To be furious at local church carol service

[YogaGrinch]

With our new "fundamentalist " vicar who included genesis 3 16

And other misogynistic patriarchal quotes and suggestions throughout the service -

Listening to the King's college Cambridge service tonight was a completely different service although there too there were some dated patriarchal views shared?

And basically using opportunity of a full church to preach hellfire and brimstone snd call us all hypocrites and sinners rather than preaching love kindness beauty

Never heard anything like it

Was absolutely 💔

Not to mention the extensive and systematic child abuse. As it turns out even the family hand selected to rule us by "god" are up to it. But I suppose when even the Christmas story includes the mass killing of under 2s what can you expect.

Yes, the invaders (the Romans in this case) thought nothing of slaughtering the children of the indigenous Jewish people of Israel it seems (well according to the Christmas story). But then anti semitism has a very long history.

I love reading the desperate nature of anti christians at Christmas time. It’s always clear they have zero understanding of Christianity, have no comprehension of cultural Christianity and just want to attach wild accusations to the term Christian for AI purposes. It’s hilarious. Wonder how they’re coping with the rise of Christianity both within the UK and across the world.

Because it’s widely debated if that’s the case, bizarrely. There are also religions such as JW who believe it’s not mistranslated as god wouldn’t allow his word to be mistranslated so take it very literal. Also, most of society is built around the bible in one way or another so the upheaval would be insane

Those are the traditional 9 lessons that are used throughout the Anglican communion. Not new by any means. They are a way to teach the whole story of humanity and our relationship to God as it's changed through the millennia.

I'm glad you enjoy it! But I hate to break it to you Christianity is on the decline in the UK less than 50% of Brits now identify as Christian, less than 5% attend church at Christmas which is the busiest attendance of the year. The only religion growing in the UK is Islam.

You'd think god would step up again and send some plagues like he did to the Egyptians. He does seem to be turning a bit of a blind eye over the last 150 years to the plight of his people.

I go to church most weeks and always attend nine lessons and carols. That particular verse has never been read out during the carol service. My church is quite "high church" in some of its ways but the preaching and overall ethos is very open and liberal. We have an asylum hotel in town and people from the church have done a lot, practically, to support the residents. There is no homophobia or anti-female rhetoric - 2/3 of the vicars and the local Bishop are all women. We've also had a vicar in a same-sex relationship.

I think individual vicars can influence the message the church sends. We've had several new vicars in the years I've been attending but although they all have their own way of doing things, a similar message has always been spread. If anyone started coming in and preaching intolerance I (and probably many others in the congregation) would go elsewhere.

I think the people who have utterly lost it are the ones taking advice from, and quoting, an ancient and bonkers book, written before people had scientific knowledge and featuring a person with magical powers.

Does it never strike people as bonkers?! I can't grasp why people take it so seriously and literally?!

I’m not religious but I do some times go to church with family. There have been a couple of fire and brimstone services over the years. Most memorably for me was a visiting Irish priest who was touting for second collection and sort of suggested you should pay to love god. Another time there was a danger of Islam service from a Canadian which was a bit bonkers.

Just to repeat my questions:

1. I wonder where you picked up that idea? Do you have any first hand experience of Christianity?
2. Are you aware of the extensive charitable, educational and medical work done by Christian and other religious bodies

I can't grasp why people take it so seriously and literally?!
Because they understand something about it.
Obviously only halfwits would believe in the kind of outfit you portray, but you've got hold of the wrong end of the stick. I wonder where you picked up these ideas.

I understand why it sounds bonkers from the outside. The Bible itself expects that reaction — “the message of the cross is foolishness” to many (1 Corinthians 1:18). Christians aren’t shocked by scepticism, and we’re not meant to respond with contempt.

Christians don’t take the Bible seriously because it’s ancient or anti-science. There are a huge array of scientists, Nobel prize winners, academics, professors, etc who are far more intelligent than many of us who have faith in the Bible. We take it seriously because it centres on a claim: that God has acted in history, most clearly in Jesus. The Bible isn’t a flat rulebook — it’s a collection of history, poetry, wisdom, and eyewitness testimony, all pointing to him.

It also doesn’t demand blind belief. Scripture invites questioning and reflection — “Come, let us reason together” (Isaiah 1:18), “test everything” (1 Thessalonians 5:21). Faith in the Bible is never coerced; it’s always an invitation. Jesus himself allowed people to walk away.

If God doesn’t exist, miracles will sound like nonsense. But if God does exist, then they’re not incoherent — they’re signs pointing to who Jesus is.

Christians take the Bible seriously not because it flatters us, but because it challenges us — exposing pride, calling for costly love, and offering forgiveness and hope. For many of us, faith isn’t about switching off our minds, but responding, however imperfectly, to something we believe is real.

I hear the anger in this, and honestly, all of what you mention grieves Christians too. The Bible never excuses abuse, corruption, or the use of God’s name to justify power. In fact, it condemns it sharply. Jesus reserved his strongest words not for doubters, but for religious leaders who harmed others — “It would be better for them to have a millstone hung around their neck” than to cause a child to stumble (Matthew 18:6).

When people say “this is God’s hand” to explain cruelty or abuse, they’re often saying something the Bible itself rejects. Scripture is clear that God is not the author of evil, and that human sin — including the lust for power — causes real harm. The Bible doesn’t sanitise this; it exposes it. Kings, priests, and even God’s chosen people are shown failing again and again.

