Dear abby: easter and apostasy

[lemonsharks]

DEAR ABBY: Easter is a day to be thankful for Christ that our sins are forgiven. Opinionated atheists at the dinner table distract from the meaning of the celebration. Is it wrong on Easter Sunday to exclude relatives who no longer practice the Christian faith? — SAVED IN MINNESOTA

DEAR SAVED: Before making up your mind, ask yourself, “What would Jesus do?”

Comments

[lemonsharks]

This easter, give your apostate relatives the gift of not having to pretend so, so many things about your religion are anything resembling ok.

Like human imperfection being so infinitely horribly unforgivable as to require divine blood sacrifice. That piece of dogma is NOT normal and NOT OKAY.

note: I'm coming at this as an evangelical apostate still wrestling with the self-hate Christianity instilled in me. I am not interested in hearing anyone's "no true christian" fallacies today, tonight, tomorrow, or ever.

[conuly]

God, for their own sake, exclude the hell out of them, and anybody who thinks that's a bad idea. Exclude everyone, and die alone.

[feldman]

Some church pantries force people to pray or attend services to get food; perhaps LW would be happier volunteering their holiday time with one of these venues, since their family is too opinionated to be proselytized over a ham dinner?

[edenfalling]

I am about 90% sure that the "atheists" in question (who may even be Christian! this letter reeks of the kind of Christianity that disowns most fellow Christians for somehow Doing Religion Wrong) would LOVE to be disinvited.

The 10% is because I have no idea why they're attending in the first place. Misplaced family loyalty? They actively enjoy starting arguments? Only chance to eat Annoying Relative's frustratingly delicious specialty food item?

Possibly they are teens forced to come by their parents, in which case this sounds like a much bigger family problem than just a religious argument at a dinner gathering.

[azurelunatic]

Even if I were Christian I wouldn't want to break bread with that sanctimonious harpy.

[gingicat]

Dear Family: This year I plan to talk about the Biblical origins of Easter, including the gory bits, over lunch. There may be a sermon. Please don’t feel obligated to attend, as this is not a debate.

[liv]

I mostly think the ex-Christian relatives are better off not being invited. But I do wonder about that 'opinionated'. If they're actually the kind of atheists who can't resist constantly harping on about the invisible sky-fairy and paedophile priests, even at a religious celebration where they are guests, then I feel like they are possibly guilty of quite bad manners. My suspicion is that "opinionated" just means they persist in having non-Christian friends and won't agree that they or their friends are unforgiven sinners. In any case, whether the atheists are actually rude or just their existence is an affront to LW's celebration, the right answer is not to invite them.

[sporky_rat]

As a Christian (probably not an acceptable one to the LW), I wouldn't want an invite to her table and if I had to include her on an invite to my table, she wouldn't get the good butter. (And I suspect I would be unkind enough to bring out the single ply uncomfortable toilet paper for the guest bathroom.)

[cereta]

Yeah, I'm Catholic, and most of our Easter celebrations are completely secular. I mean, we go to Mass, but we don't make any ham-handed (npi) to link the candy-and-fun part to Jesus, and if there are people at the table (we sometimes invite friends who don't have anywhere else to go and might just enjoy a nice meal) who aren't Christian, we don't even say the cursory pre-meal prayer. Because we are not assholes who force other people to participate in our faith.

[ambyr]

The tone here is terrible, but I . . . don't think there's anything wrong with not inviting people who don't follow your faith to your religious events? I am Jewish, my partner is not; by mutual consent I don't bring him to my family's Seder, because he would be incredibly uncomfortable being expected to join in prayers he didn't believe in, and our Seder is not a secular event. If LW wants to have a religious Eastern meal, LW should knock themselves out, and get together with atheist relatives on different occasions.

[grammarwoman]

I have to laugh at this, because my husband was raised Catholic, I was raised Lutheran, and we've both long since given up on attending any kind of organized religion, but we host Easter dinner for both sides of the family (in years when we can actually get together). I figure it makes it easier, because we can do all the meal prep and housekeeping without having to figure in church attendance that day as well.