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 💔

You’re contradicting yourself again.

At 7:04 you wrote:

The greatest sin in Christianity is the one that cannot be forgiven; that is, blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. It's the continual rejection of the Holy Spirit's call to repentence, because your heart is hardened against God. THAT is the greatest sin.

I have not “misunderstood”. I have responded to what you wrote. Now, in typical fashion, you’re trying to patronise me and denying this and instead claiming that it really meant something other than the words that you actually wrote that are there for all to see.

This is why it is impossible to have a rational discussion with religious ideologues. Constant attempts to move the goalposts and claims that the meaning of words - not just those in religious books but even those they say/ write themselves! - mean something other than the dictionary definitions and we’re all a bit hard of thinking because we “don’t understand”.

This is what every genuine attempt at engagement is met with, as is shown throughout this thread despite many posters engaging very politely and patiently: constantly being told that no, the lack of logic and self-contradiction isn’t real, it’s just because we are too stupid to understand what you really meant, leaving us none the wiser what that was because you continually contradict yourselves.

I missed it this year, but usually it’s a must. I hope they’re still using the old King James versions of the readings - I love hearing those. The new versions sound so banal.

I’m sorry - I couldn’t see any part in my previous quote where it says ‘what someone does in life is irrelevant’ - I said: ‘At its heart, the gospel is wonderfully simple and full of grace: we are sinners who have gone astray, and we cannot save ourselves. We are called to repent and to believe in Christ — and it is through that faith alone that we are saved, not by our works. Good deeds flow from a transformed heart, but they are the fruit of salvation, not the cause of it.’

You said repeatedly that what someone does in life has no bearing on whether they will be “saved” and that salvation is only for God to choose and has nothing to do with whether someone has lived a virtuous life of not, that it isn’t something to be earned through good deeds, etc. So my question remains.

It's not standard in the UK, for sure. Most here would be Amillenialist. They don't believe in a literal 1000 year millennial period and instead believe this is symbolic of the Church Age.

My church is in the US, I believe what is taught in that church as it makes more sense to me. Quite a few denominations do believe in that view, though. This thread's not really about that though and it's a huge subject so prefer to put that aside.

Ahhh, yes. The extremist hypocritical “Christians” in the US who do the absolute opposite of living by any of the values that Jesus supposedly proposed are well documented. They think that declaring their “faith” loudly once per week constitutes following “Christian values” yet have one of the most unequal societies in the world. I don’t see many Americans giving up their worldly goods to help the poor which seemed to be Jesus’s fundamental message. Why is that? Do you get a different version of the bible over there… has Trump burned all the books and imposed tariffs on them?

All right. I am bowing out of this thread as it is taking a distinctly negative turn. I have said all I want to say. Thank you all for what has been an enlightening discussion, plenty to think about here.

So to be clear, you’ve said all “sins” are forgiveable except not believing in the “Holy Spirit” postulated by Christianity therefore:

Serial killer, child rapist suddenly declares “faith” in your God just before the electric chair is turned on. Tick! Salvation and heaven awaits him.

Genocidal maniacs and war mongers, leaders of states deliberately inflicting torture on people, all good provided they profess “repentance” and declare they believe in this Christian “Holy Spirit” before they die.

Normal, loving, kind family man who happens to be an athiest or muslim or sikh or jewish or buddhist, someone who has always been kind and gentle, provided for his family, a good friend, helped others in need, done charity work etc… straight to hell with him because he didn’t have “faith” and “denied the existence of the Christian “Holy Spirit” - the “ultimate and unforgiveable sin” (according to you).

A baby who died from preventable infectious disease will go to hell because rich people in countries like yours decide not to provide the aid money that would have paid for cheap vaccinations that would have saved his life because the baby - being only a few days old - didn’t have any “faith” in your God and (shock, horror!) wasn’t even baptised.

Tribal people who’ve never even heard of Christianity must be condemned to hell for all eternity for their lack of “faith” in your “Holy Spirit”, including the tens of millions of people who lived before the bible was written.

Ok… seems totally logical and fair and reasonable…. 🤔

Uh huh. Shocker!

