Christmas song misogyny taught to kids

[kindnessmatters]

We need to stop the misogyny of words in everyday life, that lets men think that they can do whatever they want against and to women
The words of this christmas song seem to strongly show coercion and rape:
What do you think? How can we prevent such words continuing to be used ?
How can we stop these creepy sickening words be taught to children in schools, churches and community choirs please?
Gabriel’s Message
The angel Gabriel from heaven came,
His wings as drifted snow, his eyes as flame:
"All hail said he, thou lowly maiden Mary,
Most highly favoured lady." Gloria!
"For known a blessed mother thou shalt be,
All generations laud and honour thee;
Thy son shall be Emmanuel, by seers foretold,
Most highly favoured lady." Gloria!
The gentle Mary meekly bowed her head;
"To me be as it pleaseth God," she said.
"My soul shall laud and magnify God’s holy name."
Most highly favoured lady." Gloria!
Of her, Emmanuel, the Christ, was born
In Bethlehem all on a Christmas morn,
And Christian folk through-out the world will ever say:
"Most highly favoured lady." Gloria!
My friend has tried to ask an otherwise-seemingly-good-choir-master (male) not to use them, but has been ignored

Every Breath you take is creepier

Let's not even start on Living Doll and Claire.

How about We four Beatles from Liverpool are

I can't sing We three Kings as the Beatles version always pops into my head.

When I say the Beatles version I don't mean they sang it, we school kids in the 60s definitely did.

@freyamay74 👆🏻

You're being completely ridiculous. The whole point of the entire thing is that it was a VIRGIN birth. No child is ever going to read or sing those words and come up with your ludicrous interpretation.

Now if this had been a thread about what a dirge most carols are I'd be 100% in agreement.

You're being completely ridiculous sums it up in four words.

Let's not even start on Living Doll and Claire.
**
Take Good Care Of My Baby is another one that springs to mind.

This post has upset me so much that I actually feel quite emotional about it. The fact that you can be so uninformed yet so full of hatred towards a religion that you’d try and incite hatred in this way.

Mary not only gave consent, but her giving of consent is essential. Like I said before, it’s a HUGE point. This moment that you’re undermining and misunderstanding is, to many people, an absolutely sacred moment and you’re being extremely insulting by not even bothering to research this before you make your criticism.

As a young, poor woman, with no rights and no power in her society, she accepted, with great courage and great faith, to be the mother of the Son of God. If anything, this is the opposite of sexist, this moment (along with other moments in the bible) emphasises the power and importance of women, and specifically, mothers. This is great wisdom and mercy that can only have been given by a woman and which has literally saved humanity from eternal suffering.

You don’t have to be a Catholic or a Christian at all. You don’t have to believe this. But if you’re going to mention it at all, at least make the effort to understand. A simple Google would have explained it to you, you needn’t read a huge text about it.

You have misunderstood. You have an agenda and you’re setting out to prove it which is fine. We all do this sometimes. But do it wisely. At least do some basic research before you make statements like these. You are very wrong here and appear very ignorant, misinformed, and frankly, hateful. I hope you can learn from this and next time just make some effort to understand other religions and cultures before you attack them.

Spookypig, several of us have patiently explained to OP that no sex was involved in the conception of Christ by the Holy Spirit, that Mary freely consented, and remained a virgin until after the birth.
But OP is either of very limited intellectual understanding, or is wilfully refusing to accept that she got the whole nativity narrative wrong.
She is stubbornly pursuing an atheist agenda to try and disparage Christianity on totally spurious grounds. There is no point in engaging further with someone who won’t admit they did no research and got completely the wrong end of the stick.
An apology would have been nice, but I doubt we will get one!

Choirmaster. Leads the choir. Could be a Choir Director.

Clue's in the name.

You'd think he had enough to do with keeping the basses clear on pp. not meaning FORTISSIMO and persuading the 2nd sops. to stop glaring daggers because the Altos have a bit of the melody for a change. But, no.

You’re completely right, of course. Thank you for your post, I needed that - I’d let it upset me when to be quite honest she’s either (best case scenario) very misinformed or (worst case scenario) a troll. An apology would be nice, but I won’t hold my breath! 😁

Have the 'We should ban Do They Know It's Christmas' threads started yet?

