I have already removed pastors and clergymen from my question, seeing that it is indeed too broad. I have reduced it to denominations, perhaps it is narrow enough now.
Can you open it now?
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There are over 40 thousand denominations. That's still very broad. The problem remains that it's effectively a fishing question: help me validate my interpretation by finding someone else who agrees. Well with 2 billion Christians someone else probably does agree. That won't help you know whether you're on the right track.– curiousdannii ModMay 15, 2016 at 2:05
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1It might be better to ask a question at Biblical Hermeneutics.– curiousdannii ModMay 15, 2016 at 2:06
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@curiousdannii oh dear 40 thousand. Hmm, how about major denominations? How many would be left? I hope you don't get offended, but are fishing questions not allowed in ChristianitySE? (I admit it's is a fishing question)– Monica LabbaoMay 15, 2016 at 2:09
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1 Answer
I don't think that question is going to work here no matter what minor tweaks you make to it. The issue wasn't really the "clergy" wording, the issue is that it's a fishing question. These are inherently similar to another genre: exploratory theology questions. See the discussion at Are exploratory questions (i.e. ones that develop new theology) off topic?
If you want to know…
- why some specific group believes X or
- what group Y believes
…those questions work pretty well here. On the other hand…
- who believes Z
…would only really work when Z is a known doctrine with a name and an established meaning. Asking these questions for whatever novel ideas occur to individuals would create more of a mess than we could keep up with.
Two alternatives you might want to consider are:
- what does theological framework X say about concept A
- is concept A a sound interpretation of verse Y
If you know the theological framework you subscribe to or and interested in using as a measuring stick, then asking about what that framework has to say about a specific idea is something that works pretty well in the Q&A format here on this site. On the other hand if you want a hermeneutical analysis of a verse and whether it may or may not speak to a specific issue then the Biblical Hermeneutics site may be an appropriate place to ask.
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1@MonicaLabbao It is closed. If you don't plan on reshaping it into a different question you should be able to mark it as deleted yourself.– CalebMay 16, 2016 at 10:07
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I'm not sure about this restriction. If I do a good explaining exactly what I mean, even if I don't know the name of the doctrine, couldn't I ask if anyone holds it? For example, is there a qualitative difference between the OP's question and: Do any of the Church Fathers draw a connection between Eve and the Holy Spirit? Perhaps I need to ask a new question regarding the definition of a "fishing question," as it's new to me. May 16, 2016 at 15:49
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@Nathaniel You're right these is a line in there somewhere at it's a matter of discretion about what's a reasonable fishing hole and what isn't. Your church fathers example isn't exactly a fishing question because it starts with a doctrine being promoted by a popular current author and the question asks if that fits in any historical context. That's a bit different than asking "I have a new theory about what the mark of the beast is, anybody out there agree with me?"– CalebMay 16, 2016 at 16:35
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Hmm, okay. I guess I see the example I provided as similar because it's the OP, not the popular author, who explicitly makes the connection between Eve as helper and Holy Spirit as helper. Though you are right, the popular author does at least make the more general connection between Eve as helper and God as helper, so that's fair. Thanks. May 16, 2016 at 16:41