Talk:Living the Questions

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Old talk[edit]

Re. "Balanced the comment criticizing LtQ with a review praising LtQ (including a positive comment from the same article from which the criticism was drawn" -

The remark from The Christian Century was intended, itself, to "balance" the relatively NPOV character of this article. The "positive" remark mentioned is a single sentence followed by evidence of the series' single-sided approach at presenting evidence intended to undermine faith in church teachings, without adequately explaining what those teachings are, nor presenting any evidence or views critical of its own positions. Reading the article makes it very clear that this is not an adequate summary of the reviewer's thoughts. If you wish this to be "balanced," we should also provide more content from this review; the quote chosen is perhaps the only positive sentence in the review, meant to "soften" the critique.

It is, however, an important review; LTQ's own site cites it (though they don't link it)

Also removed POV language praising LTQ from LTQ's own site at the expense of other alternative views of theology which supposedly are "pat answers" which "do not speak to contemporary ... " etc. etc..

LTQ is in general a rather misleading package of material - I have seen excerpts and can vouch that this is its general style of presentation - quite a few other sources on the web confirm this. One viewpoint is given which is very critical of another, with the other viewpoint being subjected to ad hominems (described as "genocidal" by Crossan) and not explained beyond a few insinuating phrases. It's more polemic in nature than explanatory or dialogical.

The praise cited here is either from LTQ's own site, or from a newsletter that seems to be output by a single person, a United Methodist laywoman.

The Alpha course does not need to be described as "conservative," it is rather "mainstream" and is used by all major denominations. LTQ is trying to portray itself as mainstream by referring to Alpha as "conservative," when LTQ isn't really "liberal," it is quite doctrinaire. I am sure it is comforting to many who hold to its viewpoint as absolute truths, but its own self-description is ... optimistic.

I can understand that an enthusiast may wish to qualify that The Christian Century's criticism was not of the "new and improved" version of LTQ, but I don't see any evidence that the "new and improved version" addresses the concerns of this review. Is there anyone, for example, there to indicate that Christians who believe that other Christians do best to interpret the gospel passages that describe Christ as walking on the water, as true, might not indeed be genocidal, as Crossan says they are? Indeed, this particular video would probably be described as "hate speech" if it were directed at any other group, and not at Christians. I do understand that "progressive Christians" do not like other Christians, but Crossan's characterization of them as likely to engage in acts of genocide is a bit rich.

LTQ's own site is rather deceptive, including the once sentence with modest praise from the Christian Century, in what was really a rather scathing review, and then failing to link to the review itself, though it is available online in two different sources. I would suggest that we take LTQ's own site with a grain of salt, including the claim that it is "being used by 5000 churches" as quoted here.

The many links to "curricula" here are probably also unnecessary - we don't generally function as a link bank for small businesses like LTQ, they may have been added primarily to get pagerank for LTQ's site.

I've done some light revision to the quote, but as it stands, this article is still terribly NPOV, which is sad, as we are praising a source which describes Christians in general as likely to commit genocide - the major denominations still hold to the authority of Scripture, so we are really contributing to blasting Catholics, Anglicans, Lutherans, Methodists, etc. etc..

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.176.169.108 (talk) 08:36, 10 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I allowed the inference that CC's criticism was of the "original" series (which I think is generous, since there's no evidence that this would not also apply to the updated series; it seems the updated one mostly brings in more women & LGBTQ voices); I think it's somewhat disingenuous to offer the meagre praise the CC article has here of the series as a kind of "counter." Reviews of the material from Christian sources seem in general quite negative; and so far we are leaving it to this source. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.176.84.209 (talk) 14:06, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

AfterWriting, if you find describing Christian Century as "liberal" to be POV, please see the Wikipedia page on it, or consult some other source; I think you'll find that the magazine considers itself to be such, and most authoritative Christian sources would agree; I suspect only rather ultra-leftist Christian groups would object to this characterization. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.176.77.237 (talk) 16:19, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

MrsLovettsMeatPies, please see the first few paragraphs of this talk page; you have twice added text from the Christian Century article despite the notes on this page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.176.77.237 (talk) 16:11, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

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