Don't fret - one will be along any minute!

There are times when I am happy that I am heading towards old age - this sort of rubbish is only going to get worse (unless a younger generation develops some common sense and drops the perpetually offended mantle)

Such a great post!

I have to say that some of the laziest, sloppiest thinking is displayed in anti-Christian, militant atheist posts like these. Catholic theologians worth their salt would shred the OP to pieces.

I have to say that some of the laziest, sloppiest thinking is displayed in anti-Christian, militant atheist posts like these.

Yes, and it's always Christians in the firing line, or occasionally the extremist fringes of Islam. Not that I would like it for people of other faiths, of course, who should be given the respect to believe and worship as they do.

I doubt that he personally is on MN, but I'm always amazed at how much of their lives people like Richard Dawkins dedicate to writing about something that, to them, seems pointless and absurd. It's not even like Christianity is a dominant or controlling force in society anymore; quite the opposite, in fact.

I hate football and the obsession that so many have in following it seems crazy and pointless to me - but instead of writing half a dozen books about why I am right and they are all wrong, I just leave the fans to it, wish them well and don't spend hours of my life obsessing about it (much less make being a non-football-fan into a lucrative career). It doesn't really feature in my consciousness at all, except when I'm grumbling because the endless World Cup coverage has bumped my preferred programmes off or all around the schedules.

*it's always Christians in the firing line, or occasionally the extremist fringes of Islam.

Not just "occasional extremist fringes of Islam" sadly. There's a Muslim woman in AMA at the moment who's come in for a lot of abuse.

This is about an era when the woman's consent, or otherwise, was generally considered pretty much irrelevant. And yet Mary's consent was not just recorded but so were her motivations. Not just recorded but immortalised. This was a massive step forward.

KillingLoneliness · Yesterday 10:19
I’ve literally never heard this Carol before and I highly doubt my children have as well, is it commonly played in schools? Or only religious ones?

It is a very famous Christmas Carol with especially lovely music, though not as famous as say, Silent Night.

You probably wouldn’t ever hear it in the canned music background for Christmas shopping.

You would probably hear it in a school with a good choir singing Christmas carols, or in a Carol service in a church.

For anyone who doesn’t know it, and for those who think it one of the most lovely carols, here is a link to a beautiful rendition of it.
m.youtube.com/watch?v=a4mR6HXRARI&pp=QAFIAQ%3D%3D

🙄

Well, if you’re going to get jumpy about the textual content of Christmas carols, presumably you’ll refuse to sing ‘Once in Royal David’s City’, since that says that Christian children should be mild, obedient and good?

OP, what other songs will you be singing? I'm trying to gauge what sort of choir this is.

(My Christmas carol gripe is whether "Veiled in flesh the Godhead see!" in "Hark, the Herald Angels sing" counts as docetism, which was condemned as heresy by First Nicaea...)

@BadGranny I always have problems reconciling those OIRDC words with the tale of 12 year old Jesus disappearing to the Temple for hours without telling his mum and giving the rabbis the third degree on their teaching. Obedient? I doubt it.

PhotoDad · Today 18:47
OP, what other songs will you be singing? I'm trying to gauge what sort of choir this is

(My Christmas carol gripe is whether "Veiled in flesh the Godhead see!" in "Hark, the Herald Angels sing" counts as docetism, which was condemned as heresy by First Nicaea...

I went to look up docetism and saw it is the belief that Jesus was a phantasm or an illusion, or not literally human.

I see what you mean about veiled in flesh being docetism, But ‘flesh’ sounds so tangible and fleshy that maybe the ‘veiled’ is cancelled and it isn’t docetism after all
Docetism:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Docetism.

@ScrollingLeaves
Yes, I'm not really calling Charles Wesley a heretic! But actually a lot of well-known hymns and carols have lines which are theologically dodgy. (I've spent some time studying early heresies as part of a degree and then you start to spot stuff.)

Not, I think, "Most Highly Favoured Lady" though. I'd like to know the context of where/when it's going to be sung if the OP returns!