Atheists desecrate country church

[peasporridge]

The perpetrators drew vulgar graffiti on the wall of the church an also wrote "God is a lie".
They also desecrated about 40 gravestones.

This is particularly distressing because a wedding is scheduled today (Easter Saturday)

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/sickening-blasphemous-cowardly-church-gravestones-140717226.html

https://www.blogpreston.co.uk/2025/04/police-investigating-after-st-james-church-and-over-40-graves-defaced-ahead-of-good-friday/

This clearly demonstrates that Christianity is under threat.from the secular lobby.

me too. I dont really think this demonstrates an organised atheist threat though. I am an atheist and perfectly happy that religious people exist and go to their places of worship.

This is badly bought up kids being little shits.

There should be no weddings during the triduim. (Missing point of post!)

"Vandals desecrated a country church."
Fixed the title for you.

It's disgusting behaviour but I don't know why you are blaming "atheists" and the "secular lobby".

It's much more likely to be disaffected teenagers or young people, especially since penises were drawn. And teenagers are perfectly capable of writing "God is a lie".

Young men always draw cocks on everything given the chance, especially when in a group of other young men. My son was involved in the project to to build a new multi million pound space at Cardiff uni. He filmed promotional videos to show the progress and had to adapt camera angles every time because a new cock outline would have appeared on a door. Removing them formed part of the snagging budget . Atheists can make adult, sentient points about why they don't believe. They can also get on with their lives and watch multiple sex scandals destroy the church from within . The number of worshippers is falling to a rapidly unsustainable level in country areas ( our Church has 6 elderly worshippers drawn from several parishes). I don't like the church or anything it stands for. If I felt strongly enough that it's demise needed a push it wouldn't involve spraying penises on the walls.

Heres the thing. I don't see it as a hate crime. I imagine it's a troubled person who needs help. Of course the vandalism is emotive, and intended to be inflammatory. A true Christian would clean the graffiti, pray for the person and show understanding to another humans suffering. Majority of self proclaimed Christians forget they should forgive and love thy neighbours. And let's be honest here, didn't Jesus say he holds those higher that pray quietly and privately against those who worship at stone buildings?

Agreed

On Thursday night police were investigating reports of rape, kidnap and burglary in the area. Make no mistake, that will have taken up just about all the limited resources South Ribble Poloce have at their disposal due to underfunding. Vandalism and antisocial behaviour is necessarily very low down on their list of priorities to tackle (apart from some occasional Talking Shop activities to attempt to reassure communities).

@BunnyRuddington "See it as an opportunity to assess what your Church can do for local Teens."

If you had cared to read my post of 9.51 you would have seen that first of all the church does have youth activities and secondly I listed some "sporty" type events and clubs.

More like something an edgy teenager would say. Never seen “the atheist lobby” with megaphones handing out leaflets in town centres, religious groups on the other hand…

@peasporridgeThis is obviously a vile thing to do. But there is no suggestion that it was done by atheists rather than mindless vandals. And please look up “secular”. It doesn’t mean what you think it means.

It will be idiot teenagers who are bored and probably drunk. I don't think you realise how dim and anti-social some teens are.

I don't think a lot of those activities are free or that good for teens. The sporty groups look like they're only suitable for teens with the right kit and some ability. I swear that since the Tories started slashing surestart and local council budgets a decade ago all their chickens are coming home to roost. Less support and more pressure for families and schools.

The average cock and ball sprayer round here hasn’t a chance of joining Barracudas. They probably didn’t attend school enough to gain their 25m certificate. They won’t have the self discipline to get to training, or the money for transport and equipment.
Agree that the dismantling of Sure Start etc has had a major impact on this disenfranchisement.

I'm more agnostic than atheist and I actually love churches, although I don't believe.

I think it's wrong to blame atheists for this - the people that do this are just vandals.

And atheists are just like any other group of people, there's nice ones and not so nice ones. The only thing that they share is a lack of belief.

They're not "disenfranchised". They can vote when they're 18.

Great, but not all teens are interested in sport activities (despite what MN may think). Where are the music workshops, the dance workshops, art (including "street art") workshops and a whole host of other non-sporty activities? But hey who cares about those kids their not worth any money spent on them right?

Ahhh the old “a true Christian would…”

turning the situation into a critique of Christian behaviour.

So true Christians should
1 stop complaining when their property is vandalised
2 quietly get on with cleaning it up
3 make their prayers, forgiveness and understanding for the perpetrators public (or else posters will chastise them for not praying for, not forgiving and not understanding their attackers)
4 simultaneously not make their prayers public
5 recognise it’s their own fault for daring to own property in the first place
6 never meet in groups, practice their faith in private

got it 👍

Yes, I thought this. The type of young person who is hanging around vandalizing churchyards is very unlikely to be someone who can access the clubs the OP linked to. First of all you have to be of a particular standard to take part in most of them and you do need money for the equipment and membership fees. There's some recreational football listed there but that's not for everyone. Not everyone is sporty.

The church youth groups are not going to appeal to teenagers who are saying "God is a lie". The "Playscheme" is for younger children.
The Zone looks like it's the only thing that might be suitable.

So while there are things on offer for young people they aren't necessarily accessible to the type of young person who might be behaving antisocially.

@LeaningOnTheEverlastingArmsNo, you shouldn’t do any of those things. But you should not claim persecution where there is no evidence that persecution exists. There are parts of the world where Christians are persecuted. The UK is not one of them.

@SharpTiger Christian forgiveness? Perhaps read what that entails, which is not just to suck up any vile crap thrown your way.

@gestruggelt "So while there are things on offer for young people they aren't necessarily accessible to the type of young person who might be behaving antisocially."

So what is your solution ?

I didn’t use the word “persecution”.
So maybe we can leave that strawman to one side.

What I said was

“This is a Christian place of worship and burial, extensively defaced with vile images and a particular slogan which indicates an anti-Christian pov on the most holy weekend in the Christian calendar.

What would it take for you to recognise an anti-Christian hate crime?”

I’d be interested in an answer.

@LeaningOnTheEverlastingArmsApologies-it was the OP who said that Christianity is “under threat”.

Personally, I would need to know that this wasn’t the work of 13 year old vandals before I agreed it was a “hate crime” Or share vicariously in any responsibility. But if I lived locally, I would certainly be there helping with the clear up.

Saying that this is a deliberate attack by athiests is ridiculous.
It was done by idiots, end of

Your apology & virtue-signal have been received.

You still didn’t answer the question, but I won’t press the point if it’s too uncomfortable to answer.

End of what?