Wikipedia and the Church

I've done some disparate work on church-related topics at Wikipedia. I did quite a bit of work on the Roman Catholic Diocese of Erie while on sabbatical in Pennsylvania. I wrote an article on the diocese's St Peter Cathedral there, as well as the Catholic Trinity Cemetery. I added to a piece on a local bishop named Tobias Mullen. I also wrote an article about the Jewish temple in Erie.

I tried to get the Presbyterians rolling along by adding articles about the Synod of the Northeast and the Synod of the Trinity, and adding substantially to the article about the Ardmore Presbyterian Church, but so far no Wikyterians or Presbypedians have taken the bait to continue adding articles about individual churches, presbyteries, and synods. They seem happy instead with the meager exposure provided by a simple list, where they each take the quick and easy route of adding an external link to their church website. Hopefully some day they'll realize that Wiki is a great place to build their church histories (and evangelize a bit, too, in the process). (Forward a copy of this blog to your evangelism committee and tell them to get to work.)

BTW: Wiki lacks a good article about vicariates and how they're used in the Catholic church. While working on the Erie Diocese article, I learned that vicariates are subdiocean regional groups. Wiki relegates vicariates to the vicar article, but much more could be done there.