How To Contribute

Thank you for your interest in contributing to the Theonomy Wiki! Please take a moment to familiarize yourself with Theonomy in general. Check out the Introduction to Theonomy or the helpful list of Books and other resources. Also take a moment to read the Chicago Statement on Biblical Hermeneutics, which describes a set of basic hermeneutic assumptions which we seek to employ here.

Who should contribute

If you are not in sympathy with Theonomy or Kuyperian Transformationalism, we request that you refrain from adding interpretive content, but you are welcome to contribute to improve pages' conformance to the structural mode of the wiki, correct grammatical errors, or to express dissenting opinions respectfully in the talk pages for any part of the site.

Site Structure

In order to gain an understanding of the method and structure which this site aims to achieve, please review some of the passages which have already been added. A good chapter to review is Genesis 2, which has some links to passage pages for a command and some principles.

Theonomy wiki can be conceptually divided into three parts. The Books of the Law are the backbone of the site. The books are divided into their chapters, and within each chapter, verses are grouped into passages which attempt to convey an atomic command or concept which can be categorized into topics and explained in terms of their place in the Functional Division of the Law.

Each passage page, should contain a link to every immediately relevant topic, and each topic should have a link to every relevant passage page.

For example, the passages which relate to marriage should all have links to the Marriage topic, and the Marriage topic contains links to every verse that relates to it. It is the same with the functional division of the law. Each passage page should have a link to its relevant Functional Division(s). In addition, every topic should have a link to it listed in the List of Topics.

Every topic should also contain links to closely-related topics. For example, Sexuality and Homosexuality are closely related topics, and should link to one another, so that a reader can easily obtain a complete picture of all related data.

While the site is in its beginning stages of development, topic pages and functional division pages will be long lists of links to passages. Later on, when the whole law has been combed and categorized, we will go back through every topic and generate a comprehensive explanation for the topic, exhaustively harmonizing all relevant verses, and providing multiple interpretations wherever Theonomists disagree about a passage.

Steps to contribute

If you have some interpretive content you want to add to a page...

If the interpretive content is either commonly acknowledged by Theonomists, or is advocated by a published Theonomist who you can cite, feel free to add the content. If you aren't sure whether the content is consistent with Theonomy and Theonomic thought, feel free to talk about it in the talk section for the page in question, or ask about it in a forum about Theonomy (such as the facebook group, Theonomy Q&A) before you post it. Having gained such confidence, feel free to post the content in the interpretation section for its passage, or in the relevant topic page.

If you see a relevant passage which hasn't been linked to a passage page...

1. In the Chapter where the passage is displayed, convert a contiguous section of relevant verses into a link for a new passage page

• If the passage contains just one verse, you may link that verse independently and directly by clicking on the measuring scales near the verse.
• If the passage contains more than one verse, then hover over the arrow near the first verse to reveal a dialog for making a passage page spanning multiple verses. Type the number of the last verse in that dialog and press the "create" button to generate a page for those verses.
• Do not group non-contiguous verses into a single passage page.
• If you make a link to a passage which hasn't been linked before, use the full name of the book in your link (i.e. "Genesis" rather than "Gen" or "Gn").

2. Save your changes, and click the newly linked passage to create the page and begin editing it.

3. Copy and paste the Passage Template into the newly created page.

4. Modify the pasted template to match the specific content of the passage.

If you see an existing passage which is relevant to a topic, but the topic doesn't exist yet...

Double-check the List of Topics to confirm that the topic doesn't exist yet.

• If the topic exists,
  • Modify the passage page to include a link to that topic and a justification for its inclusion in the topic, and
  • Add that passage page to the topic (see instructions below)
• If the topic does not exist
  • Modify the passage to include a link to the new topic.
  • Add a link to the new topic to the List of Topics
  • Create the page for the new topic
  • In the new topic page, include the following:
    • A link to the List of Topics
    • A brief description of the topic
    • A list of all relevant verses
    • You may also include a Theonomic interpretation of the topic, taking into account the list of verses

Adding topic links to a passage

If you want to put visible Category links when editing the page source, keep in mind the following:

As a style issue, we don't want the prefix "Category:" to show up everywhere. Thus you have to slightly change the way you write your links. Instead of:

[[:Category:Murder]]

you need to write:

[[:Category:Murder|Murder]]

Notice the initial colon(:) in the markdown above. This prevents the parser from treating the "Category" link as a Category tag (which would make it disappear). Also, the text after the pipe (|) character becomes the link text which is displayed.

Adding a page to a passage

If you want a passage page to listed as being in some Category (e.g. "Murder") then you would have to add the following:

[[Category:Murder]]

Note that there is no colon(:) before "Category". This will not show up in the text of the page. It simply marks the page as belonging to the specified category.

If you are familiar with the topic structure used by this site, you can use the category dropdown lists below the page editor to navigate to the topic you'd like to add, and select it for inclusion in the page you're editing.

If you see redundant topics (the same topic with two different names)

1. Read both topics to confirm that they are actually redundant.

2. Mention it in the Talk pages for one or both of the topics, or report it to an Administrator.

Two redundant topics should have their contents thoughtfully combined on one of the topic pages, and then one of the pages should be converted into a redirect to the page where the combined content will reside.

If two topics are very similar to one another, but they are not, strictly speaking, redundant, then they should contain links to one another.