Exactly as I said: you don’t want to answer the questions and don’t have a rational defence of your own stated beliefs to put forward that isn’t abhorrent, so then run away and try to pretend anyone who questioned them and asked you to explain them coherently was “being mean”.

So predictable.

Is the question about works — and why you’d follow a religion if what you do doesn’t “count” towards salvation?

In Christianity, what you do does matter, just not as an entry requirement for salvation. Good works aren’t ignored or irrelevant; they’re just not the basis on which someone is accepted by God. They’re the result of relationship, not the way into it.

The reason a Christian follows Christ’s teaching isn’t to earn forgiveness or secure heaven, but because they believe they’ve already been forgiven and reconciled to God. The Bible’s moral commands are therefore aimed at shaping people who already belong to Christ — teaching them how to live in love, humility, self-sacrifice and faithfulness. If someone genuinely repents, the Christian claim is that they should want to change, not out of fear or score-keeping, but because their loyalties and loves have shifted.

So Christianity isn’t saying “what you do doesn’t matter.” It’s saying what you do flows from who you trust. Works matter deeply — as evidence of faith, as a response to grace, and as the way Christians seek to love God and others — but not as a transactional system for earning salvation.

That’s why Christians follow the faith at all: not because behaviour is irrelevant, but because relationship comes first, and behaviour follows.

You’re contradicting yourself again.

Does living a good life matter or not?

On what basis is “God” supposedly making these decisions on who to save and who to condemn, if not based on their actions in life? What’s the criteria? Presumably if being threatened with eternal hellfire or offered an eternity in paradise, the criteria for the decision should be made clear in advance?

Quite clearly the claim that because someone professes to be a Christian “good behaviour will follow” is empirically false. I’m not aware of any studies demonstrating the religion has any positive correlation to virtuous or socially positive behaviour and there is an enormous body of evidence demonstrating the precise opposite. Do you have any evidence at all to support this claim?

If people have already been “forgiven and reconciled to God” simply for believing in your faith and their behaviour during their lives is an irrelevance, as you claim, then anybody who “believes” your religion can go around murdering and raping and be exonerated of their sins entirely, yes? Provided they “repent” before they die?

I am not sure this was directed to me but hopefully I can help with some of the thinking from a biblical perspective. I think there’s a misunderstanding here — this isn’t what Christianity actually teaches. Repentance isn’t a last-minute loophole; it’s a genuine turning of the heart, and only God truly knows our hearts (1 Samuel 16:7). The thief on the cross wasn’t baptized, but Jesus promised him paradise — showing God’s mercy isn’t limited to rituals.

Christianity doesn’t say kind, loving people are worse than murderers; all humans need mercy, though moral distinctions still matter. The “unforgivable sin” isn’t mere disbelief; it refers to willfully rejecting God’s work, not ignorance or faith in another religion. Babies, those who never hear the gospel, or the mentally incapable aren’t automatically condemned — God judges perfectly according to the light people were given.

In short, Christianity isn’t about “good people go to hell, bad people go to heaven.” It’s about God’s mercy for everyone, grounded in grace rather than moral ranking.

I am not a Christian but have been disgusted by the way in which some people have spoken to some of the people on this thread. No wonder Christians are the most persecuted religion in the world. Please take a look at your tone - @ByLovingTraybake shows how it is possible to disagree and set out a view that is different or personal to him / her without resorting to bullying words and a callous tone. It would be nice if we can respect people as we question each other, kindly. Don’t you think?

@MySharpLilacSheep

yes I agree

This comment was directed to the poster who claimed that all sins are forgiveable except the “ultimate and unforgiveable sin” of not believing in/ “blaspheming” about the Christian “Holy Spirit”.

Your view of Christianity is clearly different to hers, hence me not directing this question to you, but to her, because it highlights the abhorrence of the inevitable consequences of the view that she expressed. I am not attributing her views to all Christians (and, indeed, stated in one of my posts to her that her views seem to be unusual, at which point she disclosed she’s part of a US “church” which seem to be breeding grounds for extremists).

