Talk:Faithful and discreet slave

Bible Student View "Out of Scope"?

Not quite sure I understand the reasoning on this one. The development of the doctrine is addressed, and it leads in to what the JWs believe today (as the interpretation and application have evolved over the decades). But why is noting that the Bible Students still hold to the original interpretation "out of scope"? Are we suggesting that this article is wholly about the Jehovah's Witnesses and any other views belong in a separate article? If so that seems excessive to me. But I'm interested to see what others think about this. Pastorrussell (talk) 20:15, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

The current Bible Student view is out of scope of the paragraph from which I removed it. If the 'faithful and discreet slave' is currently a primary teaching of Bible Students, it should be discussed in more detail in a separate paragraph, Or even in its own section, which would also require some refactoring of the existing material.--Jeffro77 (talk) 08:51, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Hoekema

Today's injections of Calvinist minister and theologian Anthony A. Hoekema (...) were removed, as there is no added value in referencing him here and Hoekema's works are unabashedly anti-JW and anti-Watchtower.. Hoekema himself uses his dedication page thusly:

• "May the Lord use this book for the advancement of His kingdom and for the glory of His name. May He particularly use it to lead many from the errors of the Watchtower to the truth as it is in Christ."

--AuthorityTam (talk) 15:44, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

That would be the same Anthony Hoekema who was approvingly quoted by The Watchtower on July 15, 1997? Please don't inflict your prejudices on Wikipedia. Hoekema is widely cited by other authors of JW studies, including Andrew Holden, W.C. Stevenson and Robert Crompton. Wikipedia articles depend on reliable secondary sources and it is counter-productive to delete citations to such works; it is particularly irrational behavior when, as in this case, the statements the author makes are non-controversial and non-judgmental and accurately reflect the statements and doctrines of the Watch Tower Society. BlackCab (talk) 21:07, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

To my knowledge, Hoekema hasn't demonstrated vehement anti-Hebrew bias, and that is the tiny area of discussion about which WT quoted Hoekema in 1997 (to wit: "Anthony A. Hoekema notes: “It is unfortunate that the word came to be translated be cleansed, since the Hebrew verb usually rendered cleansed [ta‧her′] is not used here at all. ...If Daniel meant to refer to the kind of cleansing which was done on the Day of Atonement, he would have used taheer [ta‧her′] instead of tsadaq [tsa‧dhaq′].”).
Interestingly, The Watchtower in 1966 quoted Hoekema thusly: “In the history of the Christian church, people who taught that the ‘resurrection’ was a non-physical one were branded as heretics. ...Jehovah’s Witnesses claiming to be listening to Scripture alone, are again reviving this ancient heresy!”.
Plainly, Hoekema is not an unbiased reference regarding JW theology.--AuthorityTam (talk) 22:52, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

He is certainly critical of aspects of JW theology, as he is of the theology of other cults. However there is nothing I have sourced from him that is controversial nor deniable. You made a kneejerk response because he has said unkind things about your religion. On these issues, regarding the JW doctrines of the faithful slave, he is a reliable and usable source. BlackCab (talk) 22:57, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

The Hoekema references quite literally add nothing encyclopedic to the article. The tone of the referenced Hoekema title is not that of a scholarly (ie disinterestedly academic) analysis of JW theology; the tone of Hoekema's referenced work is unrelentingly anti-JW. Calvinist Hoekema therein repeatedly identifies JWs and JW beliefs as "heretics", "heretical", "heresy", and "heresies". It would seem the editor injected the Hoekema references as a way to draw attention to Hoekema rather than to add any encyclopedic usefulness to the article (see here). Furthermore, Hoekema (and even certain Wikipedia editors) use the term "cult" as a pejorative, rather than as a mere sociological term with a plain definition. Scientists have favored the term "new religious movement", recognizing that the term "cult" is used as a weapon by the so-called "Christian countercult movement". The title at issue here? "The Four Major Cults". It's a waste of time when certain editors push to inject such blatantly biased writings as though they were mere academic studies. --AuthorityTam (talk) 16:32, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Parable of the Faithful Servant

An editor recently nominated for deletion the article Jehovah's Witnesses and salvation (see here). While I believe that topic is notable, I opined that that topic could be discussed sufficiently at 'Jehovah's Witnesses beliefs'.
Similarly, I believe this topic (in this article) could be sufficiently discussed at 'Jehovah's Witnesses beliefs' and/or 'Parable of the Faithful Servant'.
--AuthorityTam (talk) 15:44, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Absolutely not. The Parable of the Faithful Servant is a brief, non-denominational discussion of the passage of scripture. Faithful and discreet slave refers solely to the Jehovah's Witness application of it, which has a complexity and history that warrants a standalone article. The article details:

(a) the claimed role of this "class" of people supposedly foreshadowed by the brief parable;

(b) the WTS explanations of how this group existed in an unbroken line from Jesus' day before emerging as the Watch Tower Society;

(c) the changes in belief of the identity of this servant, from "the church" to the long-held belief that it was Charles Taze Russell alone, and then back to the anointed remnant;

(d) the conflicting information from the WTS on when the "slave class" was given its commission; and

(e) a critical view of the doctrine by someone who was apparently part of that "class", pointing out a major logical inconsistency in the teaching and conjecture on the reason for its continued use by the Jehovah's Witnesses.

much of that information is sourced to secondary sources, indicating its notability as a subject of its own. Before proceeding to an AfD, if that's the proposal, I'd like to see a suggestion of which parts of those five major elements should be deleted from an abbreviated, merged version. BlackCab (talk) 21:27, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Having reviewed the general parable article, a section on the JW belief there would constitute undue weight, because no other denominational views are represented.

