That prayer to Jesus is inappropriate at a company party?

The festival may be dedicated to him for some people, but was hijacked from pagans, who are celerating their own ways. As are the millions of people who are of different faiths, or none who celebrate the cultural festival. Nothing to do with Jesus for many.

That is weird. I'm presuming she just said she wanted to say a few words, they handed her the mic and she went for it. Rather than it being an ingrained part of company culture.

If they are having this then they should make a point of asking people who follow other faiths if they want to say something or do something religious relating to mealtimes.

It should be all or nothing. Or it could seem discriminatory.

I suspect the person asked to 'say a few words' was a practising Christian and just said what they would say before a meal, particularly at Christmas. Someone else would have offended with innuendo about staff members or bored everyone with the a detailed assessment of the sales figures for the year.

Because most people in this country who celebrate Christmas aren't Christians, or in name only.

Was the prayer officially sanctioned? Are the management religious? Or was it some half drunk person let loose near a mike?
A private company with a manager who wants a prayer before a meal, you'll have to suck it up. Loose cannon prayer is worth complaining about.

Is she new to the company?

No it isn't. It is a celebation of christmas. For some that is about jesus, but for very many it has nothing to do with religion at all.

Oh I also think the prayer at work is not really Ok- you risk singling out anyone that didn’t partake. Work should be non denominational unless you work for CoE or a synagogue or something. The latter probably not going big on Christmas…

The word "Christmas" comes from Christianity but the date has nothing to with Christianity. There were pagan festivals at that time of year to celebrate the winter solstice long before Jesus was born. Nowadays "Christmas" is often used just to signify the time of year, and very few Christmas parties or events refer to Jesus at all (church services and school nativity plays excepted!)

In an openly Christian organisation a prayer to Jesus would of course be fine, but otherwise I as a non-Christian would find it alienating. It implies that non-Christian employees are less important outsiders. I’d be very surprised if an HR department approved it.

I'm not religious at all and our Christmas is very much in Western-cultural-celebration sense - I wouldn't care about this either way. I think it's kinda nice that for some people it's still got an element of religious tradition.

If however it was designed to make some kind of insular point to non-Christians that would bother me.

Saturnalia, solstice & Yule celebrations across Europe involved holly, mistletoe, feasting and song and predate Christianity by hundreds of years. Early Christian’s piggybacked on these traditional midwinter feasts to gain acceptance.

So everyone is right- it can be about Jesus and it also very credibly can be about brightening up the bleakest months with some shared alcohol, nuts and I dunno, sweetbreads or whatever.

It would be as weird as fuck to me to go to someone's house and for them to say grace. I am 57 and this has never happened to me.

Odd thing though, technically Jesus was not a Christian.

Matt 5:18, he himself is saying what he is.

My personal thought is that Christians should really be known as Paulines. Paul appears to have invented a big chunk of Christianity. And he never even knew the guy.

Happy Paulmass everyone :-)

As an atheist I just sit and look around the room when these things occur. You usually find that there will be several other kindred spirits doing the same thing.

OP, do you mean that the person said Grace before the meal? That used to be very much standard at large functions, and everyone just went with it, whether religious or not (at really smart events, Grace would be said in Latin!).
But I do agree that it's less common these days.

Or they could remember the Pagan ceremony the Christian's hijacked.

my last post as this gets heated every year & I just cannot be bothered arguing.

I’m an atheist and yes it’s a-bit weird but I wouldn’t go as far to say inappropriate.
At the end of the day, who is it hurting…no one! If it made her better, fine.
Nothing to get worked up over.

So why does it matter? They're just words

No, it isn't weird.

The UK is a country with a culturally Christian history. Christmas Day is a bank holiday. Our stores are full of Christmas items. Our TVs are filled with Christmas shows. We perform in nativity plays at school.

Christmas is hard to avoid but you can engage in all of these things very happily without thinking very much about Jesus. I know I do.

I can assure you that my Christmas celebrations are about the real people I love and the real experience of lighting up the darkest days of the year rather than honouring an imaginary supernatural being. Now, that is weird.

By "everyone was expected to bow their heads" was this stated beforehand? I have been to different churches and not everyone there bows their head so I think the request of everyone to bow their head is a little strange but I dont see a problem with the prayer beforehand at a Christmas event. Except in this case it seems, people arent obligated to take part 🤷🏽‍♀️

Interesting example (putting aside that Easter is probably only indirectly linked to Eostre via a month name I think)

If a Pagan offered a prayer to Eostre at a work Easter party, I’d find it weird but not inappropriate. Ditto Christian, I’d find it a bit less weird but also not inappropriate.

The inappropriateness is in the detail though. If a senior person and/or joining in is expected then I would find that inappropriate. From the OP it sounds a bit borderline as to whether that was the case.

I think the borderline nature also comes from the fact that Christmas is a borderline Christian/general secular festival. I wouldn’t object to a Muslim prayer at a work Eid do, for example, because Eid hasn’t made that transition. That affects what attendees’ reasonable expectations of the event are.

I bet none of the Muslims and Jews were offended, only the agnostics. If it means nothing to you it's just words.

I would be offended if a Muslim preyed at me, yes. Luckily it wouldn’t happen.

Prayed at you?
You phrase it as though a simple act of prayer is something that can be aimed at a person - like attack by prayer.

Did Mavis get right in front of the OP and scream and spit the prayer at her face?

Are you exaggerating Mavis’s style of prayer so you can virtue signal about your tolerance towards Muslim Prayers while displaying intolerance towards Christians?

I'm an atheist. I celebrate "christmas" as a secular holiday that celebrates family. The celebration at this time of year was originally a pagan festival that was hijacked by Christianity. They had an excellent recruitment department who realised that they'd never get the pagans to buy in unless they had festivals around the same time of year and thus created Christmas and Easter.

I really can't see the problem. If someone doesn't want to bow their heads they don't have to.