Misterbluesplayer

Edits to Christadelphians

Hi Misterbluesplayer, welcome to Wikipedia and thank you for your update on numbers in Fellowships section.

• Dawn = 1000+ (UK 500, Africa 200, Australia 200, Ontario 50, Poland and Russia 20, plus Ecclesias in India, Mauritius, the Philippines etc)

Sourcing numbers in this sub-section is notoriously difficult. Perhaps you can please help to bring this into the same format as the other entries? The previous number, 670, (which was given by a member of the Dawn Christadelphians) and your own number "1000+" are substantially different, however given personal awareness of a group in India numbering 40 I suspect the real number is probably nearer the number you have given. Please can you present numbers for India, Mauritius, the Philippines on Talk:Christadelphians, and remember to sign with manually typing 4 tildas 4x In ictu oculi (talk) Many thanks! In ictu oculi (talk) 06:39, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Hi there, I will try to get confirmation of the numbers for overseas. However, I did a count of the UK ecclesias and got approximately 500 and I know that we gained over 200 in Australasia when the Lightstand Fellowship merged with Dawn. I am a bit wary of conducting a census - as David's experience is recorded for us. But at the same time, I would not want Dawn to appear overly marginalised. God bless.Misterbluesplayer (talk) 18:41, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. I think the military census was a specific limit for David, otherwise why have the book of Numbers? But for a secular resource like Wikipedia we do need to present meaningful data - which in this case e.g. the back of the Dawn Magazine can provide better than BTDF After closure of Nott. Watchman would be 30 in UK, + I know 30 in India. Sound about right? In ictu oculi (talk) 03:14, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

Just got an update on Watchman 20 in UK, 25 in India. In ictu oculi (talk)

Greetings. Looking at the following wording - "with disfellowship (similar to excommunication) being the final response to those with unorthodox practices or beliefs.[81]", the term most commonly used in my experience - certainly in Dawn circles is "withdrawal", based on II Thessalonians 3:6 and other verses. The important issue is that we withdraw ourselves from error, rather than "expelling" someone from our midst. In this respect, I feel the mention of the word "excommunication" to be unfortunate, having as it does many negative connotations. Could I suggest something along the lines of: "the final response to those with unorthodox practices or beliefs is for the rest of the community to 'Withdraw themselves' (2 Thess 3:6). This is also sometimes referred to as 'disfellowshipping'". Misterbluesplayer (talk) 16:48, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Hi Misterblues :), this probably should go in the talk section of the relevant page Christadelphians not your own talk page, unless you're just asking my opinion. FWIW my opinion is that such a change won't be accepted - neither by secular editors because excommunication is simply the normal Latin/English term for dis-fellowship (ex-communion), plus that it may disrupt Wikilinks to the Wikipedia entry Excommunication which already has a detailed Christadelphian section, and also not by Christadelphian editors because it is now realised in the main community that 'Withdraw themselves' (2 Thess 3:6) has nothing to do with 1Co5 style disfellowship, but is simply Paul saying don't hang around with these unemployed bre from Mon-Sat. And that is really something that would be better discussed on e.g. Christadelphian UK forum rather than on the talk page of the Wikipedia article. But by all means, it's up to you. In ictu oculi (talk) 03:52, 17 February 2010 (UTC)