Talk:Israelite Church of God in Jesus Christ

No information about the group!

Hey, the article provides no information about the group: when were they founded, by whom, where do their ideas steam from, what controversies surround the group (and there are definitely many, as the cult members are very confrontational and have got into very questionable practices of violent preaching). Could anyone please provide a little more light on this subject? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.198.161.238 (talk) 04:09, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Of course the article needs expounding and expansion and more detail. But I have not time or interest to do it lately. I created the article, and added to it a little, in the beginning. And tweaked it. But I'm leaving it to others to elaborate it with more pertinent details. Finding decent sources, though, may not be totally easy, for this one. But I'm sure it's doable. Regards. Hashem sfarim (talk) 07:26, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Should also be pointed out that there's also still "The Israelite School of Universal Practical Knowledge" http://www.theisupk.com.

According to http://www.religioustolerance.org/bhi.htm

This group has undergone some evolution and has spawned several permutations over the last forty years. A man named Abba Bivens in 1960s Harlem started the group. It was originally called the Israeli School of Universal Practical Knowledge (ISU.P.K.), but later changed its name to the Israeli Church of Universal Practical Knowledge (I.CU.P.K) as part of a plan to get tax exemption status, though some splinter groups still call themselves ISUPK.

A split in the leadership of the school occurred, and I.C.U.P.K. lost much of its membership. Although they have physically retained the school, they gave up all claims to I.S.U.P.K and re-emerged in the new millennium as Israelite Church of God and Jesus Christ (ICGJC). Those that left before this new incarnation retain the name of the original school started by Abba Bivens (I.S.U.P.K) and consider themselves to have remained true to the original nationalist agenda of Bivens. They refuse to refer to the messiah as "Jesus Christ", or the creator of Heaven and earth as "God", but as YAHAWAH (God) and YAHWASHI (Joshua).

Eric B (talk) 16:24, 26 July 2014 (UTC)

RfC

BAn RfC: Which descriptor, if any, can be added in front of Southern Poverty Law Center when referenced in other articles? has been posted at the Southern Poverty Law Center talk page. Your participation is welcomed. – MrX 16:48, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Primary sources

@Doug Weller:, how is the SPLC stating something not a primary source? Does it have an exemption under WP:RS? I can't see it. Your edit summary compares SPLC to the LA Times but if the LA Times is talking about the opinions of the LA Times we absolutely do treat it as a primary source. The SPLC is talking about the SPLC's views. How is this not a primary source? Otherwise, I could self-publish and expect Wikipedia to include whatever opinions I have on the church. And if SPLC's opinion is notable, others will have published it and they will be secondary sources. Many high-quality sources are used to cite SPLC but we cannot use them to cite themselves, any more than with the LA Times. This is at the heart of our work. Find a secondary source or two as the primary source cannot be used. ♫ RichardWeiss talk contribs 18:32, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

You've edited it since. You must have seen my null edit, "- sorry, of course it's a primary source, just as we use newspapers as primary sources and many other sites. it's attributed, that's all we need". We could use an editorial comment by the LA TImes. If you are used regularly as a source then yes, you probably can be used as a source. The SPLC is clearly notable and as you have been searching for mentions of it you may have a better idea than I how much it is used. You seem to be objecting both to a statement "obsessed with hatred for Edomites", and a statement about their expansion, which confuses me. Would you really object to any of these statements if they were say from the Chicago Tribune? Doug Weller talk 19:09, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

And at least all of that is sourced. We've an unsourced section and some text with citation needed tags. Why aren't you more concerned about them if you wish to improve the article? I'm also curious, are you saying that the SPLC is wrong? Doug Weller talk 19:14, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

Please spell out the problem for puzzled onlookers like myself. What does "The SPLC is talking about the SPLC's views" mean? All I can see in the recently tagged text is the SPLC's views on the topic of this article. While it would be great if some academics had done a study of the topic and written a peer-reviewed paper that was analyzed in a major media story, such attention is rarely given to WP:FRINGE topics. Quoting the SPLC is much better than the alternative of presenting what a fringe group says about itself without context, and usage of the SPLC's views have been endorsed in many WP:RSN discussions (see Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources/Perennial sources). Johnuniq (talk) 22:31, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

Per WP:SELFSOURCE, even "[s]elf-published or questionable sources may be used as sources of information about themselves". So when citing the SPLC's views, SPLC is a reliable source for it --Nat Gertler (talk) 05:05, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

We need secondary and not primary sources for SPLCs views, this would be someone else publishing the views and not SPLC. Whether SPLC is right or wrong is irrelevant, their views need both verifiability and notability, the latter through a high-quality secondary source. We can't use SPLC as a secondary source about views held by the organisation. ♫ RichardWeiss talk contribs 07:41, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

Self-publish fails on the 2nd point: It does not involve claims about third parties (such as people, organizations, or other entities). In this case it does, about this church. We need secondary sources esdtablishing the notability of SPLCs claim. ♫ RichardWeiss talk contribs 07:44, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

A secondary source would be the LA Times reports SPLC saying x and y about z. A primary source is where the SPLC says x and y about z on their website. According to Doug all SPLC assertions are notable but he doesn't offer any evidence in termsof guidelines giving this exemption to SPLC. ♫ RichardWeiss talk contribs 08:30, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

So why is SPLC listed at Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources/Perennial sources as a reliable source? Are you suggesting that previous discussions have concluded that the SPLC is reliable but owing to some other factor it cannot be used as a source? If the LA Times reported SPLC saying something, the source would be the LA Times, not the SPLC. Are you aware that WP:PRIMARY includes "A primary source may only be used on Wikipedia to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts..."? The two "primary source" tags refer to such statements (attributed opinions). A secondary source is needed for an interpretation or for balance. WP:SELFSOURCE concerns dubious sources that would not generally satisfy WP:RS. As shown by "Perennial sources" above, SPLC does not fall into that category. Johnuniq (talk) 09:23, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

This needs to be updated to include UK murder.

