People are fine with being disrespectful to Christians

[Flymetothezoom]

At a church playgroup. The people who run it are very devout Christians. I am taken aback, by the number of parents, who thought it was appropriate to bring their kids to the church dressed for Halloween. Kids are dressed as witches, goblins, skeletons, creepy pumpkins etc..
The church holds a light party every year on Halloween and is very clear that they do not endorse Halloween.

Maybe within other cultural communities people do. Maybe dressing as a Rabbi is common in predominantly culturally Jewish countries for eg.

This county is predominantly culturally Christian, we have public holidays for Christmas and Easter, shops operate limited hours on a Sunday etc, so people dressing as religious figures from Christian faiths is hardly surprising.

I understand that, but as an individual who is a Christian I have no way of controlling what other people do or how they conduct themselves. As has been established, it is a very diverse group but people tend to lump us all together 🤷‍♀️.

@Worki Christains are the persecuters

You are mistaken.

Religion is a human universal, and historically there have been no atheist societies. It is therefore impossible to argue that non-religious societies were less violent than religious ones.

The officially atheist societies that arose in the Communist world in the twentieth century were not more peaceful than others. They warred, exported revolution, and killed tens of millions of people, including their own citizens.

If religion predisposed people to violence, we should see this on the small scale, yet violent criminals don’t usually seem to be devout churchgoers.

Ultimately, religions don’t go to war. Governments do, and they usually must convince an ambivalent populace of their decision to do so. In this, they may use religion as a motivating factor (whether or not the religion of the enemies is different), but that doesn’t make religion the cause of war/persecution.

Powderandpaint

if you can produce a reliable source for that outrageous claim I’ll convert to Christianity

@SomePosters if you can produce a reliable source for that outrageous claim I’ll convert to Christianity

Which claim do you refer to?

Agreed. Those so called Christians who oppress and hate on others make me so sad and angry as a Christian who just wants to follow Jesus and love others. They show the opposite to love and it's just maddening that they are the ones who sully it for everyone else.. but it's the same as with extremists in every religion eg in Islam.

Reading with intrigue

Our church runs a light party but on the publicity, we pick a costume theme such as superheroes or something similar. We always say politely 'no scary costumes please'.

If the church hasn't expressly said that, then I think you can assume they don't mind how kids are dressed.

You are correct. I'm Jewish and my ex-fil was a C of E vicar. They started doing Christian versions of Seders sometime in the 90s/00s. This was in the south of England, a very staid, traditional community. Bloody odd.

Christians are the most persecuted religious group in the world.

Um... I'm Jewish. More than a third of the world's Jews were murdered in ww2 alone. Leaving aside all the pogroms, terrorist attacks, medieval torture, Spanish inquisition, black death, and so on.

I don't know what 'statistics' you mean, but it's certainly not as a proportion of the whole population.

www.gov.uk/government/speeches/persecution-of-christians-review-foreign-secretarys-speech-following-the-final-report

www.christianitytoday.com/news/2022/january/christian-persecution-2022-countries-killed-world-list.html

‘The group Open Doors USA figures that 360 million Christians last year lived in countries where persecution was “significant.” Roughly 5,600 Christians were murdered, more than 6,000 were detained or imprisoned, and another 4,000-plus were kidnapped. In addition, more than 5,000 churches and other religious facilities were destroyed.’

For some reason the link to the article this (above) is from won’t post, but anyone who wants could search ‘Christianity Is the World’s Most Persecuted Religion, Confirms New Report’.

’‘A report which was commissioned by the British foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt and published in May 2019 stated that the level and nature of persecution of Christians in the Middle East "is arguably coming close to meeting the international definition of genocide, according to that adopted by the UN." ‘
Wikipedia, Persecution of Christians.

@mam0918 I dont think people who dont believe the rising story are wrong as I dont fully believe it myself

You say you are a Christian who doesn't believe the resurrection?

What denomination do you belong to, Unitarian ?

Not all Christian’s are anti Halloween, not all Christian’s are anti LGBT. So taking it that you think it would be ok for LGBT families to attend as the organisers don’t speak for the whole church the same goes for Halloween fancy dress.

As an aside I’ve found that some supposed Christians can often be shown to have more unchristian beliefs and characteristics than other sections of society- generosity, love, respect…

So yes respect does have to be earned.

Less Christian beliefs- but you get my drift.

Haven't read the full whopping thread. I was raised Catholic and went to Catholic school from I was 3 until I was 18. Halloween was never an issue.

I became one a Protestant as an adult and completely changed my opinion on Halloween having studied scripture myself. The Catholic Church endorses and tolerates (either officially or by the acts of Catholcs) a lot of things which scripture is clearly against. I see that the RC Church and its viewpoints is often used as a measure of whether something is aligned with Christian views or not.

As a Christian, I couldnt partake in Halloween in good conscience. I also think that people are quicker to criticise Christianity than other religions, but understand that Jesus said this would happen in the Bible.

off to read full thread

Well, I don’t know about other Mumsnetters, but I tend to be more critical of Christianity because that’s the religion I know a lot about, because it’s the one that tried to mess me up.

On the other hand, it does mean I can quote chapter and verse when doorstepped by evangelists. Which always seems to confuse them, coming from an atheist.

@ZoeCM Kind of an odd coincidence that God told men that the privilege he gave them was to be in charge, and the privilege he gave women was to pop out babies.

So you don't think that giving birth and creating new life is not only a privilege but a very special and unique ability? (And something that men will never have.)

Seems an odd thing to say on a forum called 'Mumsnet' 🤔

@ShandyinthejarroThe Catholic Church endorses and tolerates (either officially or by the acts of Catholcs) a lot of things which scripture is clearly against.

That is your opinion as a Protestant^ which you are entitled to have, but please don't make out that it's fact.

OP, Some Christians are offended by Halloween.

Erm a church group near us was handing out tea and cakes last night and saying "Happy Hallowe'en and God bless" to all the children dressed up for trick or treating.

@Tw33dleD33 So yes respect does have to be earned.

I agree.

A pity the dogmatic, rude and intolerant atheists on these threads don't see that their behaviour does them no favours.

True. But I think that the word ‘atheists’ in that sentence could be replaced with practically any plural noun pertaining to people, and could then be posted on any thread at all.

Ah my mistake then. It was more my wording I didn't mean to sound like I was recruiting. As a pp said on here I'm more into the Christian way of community, being kind and all that type of thing. Not one of those who shout in the streets that you're all going to hell if you don't love God.