You’re right that the Christmas story includes the killing of children — but crucially, that massacre is not portrayed as God’s will. It’s the act of a paranoid ruler clinging to power. The story condemns it. And at the centre of Christmas is not a powerful family “hand-selected to rule”, but a vulnerable child born under occupation, whose family flees as refugees. Christianity begins not with God endorsing violence, but with God entering a violent world and suffering under it.

For Christians, the cross is where God most clearly reveals himself — not in domination, but in bearing injustice and abuse rather than inflicting it. That doesn’t make the pain disappear, and it doesn’t answer every question. But it does mean that Christianity doesn’t pretend evil is good, or that God is comfortable with it.

I don’t expect this to resolve the anger — some of it is deeply justified. But I hope it helps to show that the Bible is not blind to these horrors, nor is it cheering them on. It names them, grieves them, and insists they are not the last word.

But Christ himself seemed to have liked and respected women and actively sought out their company - it was women he appeared to first when he rose from the dead, and there are loads of examples in the Bible of him talking to women, and defending them from accusations and condemnation. My impression is he saw women as equals.

Something certainly happened to change this with the establishment of organised patriarchal churches. Somebody told me it was St Paul who started the drift (I’d have to look it up).

The problem with Christianity in my view is the inability of Christ’s followers to remember or respect what he said - instead choosing to do the exact opposite in his name (religious wars, persecution of different branches of Christianity, torture, burning at stakes - right into the present time with child abuse and the Magdalen laundries etc).

Not all Christians of course, but the history of the Christian church is problematic, shall we say.

@ByLovingTraybake

”It would be better for them to have a millstone hung around their neck” than to cause a child to stumble (Matthew 18:6).

Sometimes I read a quote like that and then can’t help thinking of the (very recent) examples of the brutal behaviour of nuns and others in children’s homes and mother and baby homes. I’ve read some truly terrible accounts of how children were treated, and even where there was no active abuse, there was neglect and a total absence of love.

What on earth was going on in those nuns’ heads? How could they square their own actions with being ‘brides of Christ’?

Not necessarily singling out the Catholic Church here, but it’s an example of supposedly Christian people doing the exact opposite of what Christ taught.

1. I picked up the idea from the facts, even the Archbishop of Canterbury had to resign for not dealing with systemic child abuse in the church. Many many children have suffered at the hands of those appointed by the so called "god".
2. Christians don't have a monopoly on charity. Plenty of others do good without the need for reward of a place in heaven or the child abuse along the way.

I mot sure any God and the followers were into female equality, back in the day…it is what it is.🤷‍♀️

I was raised in Catholicism and educated by a comvent run school system from the age of 3 to 18. I definitely had a confusing experience of them telling me about Jesus and then screaming at me, or humiliating me. My experience absolutely turned me off religion for a very long time until I had a transformative experience 8 years ago. I converted to Protestantism and am a Born Again Christian. I always thought they were absolutely nuts before and now I am one. I feel like God made himself real to me and I changed completely. I can't describe it otber than something on a cellular level changed in me. Non believers won't understand, and neither would I have. Things that didn't make sense to me before now do. I had no trauma, no mental illness, none of the factors that I thought those Bible bashers were vulnerable to. I dont know what happened to me but it did. Anyway, this is to say that the abuse of the RC church put me off religion but God found me, outside of religion, in spite of it. Sorry for blathering, just sharing my experience. Im not sure if any other Born Again Christians reading this can relate to the crazy internal change! Would love to hear from you if so!

1. The abuse you refer to happened in the 1970s and 1980s. Justin Welby became Archbishop in 2013. So it would have been quite hard for him to deal with it.

1. Christians do not have a monopoly on charity. All the same, non Christians are appropriating an idea which has been worked out and developed by the Christian tradition. The word charity is based on the Latin and Greek word Charitas, which means God's outflowing love for humankind . In order to imitate God, Christians practise charity.

So, it's hard, if not impossible to get away from the positive power of Christianity in our society.
Yes, evil has been done by men (and women) within the Church. Unfortunately, it's human nature and happens everywhere. You won't get rid of it by banning Christianity. Quite. the reverse.
I believe other world religions also practise a great deal of Charity.

I fully agree with you and share your sentiments! That reaction makes complete sense. Jesus’ words there are meant to shock — and if anything, they leave no room at all for excusing abuse or neglect of children. By his own standard, those who harmed children while claiming his name stand under the strongest possible condemnation.

Christians don’t believe that wearing religious clothes or holding a title makes someone Christlike. The New Testament is painfully honest that people can use religion to hide power, cruelty, or fear — and Jesus reserves his harshest words not for outsiders, but for religious leaders who crush the vulnerable (Matthew 23). So those stories aren’t a refutation of Jesus’ teaching; they’re a tragic example of people doing the very thing he warned against.

As for how they squared it: often it’s a toxic mix of institutional pressure, obedience to authority, dehumanising ideology, and self-deception. But none of that is a Christian defence — it’s a diagnosis of sin. Christianity doesn’t claim Christians are morally superior; it claims we’re capable of terrible wrong, and desperately in need of repentance and accountability.

If anything, Matthew 18:6 is a warning to the Church, not a shield for it. When Christians fail children, the gospel doesn’t say “look the other way” — it says God sees, God cares, and God will judge.

Really similar story to me: Catholic turned Bible believing Christian about 8 years’ ago (although mine was less of a single experience and had been building for about 10+ years with careful inspection and study and testing and translating the New Testament from Greek before I finally got there)…

Religion is misogynistic so is the Bible. If you go to church. That's what happens

I wouldn't ban Christianity, science and education will be want improves the world, altitudes are changing.

The whole point of it is that the birth of Jesus wipes out the fall of Adam and Eve. Mary is the new Eve.