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.

Any good Baptist worth their salt wouldn't touch that lot with a barge pole.

Funny, I suspect the WBC may think that you are not really a Christian.

@TeamRR I suspect they would, fortunately.

Halloween is massive here in Ireland. Huge. Always has been. I went to a Catholic school and we had Halloween disco's every year. And in primary school we came in dress

*posted too soon

Dresses up. Kids are still doing the same these days. It's not disrespectful to Christians 🙄

I would say Westboro Baptists are sadly examples of extremists and I'd say the majority of Christians would strongly denounce their approach. Extremists exist in almost viewpoint and every religion though there's also elements of cultism and exploitation/manipulation thrown in there to boot. It's another reason why it's so crucial to be self critical and question what you're taught and believe and be able to listen to and consider different viewpoints so things don't get so derailed that they get harmful. I wouldn't say that's exclusive to religion though- I think that goes for any collective of people in institutions, charities, care environments etc .

@Cw112 I fully agree.

Being extremists doesn't make them not Christians.

@arctica Did you just come here for a fight?

This! I am centre left. There is an extreme left. I dislike and don’t agree with a lot of their methods/aims but I accept that we both sit on the same political branch.

@TheWurst Not the same thing at all. I'm a Conservative Christian who takes a rather literal approach to the Bible but the WBC certainly don't represent any of my beliefs.

But @Vincitveritas they would say you were the one who wasn't a Christian. And you'd probably say that progressive Christians weren't Christians either. You all believe you're the one and only. There's no way of knowing who's right and who's wrong. I'm actually OK with that, I just want all of you theists to keep your noses out of the making of laws and the running of nations.

What? No, I'm responding to you on a message board.

It’s literally the same thing. You fall broadly into the same camp. In fact as a conservative Christian with a literal interpretation of the bible you are probably closer to WBC than say Anglicans in your beliefs. You may not like their methods (who would) and their beliefs may be more extreme but given they are also conservative Christians who take the bible pretty literally you will have similarities in your belief systems whether you want to accept that or not.

@pointythings I get that, you make a good point but I find the comparison of other posters unfair. This thread has turned into a hot mess.

I don't think they comparison between an entire faith and a political party or doctrine is fair.

Would be better demonstrated as proportional representation in which the WBC is one mp and nearly all the other MPs hate them passionately

@OneTC Yes, that's it, great way of putting it.

@OneTC that isn't a bad analogy at all, I like it.

@Vincitveritas this thread started out asking whether people were fine with being disrespectful to Christians, and quoted an example that was actually pretty poor because it was not made clear whether or not the church group in question actually objected to Halloween type costumes and had communicated that objection if so.

I think things were always going to devolve into 'not all Christians are the same' because the question was a bit 'how long is a piece of string'.

FWIW I feel that there are too many groups within Christianity whose only interest in life seems to be about controlling people and sucking the fun out of life. I've got no time for that - fortunately neither do the Christian people who are my friends and loved ones.

@OneTC - but WBC don’t exist in a vacuum. They are Christians. They are known for their hatred of LGBTQ people, and picketing funerals but their actual religious doctrine is baptist. I am not saying for a second @Vincitveritas has the same extremity of beliefs or preaches hate, but they will likely have some areas of similarity by virtue of both being conservative Christian’s who take the bible literally. Christianity is a broad church but it has some consistent themes that run through all of it or it wouldn’t be a religion, and then consistent sub streams within that. Two sets of Christians who believe in creationism for example will be on closer branches than one who believes God used evolution to create the world. Taking the Bible literally is a pretty distinct branch within Christianity in itself.

@pointythings Hopefully I'm not one of the fun suckers! Goodnight.

@TheWurst ISWYM and thank you, I'm not inclined to stand on street corners shouting about fire and brimstone. 😀

We went to a Halloween party at the weekend run by a vicar and everyone was very happy. I don’t get this light party rubbish

Is the Omen not about 666/the second coming of Christ/ the ride of the Antichrist,
where those who don’t ascend into heaven remain on earth and suffer, or am I misremembering? Several churches show it though. The message is in line with Christian teaching, surely? I think I first saw it at a church. Freaked me right out. I hate horror films though.

@Vincitveritas - you didn’t seem the type 😉

Yeah okay but I've/you've probably got a load in common with any full blown extremists, just not the extremist bits.

Yes they're representative of the same thing, but as you said it's broad, but I contend it's broad enough, and disparate enough in the beliefs that give denominations and sub groups their individual flavour that there's plenty room for extremism that almost everyone else will reject wholesale.