A young university student, Joy Morgan, was murdered by a member of this group in the UK. This should be included in the article as a brief summary of what happened, with a hyperlink to the Murder of Joy Morgan (currently a draft article).

Once the main article is done, I will move onto adding Joy Morgan's murder to this article. If you would like to feel free to edit it to include it now! Thanks. Theprussian (talk) 10:05, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

References

No. Very no. We are not putting onto the pages for other religions lists of every member of that religion who killed someone. What would be the point? To show that they are not 100% perfect people? That is to be assumed, they are people. --Nat Gertler (talk) 12:51, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

That's not correct, this murder was high profile in the UK due to the involvement of Church of Israel memebers. It's an aggravating factor in this person murder, not just meerly "an association".Theprussian (talk) 17:23, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

Most of the coverage that you're using in your draft article doesn't treat the specific group as a big thing, although they do cover that both victim and the person eventually convicted were part of the same church. It is hardly a defining factor about the church, not the sort of thing that should end up in this article. --Nat Gertler (talk) 18:39, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

Meanwhile, it includes a lawsuit about a toy and a tax fraud case. It's a shitty article, very poorly written. There is a discussion to be had about any alleged involvement in a murder; unilaterally stating "No. Very no." isn't a discussion. Neil S. Walker (talk) 22:14, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

as Neil S. Walker said, this article is a dumpster fire of nonsense. If "Tax fraud" is noteworthy enough to be included in this article then why not include a heading or sub-heading about this high profile murder case. I have noticed that NatGertler is based in the United States, of course, you have not heard about this case. But as someone who resides in the UK, I can confirm that the trial was high profile, appearing in various news sites and on TV.Theprussian (talk) 22:27, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

The lawsuit at least involved the Church itself, the tax fraud case involves the leadership of the church using their positions. That is very different from the actions of one rank-and-file member of the church. I'm not saying that this article is in a great state, but hanging stuff like that on it would not be an improvement. --Nat Gertler (talk) 15:48, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

Unless you can show more of a connection to the church than just membership, it doesn't belong here.Doug Weller talk 18:58, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

That's not really a reason not to include something which is relevant to the Church.Theprussian (talk) 13:58, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

That it doesn't have a real connection to the church beyond membership is indeed a reason for not including it. We do not list every murderer from other religions on their religion's page, although that would echo techniques that some media have used when trying to demonize a group. You haven't put forth what this actually tells us about the church. --Nat Gertler (talk) 14:08, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

@Theprussian: I agree- you say "relevant to the church" but you've shown no sources to back that their membership actually caused this - sure, it's apparently how they knew each other, but that's no reason for it to be in this articles. Doug Weller talk 18:27, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

quote/paraphrase

The article says

“ While "most Hebrew Israelites are neither explicitly racist nor antisemitic and do not advocate violence", the Church is and does. ”

The part in quote seems to come from the citations but the paraphrase (or whatever you want to call it in this case) about the church doesn't seem to be explicitly stated in the references.

I'm not sure what to do about this. RJFJR (talk) 01:45, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

Good catch. I have deleted it, as a specific claim without a source. (And now I should go deal with the fact that those two sources listed are just the same article in two different locations, and the references should be merged.) --Nat Gertler (talk) 17:00, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Murder was not linked to this church

The repeated attempts to include the Murder of Joy Morgan in this article fail not on the level of undueness discussed before, but apparently on a more basic level: the church the Morgan and her killer belonged to was Israel United in Christ, which appears to be a different Black Hebrew group. None of the sources in that article discussing the murder refer to the Israelite Church of God in Jesus Christ. --Nat Gertler (talk) 16:22, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

Jersey City concern

Given the misplaced efforts to cover the Joy Morgan matter on this page, I thought I should take a better look at the Jersey City matter. At the moment, we describe the perps there as "members" of the Church, but I'm not sure that we have the sourcing to support that. While there are sources like the New York Post that say that the two had been seen attending the church, simply showing up to a church does not inherently make one a member thereof. Many churches are open to curious visitors. And even that Post source puts one of the perps there not more recently than four years before, and the other the witness couldn't even recall how far back.

Given that, and given that most of the sources we use in that section don't even mention the Church, it's questionable whether we should be including this material in the article at all, much less giving it the space that we do. --Nat Gertler (talk) 16:34, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

After considering this and looking at the sources we were using, most of which don't mention the Church and those that do providing vague links (that the perps had been seen in the line in front of the church years ago and that the FBI accessed the church during its investigation), I've axed this section for relevancy. Later coverage had them being linked to the BHI movement, but not this church in particular. --Nat Gertler (talk) 15:24, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

dead external links

I removed one external link for a congregation, as the link was dead and checking the Internet Archive showed that it had been dead for over two years, so it's not some temporary outage. At this point, the website for the Maryland chapter looks dead as well, putting out an odd error screen, but the last time that the IA checked it in 2019, it was still live, so this may be a temporary situation. I'm putting this here to remind myself or anyone reading this a few months down the road to check it again, and if it's still dead, to remove the external link. --Nat Gertler (talk) 15:42, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

Months later, that link is still dead and has been removed. --Nat Gertler (talk) 14:33, 26 April 2021 (UTC)