Talk:Universities and Colleges Christian Fellowship

Contest speedy delete

A few minutes ago, the page was blanked by 147.188.21.126 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) and a short verbal attack article was written in its place: (see diff). Five minutes later Quendus (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) added a {{db-attack}} tag. I don't think this article is eligible for speedy deletion, as it has a long history of not being an attack article. --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 13:05, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Page as originally tagged was an attack page created by a vandal from a good article that's been around since 2004. I'm de-tagging this; no idea why the reverted version has been tagged as attack. Tonywalton  | Talk 13:02, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Sorry; I should have checked the history...Quendus 10:29, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

The number of times I've forgotten do do that … Tonywalton  | Talk 12:09, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Comparisons with the SCM

Some of the comparisons need detailing and sourcing - for instance the "just 200 members in a student population of more than hald [sic] a million" confuses me because Student Christian Movement of the United Kingdom implies it's not a direct membership organisation. Also can anything currently in existance be said to be "in terminal decline"? Timrollpickering 17:33, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Typo corrected, and 'almost ' inserted before the words 'terminal decline'. DFH 21:38, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

The separation of the CICCU/nascent IVF from the Student Volunteers/nascent SCM is documented in J. C. Pollock, A Cambridge Movement, chapter XIII, Controversy (p159-174). DFH 21:43, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Pollock's book is listed in CICCU#Bibliography. DFH 21:48, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

82.19.30.179 19:06, 24 March 2007 (UTC) I'm concerned that this article seems to violate Neutral PoV, as there seems to be an implicit or explicit attack on the SCM in pretty much every paragraph.

Professor Steve Bruce

Steve Bruce (whose PhD thesis title I have cited in the bibliography section) is the Professor of Sociology at the University of Aberdeen, and the author of several books. I have known about this thesis for a number of years, though not had the opportunity to see it. The thesis is cited in the online article Notes from a second-class convert: How Leith Samuel became a Christian on the website of Evangelicals Now. For many years, Leith Samuel was minister of Above Bar Church, Southampton, and a well known speaker within UCCF circles. DFH 22:53, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Changes

I've removed the full text of the Doctrinal Basis and just put some key quotes in the text. The source is in the references, so should be easy to find. I'd also like to work the "Core values" section into the text so it's not just copied from the website (which may be a copyright problem). Finally, I agree with the discussion above, so have added a {{POV}} tag. --h2g2bob 21:29, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

POV and style issues

The wording of the introduction sounds like an advertising pitch written in Christian jargon, not an NPOV encyclopedia article. The expressions "making disciples of Jesus Christ in the student world" and "creating opportunities for students to hear the gospel message of Christianity" could be re-worded more succinctly as "engaging in evangelism" and "promoting evangelism". Maybe I'm excessively cynical, but the placement of those links to Jesus Christ and the gospel suggests that the article itself is trying to evangelise us rather than to describe the role of UCCF. Admittedly the article on evangelism isn't very good (other possibilities would be missionary and proselytism), but it seems more relevant than Jesus Christ and the gospel, which belong in a general article on Christianity; you might as well go the whole way and point out that UCCF members are multicellular organisms living on planet Earth, if you're going to tell us what a Christian is. Also, I assume "student world" means the United Kingdom university population (bear in mind that "student" has a much broader meaning in American English, covering everything from kindergarten upward). The bit about "encouraging one another" is vague. I know it's an expression Christians like to use, but what does it mean in precise terms? It sounds like a bunch of kids inciting one another to throw paper darts at the teacher.

The information in the "core values" section needs to be rewritten in encyclopedic style, or else removed (most of it has been said in the introduction anyway). Expressions like "Mobilised in mission, reaching students with the good news of Jesus Christ" do not belong in Wikipedia, unless there's a specific reason to discuss the quotation. Quotation marks are not an excuse for POV material; please refer to the articles on Jesus Christ and Christianity for NPOV descriptions of Christian doctrine and Christian activity, which have been reviewed extensively by people of all religious persuasions. Nanopede 03:31, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

--- These appear to be resolved, so I'm removing the neutrality dispute box. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sbmackay (talk • contribs) 07:32, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Factchecking: Founding of CICCU

The present version [1] of this article says that Norman Grubb and his friends "began the Cambridge Inter-Collegiate Christian Union (CICCU)." However, the article on Cambridge Inter-Collegiate Christian Union says that CICCU "was formed in 1877" -- some 33 years before Grubb's time.

Some fact-checking is in order here to determine what was the role of Grubb and his friends at CICCU. -- 70.239.248.62 (talk) 22:23, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

I strongly suspect that CICCU (or whatever it was called then) was founded in 1877, affiliated to SCM, before it fell to the dark side in Grubb's time DBD 17:34, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

Main Problems to be addressed

1. This is not a suitable article for non-Christians using too much Christian jargon and language.
2. It only provides a Grub perspective on the split with SCM (and is generally anti-SCM e.g. irrelevant information about its decline during the 1970s)
3. Needs citations on problems with Chaplaincy/ Student Unions
4. Doesn't cover UCCF structure
5. Needs citations for approximate membership and other facts pertaining to UCCF — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tui amoris (talk • contribs) 16:38, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

1: IMHO, using internal links is sufficient in Wikipedia; there is no need to explain "sola scriptura" etc if an article is just one click away, esp. as even a brief explanation would take up an undue amount of room.

2 and 3 have been resolved.

4: I added approx staff numbers from the website; what else is needed in terms of "structure"?

5: agreed; I have tagged those stats. They were added in this 2007 edit which did not refer to schools. That was by an anon IP account which does not appear to be active, so there is no point posting a question on the user talk page. – Fayenatic L (talk) 21:37, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

I have redone the first part of the introduction, based on the Charity Commission website and other Wikipedia content, in order to show the structure is much wider than simply the bit that works with Christian Unions. Also added some detail regarding the tripartite merger that resulted in UCCF as it exists today.—GrahamSmith (talk) 02:16, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Good, thanks. Could do with a source on the last point. Also, IVP and I-VP don't have separate articles at the moment, so it may well be worth adding distinguishing information in that article. – Fayenatic L (talk) 08:02, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

They do now! <grin> Also created brief content for Douglas Johnson, founding secretary of the Inter-Varsity Fellowship of Evangelical Unions.—GrahamSmith (talk) 05:18, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

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