Talk:Role of Christianity in Western society

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved. Clear consensus to move, some bikeshedding on society vs culture, but every seems at least OK with the original nomination, so using that. (closed by non-admin page mover) HundredVisionsAndRevisions (talk) 17:30, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

Role of Christianity in civilization → Role of Christianity in Western society – As noted earlier, present title simply doesn't reflect the intended scope of the article and its actual content. This scope is well summarised by the opening line of the article: Christianity has been intricately intertwined with the history and formation of Western society. The article throughout concerns itself with the Western world. Where it mentions Africa and Asia it does so primarily from the perspective of Western missionaries to those regions, not their own indigenous Christian traditions. Regardless of intentions, to conflate Western society with "civilisation" as the present title does is self-evidently biased and does not reflect a global perspective. It's worth noting that the article has had multiple WP:POV disputes in the past, which are recorded in the archive.

While the mismatch between title and content could be resolved by a thorough rewrite to change the Western perspective to a global one (WP:GLOBALIZE), this would take an enormous effort as well as the addition of even more content to cover neglected aspects, adding more to what is already a very long article.

The sole exception to the Western perspective is the section on Christian influences on the Islamic world tacked onto the end; this is the closest this article comes to a more balanced, global view. However, that material is a relatively recent addition in terms of the total history of this article (created 2008). It was adapted in April 2021 without attribution (WP:COPYWITHIN) from a whole separate article on about the subject by an anonymous IP editor with revision 1017279567. While I appreciate the effort to globalise the article, it's already tagged as being uncomfortably long (an assessment I agree with) and its length is the product of copying in redundant material from other articles.

The simplest solution, short of total deletion (WP:TNT), is to just move to a new title which reflects both the majority of its present content and its always intended scope, trimming down the content which is redundant with other articles.

I suggest the title Role of Christianity in Western society, not Role of Christianity in Western culture since the article includes a section on economics which is perhaps a bit beyond the scope of just "culture", and "society" is how the opening lining phrases the topic. Either of those titles maintains some consistency with the previous title, which may be desirable, idk. That said, I'm open to other suggestions (such as Christian influences on the Western world to match Christian influences on the Islamic world) I'm completely happy to go with whatever alternative title other editors prefer.

TL;DR — Regardless of its authors' intentions, the current title isn't neutral or representative of intended scope or content. A move is the simplest solution. The article is already long enough; globalising the content to match the title rather than keeping to the original scope would make that problem worse and probably duplicate even more of the scope/material of other articles. – Scyrme (talk) 13:01, 19 January 2026 (UTC)

Support Role of Christianity in the Western world per nom and naturalness (WP:CRITERIA), I don't think sources refer to the West as a single society? Current title is ridiculous Kowal2701 (talk) 18:06, 19 January 2026 (UTC)

If you search on Google Books, Google Scholar, WorldCat, or even here on Wikipedia you'll find plenty of uses of "Western society" as a synonym for the Western world or Western cultures. The article Western culture includes "Western society" as one of its bolded synonyms along with "Western civilization" and simply "the West". Regardless, if others agree that "the Western world" is preferable to "Western society", I'd be alright with going with that. Any of these options is better than the present title. – Scyrme (talk) 18:19, 19 January 2026 (UTC)

Mb, I’m okay w either Kowal2701 (talk) 19:34, 19 January 2026 (UTC)

Support - Role of Christianity in Western civilization. The current title isn't great and I wouldn't want to globalize the article, it is already too long. Using the word "civilization" matches up with History of Western civilization. Guz13 (talk) 22:12, 19 January 2026 (UTC)

Support the move to a title specifying " Western civilization". I agree with the nominator that the current title Role of Christianity in civilization is misleading as it implies a global scope (common name) while the article's content focuses almost exclusively on Christianity's role in the West. Renaming it to accurately reflect its actual content, such as Role of Christianity in Western society, resolves this naturalness issue and aligns the title with the article's de facto scope without requiring a massive and potentially overly long global rewrite. Luka Maglc (talk) 22:56, 19 January 2026 (UTC)

I support this too. A massive and potentially overly long global rewrite still sounds good though. Drmies (talk) 15:01, 20 January 2026 (UTC)

Move to Christianity in Western civilization or something similar. The "Role of" prefix is unnecessary. Vpab15 (talk) 19:20, 25 January 2026 (UTC)

I like the idea of dropping "Role of", as this would make the title more concise (WP:CONCISE).

That said, I wonder if it'd be better to move away from "civilization" to "society", as "civilization" could be interpreted as presupposing the division of the world into distinct "civilizations" in the vein of Clash of Civilizations, as opposed to other views in which Western society forms a continuous "civilization" with neighbouring non-Western cultures. "Civilization" also has positive connotations so a title like "Christianity in Western civilization" could be read as presupposing that Christianity is civilizing and therefore a positive force in the world, whereas "society" is more neutral. Maybe I'm overthinking it.

If nothing else, "society" is at least shorter than "civilization". – Scyrme (talk) 20:13, 25 January 2026 (UTC)

• Support a move to whatever consensus agrees on.--Ortizesp (talk) 20:06, 25 January 2026 (UTC)