However, the fact that your views and hers directly contradict each other on many topics and yet you supposedly belong to the same faith, derived from the same book, evidences (as it does in almost every religion where there are these different “interpretations”) that all strands/ sects/ denominations of each religion are reading selectively what they want to hear from the same books, and interpreting it to match their own worldview. Therefore, it’s clear that neither your faith nor that poster’s is actually derived from this book (the bible), which we all know is a hotchpotch of various many-times mistranslated texts anyway.

It would make more sense just to say that you have certain private, personal beliefs in mythical, invisible things and an afterlife than try continuously to justify these beliefs with reference to mistranslated texts (of which there are also many different versions!) while simultaneously trying to claim that these ancient stories are somehow “the word of God”. The fact that you can’t even agree among yourselves what they are saying or resolve the obvious logical inconsistencies speaks volumes.

And why do you believe these legends/ ancient texts in particular? Not the Greek ones or Roman ones or Egyptian ones or Chinese ones? Or Buddhism, Sikhism, Hinduism, Islam? Did you review all of the ancient legends from all over the world and decide that these particular ones were the most believable? If so, why? What made these particular legends/ ancient stories more believable to you than all the other options?

It’s strange, isn’t it, that the vast majority of people in the world who subscribe to a religion have “chosen” to believe whichever religion they were indoctrinated into as a child or was the predominant one in their society at the time.

I hope your faith brings you comfort—genuinely—and there’s nothing wrong with that at all, of course: that is a good thing if it helps you in some way.

It’s the preachiness that gets on people’s nerves, and the determination by all religious people that they are RIGHT and anyone who disagrees or asks perfectly reasonable questions is just “not understanding”, as if we are stupid, when none of the religious people even seem able to agree among themselves what their favoured God actually meant with the “words” in their chosen book, and supposedly told someone to write down and demand that everyone complies with for as long as humans continue to exist. It’s just not very plausible and it’s sad that religious people shout everyone down rather than try to engage with any of these perfectly reasonable queries.

People have been asked lots of questions rationally and politely. None of them have been answered without yet more irrational responses which contradict each other!

Sorry that you’re “disgusted” about people discussing things.

Religious people have always been against that, for obvious reasons that this thread demonstrates very clearly. And it’s always those raising the questions who are the “evil ones” of course. Dunking stool, anybody?

I am not sure where the claims are from regarding ‘good behaviour will follow’ (that was not from my previous post). However, perhaps I can try to explain, if I am reading your queries correctly.

The key is this: in Christianity, good behaviour doesn’t earn it salvation. Salvation is about being reconciled to God through trust in Christ, not checking off moral deeds.

That doesn’t mean actions are irrelevant — they’re the evidence of a changed heart. Genuine faith transforms how someone lives, imperfectly but meaningfully. Christians also emphasise that “last-minute loopholes” don’t count; true repentance involves a real turning toward God, not just a formula. God is the only one who knows our hearts - whether we are genuinely seeking him and repenting, or not.

So behaviour matters deeply — just not as the ticket into heaven, but as the natural outcome of a relationship with God.

You literally said “the behaviour will follow”. 🤔

Honestly it is shocking to see how tone has been used in this thread. You’re not the only one as it has been a barrage of posts some from both sides, but the way some people have piled on has been relentless to the ones who are being asked the questions really hoping none of you are lawyers because that isn’t how you question someone if you’re curious but if you wanna bring them down and make them so sad. And yet, look at how one person @ByLovingTraybake has engaged patiently and thoughtfully, even when others were being downright cruel, including when you were being quite harsh yourself!!!! I’m Muslim but this is actually quite a wake up call as to whether to ever disclose calmly my religion, if this is how people treat others. And if I can’t even defend what I believe without being brutally verbally attacked. It also makes me think super chighly and trust in the arguments that have been made by that poster because they’re the only ones that seem to not goad, to ask questions, and to calmly reiterate that this is what they believe without forcing it down you….

I guess I’m just wondering why we can’t all be a bit kinder in how we engage in debate??

How can you say it was preaching when they answered the questions u asked authentically or from their perspective and u attack?!

