To think the parish newsletter is not appropriate

[NikoBellic]

I'm not talking about the notices regarding the horticultural society, nor am I referring to the village "300 Club", or Gwen's amazing contribution to the village hall this month...

...I realise that unless you live in a rural area, much like fibre broadband, you won't get this...

Each month the parish council post a newsletter through my front door. A quaint little wedge of folded paper with some useful information on local gas safe engineers and who is raising what for which charity, interspersed with reminders to pick up dog poo. The outer cover is usually a lot quality 1995 clip art file along religious lines, printed onto coloured paper of some sort. This month, for the start of spring and the Easter period, its a sort of yellow. Its the cover that I'm not completely comfortable with...

We always hear, particularly from the type of person who lives in a village and reads the parish newsletter, that children should not be subjected to images of violence, sex, and general "bad stuff"...

SO WHY IS OK TO POST A PICTURE OF A BLEEDING MAN BEING CRUCIFIED THROUGH MY LETTERBOX!? (Even if it is in 1995 clip art form).

If I were to post an image of a man being hung through someone's front door I'd have to face, at the very least, a police caution. Seems like double standards from where I'm sat.

In an area where Nigel Farage gets a pat on the back (a man who is offended by seeing a breastfeeding mother in a pub...) why does religion get special dispensation?

Is it OK because its, you know, Jesus?

Am I being unreasonable?

CaffeLatteIceCream

I don't agree with your POV or your historical references but I was going to defend your right to put them right up until you posted this:

I have a perfect right to defend myself from the "Have a bit of respect" brigade

It was the brigade bit that did it.

I didn't report you for that or anything else but why did you feel the need to say that?

This thread has been extremely respectful IMO and I don't understand why MNHQ got involved.

I understand that it was probably because they got some reports. As I said, I was not one of them.

But if you don't like being deleted for what you said, take it up with them and maybe repost it so the rest of us can see it.

FWIW I don't think you've been offensive. I just disagree with you.

The historicity of Jesus is interesting academically, but it doesn't really matter, does it? There were plenty of rebels and rabble rousers and itinerant preachers and people claiming to be prophets and so on. The difference about Jesus, obviously, is the Resurrection. Which, again obviously, is definitely not a historical event

But the point the OP was making wasn't that she was upset by the the image, so in a way who makes the magazine is irrelevant.

She was asking why this violent picture is ok to be posted into her house unsolicited because it's religious and some people believe in the story, but presumably a different picture of a violent execution sent according to someone elses beliefs wouldn't be acceptable.

I've never thought about this before and ultimately I can't get too worked up about it, but her argument is logical really.

I googled 'Easter clip art' and got eggs, chicks, crosses, tombs - the lot. Obviously all thought appropriate, by some, for Easter.

I get the impression that bemused Romans thought that Christianity was some kind of slave death cult. The relevance of Spartacus is that there was a similar (if more political than religious) kind of slave death cult growing about him at roughly similar times - he was apparently crucified too. It was quite a common execution style. Romans wouldn't have seen much difference between the two of them initially. Obviously one 'cult' went on to become a fully formed religion and one didn't and why it did that is still hotly debated and very interesting.

The depiction of the gruesome martyrdom of many of the saints in the following centuries long after Jesus is said to have died would have meant people all saw images of suffering and death in their churches from birth, pretty much, never mind death and suffering being all around them in every day life. The crucifixion image is the last one to survive as a major part of Western society - I think early Christians used other symbols such as chi ro long before the crucifixion became the meditative focus of the Roman Church so I think the crucifixion is as much a product of medieval culture as anything. Children would have been hardened to it then and most people are still fairly desensitised to it now due to its ubiquity. However, I can understand why some people would be a bit more sensitive in this day and age as luckily we rarely see such suffering.

Although I am an atheist now I have always been pretty moved by the imagery and beliefs that underpin the Christian Easter. Whether I believe or not I still freely admit it is some powerful imagery - one of the most powerful memes that humanity has ever generated. It's not that religion gets 'special dispensation' - that assumes that religion is separate from our culture and is given 'permission' to exist. It is an intrinsic foundational part of our modern culture, for good or ill.

