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Case file

Folk religion

In 2005 Wikipedia's first sentence called it “called " folk christianity "”. Today it says “distinct from the doctrines and practices of organized religion”.
Measured, not asserted. Every count, date and revision on this page was taken from Wikipedia's own history and checked against the live article. The words quoted are theirs.
Machine-checked against the full current article on 2026-08-03.
We saved snapshots of this article over twenty years; you are reading the 2005 one. Red dashes: removed from Wikipedia since. Pale dots: rewritten; the numbered note shows what it says now. 1 tap a number or a side note to jump between them
The opening as it read in 2005

Folk religion consists of beliefs , superstitions and cultural practices transmitted from generation to generation, in addition to the formally stated creeds and beliefs of a codified major religion . The term is also applied to the blending of folk practices with those of major religions, so that folk practices amongst people in Christian countries are called " Folk Christianity ", in Islamic countries " Folk Islam ", and so on.1 The term is also used, especially by the clergy of the faiths involved, to describe the desire of people who otherwise infrequently attend religious worship , do not belong to a church or similar religious society, and who have not made a formal profession of faith in a particular creed , to have religious weddings or funerals , or (among Christians) to have their children baptised . Folk religion also can be thought of the practice of religion by lay people outside of the control of clergy or the supervision of theologians .2 There is occasionally tension between the practice of folk religion and the formally taught doctrines and teachings of a faith.3 Folk religion answers human needs for reassurance in times of trouble, and many of its rituals are aimed at mundane goals like seeking healing or averting misfortune. Many elements of folk religion stem from animistic or fetishistic practices, which is almost inevitable given its mundane goals and ritualistic nature. Folk religion also often aims at divination to foresee the future. The line is often blurry between the practice of folk religion and the practice of magic : see magic and religion . In general, believers in these folk versions of a religion are usually not aware of any distinction between their folk practices and their official religion. No one consciously practices a folk religion or calls their own religious practices a folk religion. When awareness of the tension between folk religion and the formal creed of an institutional religion rises to conscious levels, and the folk religion successfully resists that tension, it is well on its way to becoming an institutional religion in its own right, and develops a body of doctrine of its own to justify its continued practice against the institutional opposition. The folk religion with the largest number of adherents is the Chinese folk religion .4

This is Wikipedia's own text, saved in our repository. Their copy of it is revision 15987912.
Today
In 2005 Wikipedia's first sentence called it “called " folk christianity "”. Today it says “distinct from the doctrines and practices of organized religion”. Read the current article and compare.
2005201020152020Oct '232025
Counts in the opening at each snapshot. Green: the word gained ground. Red: it was cut. Grey: no change.

What Wikipedia says this is

Every article opens by defining its subject. This one was redefined since 2005, and today's defining sentence is their current revision.

Then

called " folk christianity "

Now

distinct from the doctrines and practices of organized religion

Struck red text is no longer in the article; dotted amber text was rewritten. Every revision id links to Wikipedia's copy; the text shown is our own saved copy. Data: /data. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA; quoted for the record; not affiliated with Wikipedia.

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