If each of the five points BlackCab has raised can be established from reliable secondary sources, than the separate article may be warranted. Otherwise, the article could be greatly condensed into a section at the beliefs article.--Jeffro77 (talk) 07:52, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

There are sufficient secondary sources for each section. BlackCab (talk) 19:07, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm unpursuaded that this largely-superfluous article serves the Wikipedia community better than would in-context sections at 'Jehovah's Witnesses beliefs' and/or 'Parable of the Faithful Servant', but I never held a strong opinion regarding the deletion of this article (else I'd have actually submitted an AfD proposal).
--AuthorityTam (talk) 16:32, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Discuss the merits of arguments. As you were informed here, I have removed disingenuous and irrelevant comments that involve me per WP:TALKO.--Jeffro77 (talk) 08:19, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Me too!--AuthorityTam (talk) 23:25, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Per WP:COMMONNAME, "The most common name for a subject, as determined by its prevalence in reliable English-language sources, is often used as a title because it is recognizable and natural. ...Wikipedia does not necessarily use the subject's "official" name as an article title". IMHO, this article's title has always been too esoteric to be of best use to the general Wikipedia community. In practice, maybe 20 million out of 1000 million Christians use a term like "Faithful and discreet slave" instead of a term like "Faithful and wise servant"; it seems best to roll this information into the place(s) where researchers of related information will actually find it. In that vein, AfD proposals for 'Jehovah's Witnesses and salvation' have now failed in both 2008 and 2012. Perhaps most of the JW-specific material from this article could be moved to that article at Jehovah's Witnesses and salvation; after all, JWs use the terms "faithful and discreet slave" and "anointed" nearly synonymously, and any proper discussion of JW 'anointed' is always going to include JW 'other sheep' anyway. The rest of this article ('Faithful and discreet slave') could be moved to 'Parable of the Faithful Servant' as a plain acknowledgment that that article is the more natural location for comparing how different Christians understand the parable and the term.--AuthorityTam (talk) 21:40, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

There is some crossover between the JW doctrine of "the faithful and discreet slave class" and the subject of salvation, but not enough to warrant merging the two articles. Inadequacies of the Jehovah's Witnesses and salvation article are best dealt with at that article. BlackCab (talk) 22:32, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

I continue to be skeptical that this topic merits a standalone article. Also, an editor deleted my comments of 16:32, 1 February 2012; yet WP:TALKO explicitly states, "you should exercise caution in [removing others' comments], and normally stop if there is any objection". This edit is both my objection to the deletion and reinstatement of the comments. My comment only repeated the pejorative term "juvenile" to explicitly state, "this thread's juvenile first mention...was by the same [editor BlackCab aka LTSally]" (namely, here).--AuthorityTam (talk) 23:02, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

The real question, given the irrelevance of the deleted comment to the subject of this article, is why do you object? Are you even trying to edit collaboratively? How about focussing on content instead of trying to keep arguments alive?--Jeffro77 (talk) 02:32, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

2012 change

There are reports on various forums that the doctrine has been changed as of October 2012; such forums are not considered reliable sources. Until there is a suitable source confirming the change, the article shouldn't really be changed.

Once a source is provided, the article should be reviewed and edited accordingly to incorporate the changed view into the existing prose rather than clumsily prefixing all of the existing text with 'this is the old belief'.--Jeffro77 (talk) 07:52, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Source material is now available for this change. See http://www.jw.org/en/news/events-activities/annual-meeting-report-2012/. The article will need a bit of an overhaul if someone has time.--Jeffro77 (talk) 03:32, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the link, Jeffro. I must say I was rather alarmed that the announcement of the new light caused the audience to erupt. The cleaners wouldn't have been happy. I'm tied up with work for the next two or three days, but I'll be happy to rewrite the relevant sections if no one gets there first. BlackCab (talk) 21:08, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. I've patched the related articles, and I think the changes I've made to those are sufficient (more than happy for others to improve them though of course). But if this main article is to retain quality it really needs a bit more focused attention and I've got a bit much on my mind at the moment to do it justice. So if you or anyone else can make a go of it that would be great.--Jeffro77 (talk) 01:37, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

I have begin work on this, at User:BlackCab/sandbox2. The task is a little bigger than I imagined. I'll return to this in a day or two. BlackCab (talk) 08:33, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

More rewording required. The 2012 doctrinal change also abandons the teaching, espoused in a 1983 Watchtower, that the slave class has existed, uninterrupted, since Christ's day, with different individuals or groups passing on the baton. The new teaching, that Christ appointed a slave class after his parousia in 1914, now aligns with their long-held parallel teaching that Christ chose the Bible Students in the 20th century as the modern embodiment of the slave class. BlackCab (talk) 10:33, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

I've completed what I believe is an update of the article. I'll leave it at the sandbox link above for a day or two for comment (or my own revision, once I've re-read it) before replacing the existing article. Your thoughts are welcome. BlackCab (talk) 11:04, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

Nice work. Much appreciated. I noticed a few very minor (syntactic) things I wouldn't mind changing, but I don't really like modifying someone else's sandbox page.--Jeffro77 (talk) 13:07, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

Feel free to tinker in my sandbox or leave notes. It also needs a line in there about the "domestics", the definition of which, interestingly, has also clearly been changed. (How Christ could let his channel get it so wrong for so long I don't understand ....) The "development" section may need a bit more work. It's actually quite a tangled evolution to reach today's doctrine, not helped by their earlier contradictions about the timing of their appointment. As an aside, I wonder how long it will be before we are rewriting JW articles to turn the 1914 doctrine into a "previous" teaching.... Next year's AGM perhaps?? BlackCab (talk) 21:11, 22 November 2012 (UTC)