Thank you @MySharpLilacSheep - hoping what I have been saying about Jesus reflects grace and kindness in tone, and trying to answer questions politely. I am not infallible, as I’m not God. I have been questioned on deep theological points and may not always perfectly explain things over a Mumsnet thread whilst breastfeeding and sleep deprived, but I am also humbly hoping to just provide the reasons for my faith when asked.

And ultimately, the gospel and its grace is very simple: we are all sinners, separated from God by our rebellion, but Jesus lived, died, and rose again to reconcile us to Him. Through faith in Him, we receive forgiveness and eternal life—not by our own perfection, but by His mercy.

Hi. I am ethnically Indian and was brought up as a Hindu but have felt lost the past few years and I became an atheist because I didn’t know why so much bad stuff happened. I went to some carol services over the past month and was also appalled by what @YogaGrinch saw about what I thought was misogyny but have been really helped by some of the posts here on this thread as I completely didn’t understand a lot. I saw the way in which people talked about the Bible and Jesus and some of it started to resonate and I got one of the book recommendations by John Chapman called a fresh start and I thank you because I really think that this makes sense. I watched the alpha videos and I am signing up in January and I went to a local church that offers Christianity explored yesterday and I want to say to any of the people who shared that they are Christian’s and did so in a kind and caring and patient way with all the questions that someone was listening because I took it seriously and I already think it has made a difference to me. I’ve watched and felt sad at some of the comments that have been made and I think if this was my workplace then you’d be in trouble under the equality act in how you’ve spoken to people about their religion. I think it is possible to ask questions in a kind and polite way even if you don’t agree and I hope if there some thing that people take away from this it is that we all share different views and if we don’t agree then we should try to muster up some kindness and care in how we speak to each other. I think it says a lot that a lot of people spent their time picking on others where they didn’t even want to understand where the other person was coming from but just be as nasty as they could and I was too scared to say that I was starting to be convinced by some of the posts about Jesus because I was scared you’d be horrid to me too. But maybe i also need to say something so that some of the people know that they’re making a difference to someone they’ve never met. I know I’ll be called stupid and told I’m an idiot, but something in these posts struck me and I think it was god working through some of these humans

Because it DIDN’T answer any of the questions that I or other posters asked. It deliberately avoided the more challenging ones, over and over again, just like the responses from a couple of other vociferous posters who want to quote the bible at everyone but not actually engage with the challenging questions.

As for the hypocrisy of your personal attacks on people accusing them of being “cruel” (?!) simply for asking questions on the topic of the thread, and accusing people of “verbally attacking” others when that’s precisely what you’re doing, it’s just yet more of the same tiresome gaslighting. Wading in to add more of it doesn’t make it any more plausible or reasonable.

Apparently you don’t think the responses have been “preachy”? Read the one just above mine at 19:03! I haven’t seen a satisfactory answer resolving any of the many inherent contradictions that multiple posters have pointed out during the thread. We’re clearly back to the whole “evil people dare to criticise religion! How dare they!” nonsense. Freedom of religion doesn’t extend to being free from scrutiny or questioning or others being allowed an opinion. If you don’t wish to discuss it you can practice it in private but if people post on public discussion boards about it then they can expect it to be discussed and challenged like any other assertion or topic.

Since you seem to prefer the preachy style of posting that we’ve all had to endure at length, which has largely involved posters quoting random bible verses out of context to mean whatever they want them to mean at the time and ignoring the ones that don’t fit their narrative:

”Through seeing they do not see, through hearing, they do not hear or understand” Matthew 13:13.

One of my good friends is from Sri Lanka and was raised in Buddhism and she had her own experience that got her interested in Christianity a few months ago. I hadn't pushed my faith onto her at all but was there to answer questions when she came to me. She called her mum in Sri Lanka to tell her, and to her surprise, her mum had started reading the Bible and going to church but hadn't told her! It had been so lovely to see my friend grow in her faith but really to learn about Jesus from scratch in a way that a lot of Westerners don't think about, because Jesus is so in the culture even if someone isnt religious. Its so nice to hear of your interest and if you have any questions please feel free to PM me :-)