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Theo.
====Re: Naming====
Dcn. Andrew and all -- I'm for the editing, and the two paragraphs (as long as there is some flexibility here), but I'm not really in favor of renaming every article. I think it adds extra weight or length to the wiki and is truly unnecessary since this is the implicit focus of all the articles on the wiki. This is already clear in our guidelines and in general practice (though I understand that the impetus for this proposal is that this is not always clear to everyone). I think we can enforce this simple through constant reminders and a good category description.
I acknowledge that "Non-Orthodox" is a tremendous category including all kinds of different things, but it doesn't bother me. It's a reasonable catch-all for the project we're engaged in here. If at some point in the future, we have a lot of articles on "Groups endorsing a heretical Christology" or that could be categorized as "Articles which related to the ongoing discussion between Orthodoxy and Catholicism" we can break them off into a subcat. {{User:FrJohn/sig}}
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Theo
====Re:====
Theo, first off, we're not talking about Wikipedia here at all. One rationale for having a separate site is that we do not believe a "secular" or purely rational NPOV can reflect adequately an Orthodox understanding of reality or truth. I'm not sure what you mean by ''"To claim that the Mainstream Chalcedonian Bias (MCB) is the legitimate descendant of the original churches that were in those original geographic locations seems very problematic, to say the least."'' -- The historical succession is clear. Sure, not every single aspect is 1:1 (and we can talk about that), but I think we are indeed making a claim to substantial continuity. I don't think we're threatened by historical accuracy here. The glory of NPOV is that we can address things descriptively, and are continually challenged to cite sources and base oua rguments in fact. You're absolutely welcome to do that, as long as you respect the basic character and purpose of this wiki. Whatever happens on Wikipedia is outside of my concern. Hope that helps! {{User:FrJohn/sig}}
==My own misinterpretation==
To likely obscure matters further, what I think makes the most sense to me (depending on whether or not I've recently had a head blow--do not prune trees alone) is that some of these non-Orthodox topics are likely to impinge upon the lives of Orthodox Christians today. Thus, it's a good idea to include the Orthodox viewpoint of them. The Immaculate Conception is one such topic--at least in the USA, where I get told about once a season by some Roman Catholic or another that the Church really does believe all the RC doctrines and is just uppity about obeying the Pope of Rome. Thus, an Orthodox view of the matter could be useful. Just War perhaps is not well-formed, but Just War still is the fundamental moral underpinning of warfare in the USA. Among Americans (and a large proportion of an English-language Orthodox Wiki will be Americans), we are taught that our wars are not merely necessary or acceptable, our wars have to be morally mandated. That is, they must be positively virtuous in conventional American culture. The closest thing that conventional American culture admits to seeing war as no better than a necessary evil is to reject warfare, altogether. It must either be virtuous or prohibited. There is no middle ground of "temporarily permissible by circumstance, but never to be desired". Instead, we are taught, as Americans that, for a war to be permissible at all, it must be virtuous. This presumption is not, from my understanding, Orthodox, and an Orthodox Christian might be helped by an explication of the Orthodox perspective, one that makes it far less easy to simply salve ones conscience and not worry about the effect of warfare upon our souls yet also does not take the simple solution of absolute prohibition. [[User:Dogface|Dogface]] 12:52, February 20, 2006 (CST)