. (By the way, I do remember that I promised to work on a major rewrite of the page, and I apologize for not having done it yet.) --Tryptofish (talk) 17:37, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

Here is Quartz's original analysis of data pulled from the University of Maryland's Global Terrorism Database. Nothing about "conservative Christians" - just "right-leaning". Not useful here. Kuru (talk) 17:42, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for finding that. I did a search for "Christian terrorism" in the U Maryland website, and it returned this: [29]. Two results, one each in Indonesia and India. It might be worth looking further into those, but obviously that does not source anything about the US. When I searched for "Christian" without the word "terrorism", I got a large number of results, and it might also be worth going through those, but one would have to be very careful about whether the source really calls them Christian terrorism; also, the first page of those returns similarly looked to be non-US. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:53, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

Those two sources actually refer to terrorist attacks on Christians. I am all in favor of adding examples of Christian terrorism, but there seem to be very few examples since the Reformation, when it was quite common. TFD (talk) 19:01, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

Yes, the more I think about it, the more I think that the page organization based on a sort of wall-of-shame of recent examples around the world just does not work. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:05, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

Here is a link to the table of the 65 incidents analyzed by Quartz. None of the attackers are called Christian terrorists. Incidentally, the Quartz article should not be used as a source for analyzing types of attacks, since its reporters are not terrorism experts. I note for example that their categorization of anti-LGBT, environmental and anti-white attacks as left-wing terrorism is non-standard. The SPLC for example identifies black nationalism as a right-wing ideology, while the other two are normally grouped under single issue terrorism. TFD (talk) 18:54, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

Pittsburgh Synagogue Shooting

I've moved a recently added section over here to talk about. I'm not sure it meets the inclusion criteria for this page. The mainstream sources cited don't note this as an act of Christian Terrorism nor mention Christianity at all. The source given is an opinion piece. Generally opinion articles do not meet WP:RS criteria for inclusion. If we could find a more reliable secondary source that would allow us to include it, that would be great, but right now this is speculation. Squatch347 (talk) 13:44, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

I'd be inclined to agree with you, and (correctly) a source like this wouldn't be permitted as justification for inclusion in, say, Islamic terrorism in Europe. However, on this article, it seems the opinion of an academic is regarded as worthy of inclusion, even if it's very much a minority opinion. See, for example, the Northern Ireland section... Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 15:54, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

I agree with you, Squatch347, Bastun. It should not be included. JimRenge (talk) 17:03, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

So presumably ok to also remove the solo-run academics from Northern Ireland, then? Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 18:52, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

On October 27, 2018, the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting occurred at Tree of Life – Or L'Simcha Congregation in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, while a service was being held. Eleven people were killed, and six were injured. The sole suspect, 46-year-old Robert Gregory Bowers, was arrested and charged with 29 federal crimes and 36 state crimes. Scholar Jonathan Judaken described this as an act of "White Christian nationalism and terrorism."

References

Judaken does not call the accused a Christian terrorist and AFAIK his actual religious beliefs have not been revealed. Instead, he blames historic Christian teachings about Jews for anti-Semitism. We shouldn't put words in his mouth and I suggest we exclude it. TFD (talk) 18:07, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

• I agree with everyone above that it shouldn't be on the page. Antisemitism is not the same thing as Christianity. About the Northern Ireland section, I have no objection if anyone wants to remove it. There was previously a consensus to omit it. When somebody put it back more recently, I didn't want to take it on myself to revert, and nobody else reverted it. I will also yet again apologize for not yet making a complete rewrite of this page, because it has become very clear that having a sort-of wall-of-shame of recent-era acts of terrorism that may-or-may-not be Christian terrorism just doesn't work. Better to present the sources on how Christian terrorism is defined. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:42, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

Original editor has updated with a different source. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Christian_terrorism&type=revision&diff=867425943&oldid=866775066&diffmode=source (See below). The Politico source doesn't call him a christian terrorist, nor link him to any christian group, movement, or perceived objective. The sole reference is in his Gab profile which includes an anti-Semitic remark and a verse reference from the new testament. This is a little close to OR in my opinion.

At very least we should remove the second section with the Judaken reference. TFD is correct that he doesn't call him a christian terrorist and that kind of source wouldn't necessarily fly. I should also note that one scholar isn't "several scholars" as well.

Squatch347 (talk) 18:01, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

--Original Text--

On October 27, 2018, the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting occurred at Tree of Life – Or L'Simcha Congregation in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, while a service was being held. Eleven people were killed, and six were injured. The sole suspect, 46-year-old Robert Gregory Bowers, had proclaimed on his social media profile that "Jews are the children of satan. (john 8:44) -- the lord jesus christ is come in the flesh." A number of scholars, writing in op-eds following the massacre, have described this shooting as an act of "Christian terrorism."

References

Concerned Christians (Israel section)

There is no indication that the group, even if guilty of what they were accused, wanted to hurt anyone, or even make people afriad. There would be collateral damage but that (if sincere) is not terrorism. I can see nothing on the Definitions of terrorism page that would cover it. They wanted to destroy a building (or thought it would be) in order to bring about the end of the world and did not even get a chance to try or proclaim their intention to do so. I would like to cut it down to a few sentences, the info is repeated on their own page, so nothing will be lost. (Dushan Jugum (talk) 08:31, 23 January 2019 (UTC)).

In my opinion, you should feel free to go ahead and do that. And more broadly, thank you for working on the lead and other parts of the page. I think that you are taking it in the right direction. For a (very!) long time, editors here have discussed how the "modern" parts of the page just don't work, because of the complications of rigorously defining what "Christian terrorism" really is. As a result, there is much too much content on the page that comes across as a sort-of "wall of shame" of recent violent events that may-or-may not actually be Christian terrorism. Someone really needs to shift the page away from a geographic list of various terrorist events, into more of an academic treatment of how experts define the concept of Christian terrorism. You can get a feel for past discussions by skimming through Talk:Christian terrorism/Archive 14 and Wikipedia:Requests for mediation/Christian terrorism.

Obviously, you can do as much or as little of this as you would like to; please do not misunderstand me as implying that any of this is your responsibility. But it looks to me like you may be interested in the topic, and you seem to have a good understanding of the source material, so anything at all that you can improve would be most welcome. Thanks! --Tryptofish (talk) 19:59, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, Tryptofish, it seems we have similar dreams. There is room for a wall of shame, just not the whole page. I will start pushing the page in the direction of an encyclopedia article, but do not have the knowledge to take it all the way there. Be bold in correcting or nudging me in the right direction. (Dushan Jugum (talk) 20:27, 23 January 2019 (UTC)).

That's great, thanks. I'm watching, and hopefully some other editors are too. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:39, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

Gone through your suggested readings Tryptofish. Wow. Luckily we will not be the only page to exist without a single clear definition of what it is. I think if it becomes an article instead of just a list, we can have a big tent. No response needed but I am fully aware I came to the party late and am now behaving like I own the place. (Dushan Jugum (talk) 22:08, 23 January 2019 (UTC)).

Given the, shall I say, lengthy discussions I've been through in the past, if you want it, you can have it! --Tryptofish (talk) 00:03, 24 January 2019 (UTC)