New friend giving dd a Bible as a SS present

[Chillyboots]

We recently moved to a new area and my eldest dd is in year 9. She started this new school in October and made some new friends.
She says her friends parents are very strict and I don't think they are allowed social media. She had to buy her a Secret Santa present and was really unsure what to buy. She ended up with getting her some chocolate and some lip balm but she didn't even know if she'd be allowed the lip balm!
DD has said her friend is going to get her a Bible which seems a bit odd to me.

I have asked dd if she'd like to invite her friend around but dd said she'd rather not ask her.

I grew up in a very strict Evangelical/Pentecostal household. My dad wouldn't let my mum wear make up and we were all made to go to church on Sunday. All skirts had to be below knee and we didn't even have a TV. Books with swear words in (including school books) were burnt on our Rayburn so I do know about this way of life.
At university, I joined a couple of Pentcostal churches and didn't have a great experience tbh. I got very depressed and confused with it all and at the same time I was studying Theology.
I left the church and I don't attend one now although I have been to some really nice churches in between.

I'm not against her being friends with Christians at all but I am worried that she gets sucked into some kind of cult. I am waiting to see what kind of 'Bible' she brings back.

I also work in secondary school and just can't imagine any of my students giving out Bibles as SS presents.

Am i reading too much into this?

I think it’s a great present. Even if you’re not religious having a good knowledge of the bible is extremely useful in understanding western history and culture, law and art

also a great talking point re how religions can be dangerous

I've been involved in some gruesomely extreme evangelical churches, and have been profoundly damaged by them. Jehovah's Witnesses are several orders of magnitude worse, especially with the way they isolate themselves from everyone else, and the way that shunning is used as a disciplinary tool. It can absolutely destroy people.

Apart from the morality of forcing your beliefs on others, your MIL really shouldn't be encouraging non-baptised children to receive communion. If it happens through ignorance/accident, that's one thing, but she must know full well that Catholics believe that only practising Catholics should receive the Eucharist and that encouraging others to do so is a serious sin. If she tries that on you again, I would very firmly tell her that you respect other Catholics' beliefs too much to commit what they would consider to be sacrilege by receiving communion improperly. If you do ever go to church with her, it's something I would genuinely consider reporting to her priest so that he could make her understand quite how inappropriate that suggestion was.

I'd be really unhappy about my child having a friend who only valued them for the potential to convert/save them. That's not friendship.

Does your daughter know you studied theology at university? I imagine that you own various religious texts as reference books, whatever your current religious feelings and beliefs. I think you’re actually extremely well placed to speak to your daughter about religion, about the philosophies behind religions and about the feelings and the academic study and yes, about the way sometimes religion is used to control and exploit people too.

Hilarious to see all the atheists on here falling over themselves to claim that no, proselytizing somebody in this overbearing fashion wouldn't be offensive. No doubt the gifted Bible will be a really crappy translation, too.

Blimey I must've been really lucky! Both parents are CofE vicars and I've never, ever had religion pushed on me!! I'm hopelessly not interested, not once did they buy me a bible or make me go to church. When I went through my goth witchcraft phase as a teenager my dad wanted to know all about it and came with me when I got my teenage rebellion tattoo. Which sort of defeated the point 😂

You don't know that that's the case.

@JaninaDuszejko
It's very odd that your MIL wants the children to receive Communion if they haven't been baptised or formally made their first Communion. I am a RC and this would be a no-no.

Sadly, it often is. I've done it myself.

I'm not at all religious but giving someone a bible as a gift doesn't really sound like them imposing their views on someone.

It's just a gift.

Really?!

It’s not just a gift. It’s a religious text. How could that ever be a completely neutral present choice?

My ds is friends in a group with 3 other boys. Ds and one other boy are Christian, one is atheist and the other is a JW. Religion isn't really talked about between the 4 of them. The mum of the boy who is a JW is quite keen for her son to discuss his religion with his friends but her son could not be less interested.

I worked with a chap years ago who's wife was a Jehovah's Witness and he claimed his wife wouldn't allow their children to celebrate their birthday. So she got around it by having them have a present/gift day the day after.

What a load of crap.