School nativity plays under threat

[mlchance]

Why don’t the people complaining about nativity plays being dropped just ‘grow a thicker skin’?

Okay. You first. Lead the way.

Please note that, in the UK, there are large numbers of Catholic and Church of England schools, we’re talking in this thread about the ‘secular’ schools, not the Christian schools.

Yes, yes, I get that. So? A Christian student ceases to be Christian because he’s at a secular school? Why ignore every single alternative suggestion in favor of suppressing the religious expression of Christian children?

– Mark L. Chance.

 

[Kaninchen]

Let me ask do you discuss or do anything for Hanukkah in the UK public schools?
Give out geld in the classroom/spin a dreidel or two, share some latkas? Sing some songs?

There is a simple level of ‘learning about religions’ for this age group, certainly.

 

[Kaninchen]

Okay. You first. Lead the way.

It was your idea, you provide the example.

Yes, yes, I get that. So? A Christian student ceases to be Christian because he’s at a secular school? Why ignore every single alternative suggestion in favor of suppressing the religious expression of Christian children?

Not teaching Christianity is suppressing it? [Don’t parents and Churches play a role in religious expression, then?]

Please explain to me why an inner city school with 90+% Muslim, Hindu or Sikh kids should have a nativity play.

 

[wifeandmomoftwo]

There is a simple level of ‘learning about religions’ for this age group, certainly.

So take the nativity play as a “simple level of learning”
If Catholics are forced to learn jewish songs, play dreidel and eat latkas or whatever simple learning they offer then a jewish kid should hear about the the birth of the Messiah!
It is just a level of simple learning!

 

[mlchance]

It was your idea, you provide the example.

I already am. I’m not the one offended.

Not teaching Christianity is suppressing it?

We’re not talking about teaching Christianity. We’re talking about a thematically appropriate play for a particular holiday.

Please explain to me why an inner city school with 90+% Muslim, Hindu or Sikh kids should have a nativity play.

Have I argued that such an inner city school should have a Nativity play? And why note that such a school is inner city? What a curious assumption. As far as I’m concerned, that 90% Muslim school, for example, can have a Eid al-Adha play.

I’d quite likely even allow my Catholic children to participate.

– Mark L. Chance.

 

[Kaninchen]

So take the nativity play as a “simple level of learning”
If Catholics are forced to learn jewish songs, play dreidel and eat latkas or whatever simple learning they offer then a jewish kid should hear about the the birth of the Messiah!
It is just a level of simple learning!

Your version of the UK agreed religious education curriculum and the actual agreed curriculum are more than a little at variance.

I think we’ve arrived at (more passed) the point at which the conversation just becomes repetitive. There was never a point at which I’d have agreed to my children taking part in a nativity story, you think that’s not a good thing; I support the moving away from nativity story performances in secular schools, you think that’s not a good thing - no matter how many ways we find of saying that, neither of us will move one inch.

We know what each other thinks about the subject.

 

[Naztakuan]

It’s not a religious holiday if you’re not Christian, it’s just a holiday.

Meanwhile, what we’re talking about is what happens in (non-religiously affiliated) schools (for young children) in the United Kingdom, which may be less packed with those ‘deus ex machina’ non-Christians (who think that a dose of Christianity would be a wonderful thing for their kids) than the United States.

Perhaps you have to be Jewish to see the problem with stories about women being impregnated by Gods and giving birth to Gods!

But wait…Wasn’t there a story like the new testament. It was about the woman who couldn’t bear any children so she went to the temple to pray and then god gave her a son but after got to a certain age she had to send him to the temple to grow up there. Oh and what about the Abraham story? Both times these women were made ppregnant by divine intervention. Abraham’s wife was too old to give birth but she did. The phenomenon is not isolated to the Christian part of the bible.​

Meanwhile, what’s wrong with Christian kids enacting stories about Jesus being rescued and taken off to India then?