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Original poster

I have been invited to a wine tasting but it really an evangelical christian thing - shall I still go?

16 replies

FatThighs · 09/11/2006 14:39

My lovely friend who I really like asked me to come with her to a wine tasting organised by a friend of hers. I love all things wine and it sounded fun - she's quite fun anyway. I knew she was quite religious but has never got in the way. She gave me my ticket for tonight and I just fished it out and it says 'blah de blah who used to own a pub gives us a brief run down of various wines followed by his talk on how he found Jesus and became a minister.'

-So do I still go to preserve the friendship

-or do I tell the truth (thanks but not my kind of thing now realise the evangelical angle)

-tell her I thought it was wine tasting and it is not

-say I have a headache?

I have paid five pounds for the ticket but I kind of feel a bit conned. I have nothing aganist Christianity and go along to things, but I do feel a bit cohereced (sp???)

ekk!

what do you think?

OP posts:

bluejelly · 09/11/2006 14:40

I wouldn't go! It's only £5
Tell her you didn't realise it was religious and you can't go because of that

bluejelly · 09/11/2006 14:41

You could always turn up and demand your money back on the basis that you have been conned

MarsLady · 09/11/2006 14:41

You could always drink the wine and slip away at the end... though of course the wine may make the evening that bit more palatable for you.

If she's that good a friend she won't mind that you feel conned. Tell her the truth. Always the best in this sort of situation.

Incidentally, our church had a wine tasting thing and there is nothing funnier than drunken Christian women.... (did I say that out loud?)

theUrbanDryad · 09/11/2006 14:44

meh. wine? i'd go.

agree with marslady btw...christian people drunk is hilarious! you can get into all sorts of fun discussions...

Cassoulet · 09/11/2006 14:44

Go and have a drink - don't worry about the proselytising (sp?!) at the end, if you do it right you'll be far too p*ed to follow it anyway and will just have a nice snooze.

Original poster

FatThighs · 09/11/2006 14:45

ohh - now I am attracted by the idea of drunk christian women - in a humourus way not any other way .

It is kind of looking up.

If you have seen my other posts you will see that I am not prone to honesty - even though I know it is the best way.

Hurrah for msnet rapid response team!

OP posts:

NomDePlume · 09/11/2006 14:45

Get drunk and ask searching questions....

sleepfinder · 09/11/2006 15:23

well its clearly a recrutiment opportunity - so how robust do you feel about that? can you politely nod, be evasive and leave when it gets to be too much, or are you likely to get roped into going to something else that you don't want to do...?

good luck anyway.

pindy · 09/11/2006 15:27

Go along, get drunk and report back here tomorrow to cheer us all up on a Friday morning!!!!

Molton · 09/11/2006 16:39

Friend may well have invited you on the basis of the alcohol rather than the god angle

HRHQueenOfQuotes · 09/11/2006 16:42

"Incidentally, our church had a wine tasting thing and there is nothing funnier than drunken Christian women.... (did I say that out loud?)"

How incredibly true - we had a "girls night out" at church the other week - went to a posh pub restaraunt - 42 of us aged 16 to 91!!! Some of us stayed sober - but the church treasurer has been captured on film teaching everyone else on her table how to make 'cat' ears out of the napkins, and the noise we made was atrocious

Original poster

FatThighs · 09/11/2006 16:53

Feel robust enough not to get drawn into anything and as I said she's a friend and well a friend is a friend is a friend - whatever else comes with them!

Have decided to go along - am getting a head start with a glass of red on an empty stomach and may get tipsy and joke about her 'real' motives!

Will let you know!

OP posts:

pointydog · 09/11/2006 17:16

Good on you! No one's gonna force you to sell your soul so you might as well enjoy it, no strings. Sounds intriguing and worth going just so's you get a good anecdote out of it.

joelallie · 09/11/2006 17:28

TBH you're lucky there is going to be any alcohol. mil is 'born again' and keeps dragging us along to churchy things which are all, without exception, dry! Probably a good thing as if DH had a drink I think his latent Richard Dawkins would come out...

Original poster

FatThighs · 11/11/2006 15:20

I did say I would report back if you are interested.

It was fun! I had a great time. The evangelical bit was only 20 minutes at the end and I had my wine and quite a lot of my friends (she was driving). I thought it was a ploy to get you there, but I was surprised that they were not more 'evangelical'. The bloke doing the talk was knowledgable and the wine was nice. I sat on a table with another church member and two of his farmer friends who got as pissed as they could and I had a right laugh with them. One of them had a combine harvester that cost £250,000!!!!!!!!!!! That's more than my house!

All in all I had a ball - thanks for the encouragement!

OP posts:

msrlmoss · 13/11/2006 17:17

Hope you don't mind me butting in, I am very new here so maybe it isn't my place, but I saw the title of your post and couldn't not say something.
Glad to hear you had a great time but I wanted just to sound a note of caution.
I used to be in an evangelical church which was basically more like a full-on cult. My mother, father & sister are still members and apart from the odd email from my father haven't spoken to me since I left seven years ago.
We weren't allowed to have non-Christian friends unless the eventual aim was to get them converted. Initially this used to be by getting them to go to a full-blown praise session (speaking in tongues, singing and dancing, laying on of hands, all the sort of thing) but when the church elders realised this was scaring people off they changed tactics.
We started having evening meals in the church building for our convertees; we'd spend about ten minutes talking about Jesus but then the rest of the time would just be really friendly chat to lull people into a false sense of security. We wouldn't do anything at all heavy handed at the first meeting.
Gradually, through a series of these events we'd put the pressure on more and more (obvy it was never described as this!) and there would be more and more God and less and less meal / chat!
But it was so insidious, that by that time a lot of people went along with it. We got quite a few converts that way. As far as I know most of them are still there. Hardly anyone leaves and if they do they certainly don't leave without a few emotional scars.
Hopefully your wine tasting was just that a one off event that you really enjoyed! But just as a note of caution if you start getting invited to lots more of these do's please take care!

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