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This is on the front page right now: Was Voltaire's house being used by the biblical society?

This is the first comment:

This question appears to be off-topic because it is about the history of voltaire's house and not Christianity. You can visit History.SE where this is on-topic. - fredsbend

And you know so is this: Why is Jesus looking on an oddly standing stone?

First comment:

This question appears to be off-topic because it is about art interpretation. - curiousdannii

...and, y'know, these are technically correct assesments by our good friends freddy & danny.

However with the lack of close votes and down votes (for now) it seems as though the community has adopted these questions to be OK.

And still their comments are true: they are strictly history/art questions and not related to doctrine. However this legend about Voltaire's home and (apparently) this painting have been used in Christian circles for years. It's part of Christian culture. These questions are, at their core, Christian questions as much as they are, at their core, art or history questions.

My suggestion:

If a question can reasonably belong on another SE site but also reasonably belong on Christianity.SE because of its widely acknowledged culturally-Christian appearance, why not leave it alone? Maybe it's my bias, but I love these kinds of questions and I wish we could see them more often. I think these questions come from a heart of "Well this is something I've heard in my church my whole life--I wonder if it's true?"

Vote away...

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  • We've discussed "culture" before: How should we handle questions about Christian culture? – fгedsbend Dec 18 '14 at 19:24
  • I also am in favor of them, but that is not the current guidelines. A recent borderline question that is more culture than doctrine is: Is there a particular order in lighting candles on an advent wreath? To me, there really is no difference, but the Advent wreath is widely practiced. This picture might hang in a few Christian homes (It's not Michelangelo's Creation of Adam). Further, a picture has nothing to do with practice. The picture requires explanation and interpretation, which the community is staunchly against. – fгedsbend Dec 18 '14 at 19:25
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    The problem with the recent art question isn't so much that it's about art, but that it's a rather subjective question. If it was tightened up to be more objective then I think it could happily remain as one of our tangential questions. – curiousdannii Mod Dec 19 '14 at 0:44

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