Our culture does seem more forgiving of violent imagery compared with, say, sexual imagery. That is partly because of our religious history and local social taboos. 1. It kind of is appropriate imagery because it is collectively considered to be an acceptable image of state violence committed against a self sacrificing Messiah even though similar images of not-Jesuses would not be allowed. 2. It kind of isn't appropriate because it's a man suffering a horrible death through the medium of old school clip-art on your doormat. The second opinion is still fairly rare, even now.

Of course it is logical. If she gets unsolicited things through her post, from any organisation, ask to be taken off the list, if she knows who to approach. Or put it in the recycling- without reading. Don't expect it to be re done to her specifications. ( unless she offers to do the work)

"I am not sure I understand that. When do you think Christianity started? When did followers of Jesus start telling people he had risen from the dead?"

Well, he appeared to the disciples several times- 3 or 4, I think. But he told them to go out and evangelize on Ascention Day on the Sea of Galilee. So techmically, I suppose, Christianity started 40 days after Easter Sunday.

TalkinPeace The simple answer for the moveable date of Easter is that the earliest Christians (all originally Jewish, and the Jewish calendar is lunar) marked the death and resurrection of Jesus at the same time as Passover, since it was at Passover that the events of what we now call Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Sunday took place. Sometime in the 2nd century there are accounts of a more Christian form of Easter, but although the festival itself was widespread the form the marking of it took tended to be localised.

It wasn't until the Council of Nicaea in 325 that separation from the Jewish calendar took place. There were years of arguments over the setting of the date. It initially wasn't fixed as a Sunday because it followed the date of Passover each year, but then once it was fixed on a Sunday there were controversies over how to calculate which Sunday it was. Early British Christians marked Easter on a different date to the incoming missionaries of the Church of Rome, and it wasn't until the Synod of Whitby in 664 that the same method of computation as in the Roman Church was adopted in the British Isles. Even now, the Orthodox Churches mark Easter at a different time to the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches.

As regards the dating of Christmas, it probably does have something to do with the adoption of well established winter festivals, although there are writers in the early church such as Irenaeus who set Jesus' birth nine months the Annunciation, which was fixed as 25th March. This would make Christmas 25th December. Again, this ties in with the Jewish calendar and Passover, wherein 14 Nisan was held to be the date of creation and of the Passover/Exodus. Both the death of Jesus and the beginning of his earthly life were deemed to have been on the same date, from which begins the 'new creation'.

Christmas wasn't really that important as a festival in the early church, it tended to be Epiphany (6th January) that was regarded as significant. Even there, the different churches marked different things at Epiphany. In the west it was the visit of the Magi (thought to have been when Jesus would have been about 2 - they didn't show up at the nativity itself), while in the east it is everything up to Jesus' baptism by John in the river Jordan.

Christmas became more prominent after Charlemagne's Christmas Day coronation as Emperor in 800 and it really does dominate these days, but Easter is the most important festival of the Christian calendar. The birth and infancy narratives of the canonical gospels are considered by biblical scholars to be later additions, and of the canonical gospels the one believed to the oldest (Mark) does not include any birth or infancy narrative at all and begins at Jesus' baptism by John.

Chillie
Mine was a rhetorical facetious question.
You have told me nothing I'd not read up on at great length already.
Shame more Christians are not better informed.

Let alone the family tree of religions which is highly entertaining

Sovery, I don't understand the question- sorry. But no I don't believe in Jesus Christ. I am ambivalent about the existence of a historical figure cqlled jesus.

The recorded beginnings of Christianity are a matter of record.
No great hassle there.

YANBU It is inappropriate. And in a time when real people are being crucified I'm not comfortable with a romanticised version of such a horrible death.

Sorry TalkinPeace I clearly misread you.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/philosophy_religion_spirituality/1699996-The-Great-Jesus-debate-Did-he-exist-at-all-and-if-he-did-what-reasons-do-we-have-to-believe-he-was-divine?watched=1

Thread from a couple of years ago where some v knowledgeable MNers discussed evidence for/against existence of Jesus.

I found it fascinating and learned a lot.