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?

YABU

Similar way that watching Horrible Histories is not the same as playing GTA...Or seeing mummies in a museum is different to seeing a dead body on a crime secene...As examples.

But to define why? I'll not sure I can articulate it and will have to defer to the philosophers.

Very common image. I dont see the problem. Its easter. Have you ever visited the art gallery, any churches as the image is there. I have even seen it in childrens books. My dsis dc werent effected by seeing the image and they dont go to church.

It is how oppressive regimes start. They get rid of pictures they don't like, they get rid of art they don't like, destroy books they don't like they sack the teachers they don't like.

Alternatively OP could have word with the distributor and ask not to have it put through her letter box.

There are a lot of publications I don't like and I wouldn't even have them for free (Daily Mail springs to mind) BUT I don't expect to stop it for everyone.
We have freedom of choice and freedom of speech- things that people take for granted without appreciating.

It is a CHURCH magazine. Easter is the most important date for the church. Good Friday is part of the story.

Crucifixes are all over the place e.g. Churches , wayside shrines on European mountain roads etc. It is perfectly possible that you can explain to your child in a very brief non gory way.

This Friday there will be re enactments with the cross. Our town will have hymns in the market place and then carry the crosses 3 miles out of town onto a hillside. People are free to go or not go. I shall not be going. However best avoid town centres,or even village centres, if you want to censor what your child sees.

They will almost certainly have had the Easter story at school anyway. Probably it hasn't made enough impression for them even to mention it at home. Generations have seen a simple picture of a crucifix without being traumatised.

The answer is simple in OP's case. She is receiving a free magazine that she doesn't agree with from an organisation she doesn't agree with.

She needs to ask not to have it put through her letterbox and not expect them to change it to a format she approves of.

Why would anyone want a magazine from an organisation they don't approve of?

As a side issue, and I realise I'm probably being unnecessarily pedantic, but can people please stop claiming that Easter's name is derived from that of an Anglo Saxon goddess? Because there never was a goddess called Eostra (or whichever spelling variation you choose) who was worshipped by the Saxons. This error arose from Bede's The Reckoning of Time in around 703, in which he wrote that the Saxons called the fourth month "Esturmonath" after their goddess Eostra. However, Bede was incorrect and in effect created this deity by confusion over the the Saxon word for spring - there is no other evidence for the existence or worship of this deity, not even in the Eddas which is the main source of Germanic myth and deities. Bede is the earliest mention of her, although she has certainly been adopted over the centuries since. Joseph Grimm (one of the famous brothers) posited a Germanic goddess Ostara in his 1835 book Deutsche Mythologie, but his arguments are largely based in linguistics rather than evidence of the existence of pre-Christian worship of this goddess.

Eastre itself translates roughly to "beginning", so Estormonath is loosely "month of beginnings" or "month of openings", hence spring. (Eostre in Old English means dawn.) English derives (speaking loosely) from Anglo Saxon so our name for the Christian festival of this time of year is based on this same root of beginnings and spring, where other tongues use the Hebrew pasah (to spread) as the base (also linked to Passover (Pesach), the time when Jesus is believed to have been crucified - the last supper was the Passover meal).

Now, there are other deities who serve a similar purpose to what is commonly believed of Eostra/Ostara - such as Eos and Aurora, and sundry goddesses of the dawn - but the fact is that there is little evidence that pre-Christian people even celebrated the equinoxes. Solstices, yes; equinoxes, no. That others have adopted Eostra over the centuries has effectively created her as a goddess of the spring, new life and renewal, but she was not a pre-Christian goddess. Link it to spring, that's absolutely fine and accurate. You can worship Eostra/Ostara according to neo-pagan tradition if that is your belief. But do knock the 'Easter is named after a pre-Christian Anglo Saxon goddess' thing on the head - it's not true.

What I don't understand is why you joined MN (Or name changed) to post this.

Well done on the Christian bashing OP. So very de rigeur. Now you can start on the Jews and the Muslims.

But Mehitabel, to use your example... If the parade with the crosses being carried walked up OPs garden path and opened her door and walked in, then she can't make a decision or an active choice to avoid it.

The way I read the op is, that the image itself, in relation to the story being told, is not a problem. It's the fact that the image is being delivered unsolicited to the ops home.

Actually Easter isn't about remembering the death of Jesus. It's about the resurrection.

Oh for goodness sake OP YABVU!

It's a clip art pic, not a The Passion of the Christ! It's Easter, so it's not like it happens every month.

You don't have to stare at it, if you don't like it, throw it in the bin.

What do you do when the TV flashes images of war and people suffering before the watershed?
There are far worse problems in the world than having to look at Jesus on the cross.

Get a grip

You're being both unreasonable and nasty.

For goodness sake- people don't organise Good Friday events in strangers gardens!
She lives in the parish - there is a free magazine - they put it through doors. They will not put it through doors of people who tell them they don't want it.
They publish it on the cheap- therefore it is a bit of clip art- not a graphic picture!

Yes, maybe the OP could start a hugely affronted thread about unsolicited pizza leaflets put through her door and the fact that they are likely to inculcate dreadful eating/binging habits in her dc, culminating in a raft of irreversible diseases, obesity and , ultimately, death.

Or maybe she could just not be a miserable, curmudgeonly bigoted old whinger and let people celebrate Easter in the ways they wish to.

I want a crucifixion coaster now Myone

People who don't want unsolicited leaflets, magazines etc generally have a little sticker on the letter box - problem solved.
How long has OP been taking the mag without saying she doesn't want it? If she has had more than one month I don't see how the distributer can guess she doesn't want more or that she only wants ones that she personally approves of- simply tell them.

I enjoyed your post ChillieJeannie ,never knew any of that before.

A 'crucifix is too gruesome' thread appears every year around this time.

It's a whole new Easter tradition.

(OP you cannot ask the Church to cease using its chosen iconography. You can ask to be taken off its newsletter).

I have a lot of leaflets through the door which go straight out into the recycling. I never had my children picking them up and avidly reading them!

Reading it again I see it is clip art from 20 yrs ago- hardly graphic!

I'd hate it and ask not to get it, but living in a small village and all that not sure if that rocks your neighbourhood boat too much. But on principle completely agree, DH and I are atheists who come from white christian and Asian Hindu backgrounds and nothing religious is allowed within a mile of our household, so YANBU!!!

Gosh. A parish newsletter using Christian images. Whatever next? At Christmas they will probably be showing an image of an unmarried mother allowing livestock around her baby. So unhygienic.

clutches pearls

"Well done on the Christian bashing OP. So very de rigeur. Now you can start on the Jews and the Muslims."

HOUSE!!!

It amazes me the sheer amount of people who have totally missed the OP's point!

She's been accused of being homophobic, nasty, Christian bashing etc etc- is this clutching at straws perhaps because she UNDENIABLY has a point that people are uncomfortable with her making?

I don't think so. Just that people are fed up of the professionally offended these days.

No, I don't think she has much of a point, as she's talking about clip art. Not realistic representations.