I’d never attended an Easter sunrise service, but this year, my daughter and I decided to go to the one held at Moosehaven (a retirement community for members of Moose International) on the shores of the St. Johns River. The facility is lovely, facing east, and there was a slight fog obscuring the bridge to the north. It was a nice place to watch the day being born.
It was disappointing enough that I forgot to grab a couple of chairs or that the music was provided by a CD player (there isn’t a choir among the residents?) The service was conducted by the two ministers for the community - a Catholic priest and a woman minister. Actually, she pretty much ran the whole thing, with the priest doing one scripture reading.
Still, none of this would have bothered me, until she got to her remarks after the reading. As she was going on about the glories of Easter, she had to add “Mohammed didn’t rise after three days.” Yep, Easter morning and she has to take a cheap shot. Way to love your neighbor as yourself.
Here it is, 7 hours later, and I’m still aghast at that comment. I’d write her a letter, but I doubt it’d have any effect. Sad pathetic creature…
I went to a church service on New Years Eve after 9/11, and the preacher, during his prayer, mentioned the “Middle Eastern cults”. That, and all the flag-waving, made me want to gag. I think separation of church and state should apply to churches too.
[hijack]
The Sci-Fi channel is playing “Pet Cemetary” and “Pumpkinhead II” today. Coincidence? I think not, but it made me laugh anyway (admittedly, with much guilt).
I went to a service once where the preacher was much like this woman. He was pretty straightforward in his sermon but then launched into what can only be called hate speech against many different groups… gays, muslims, pentacostals, and women who wore pants.
I met him in the foyer after the service and he asked me how I liked the sermon and I was reminded of the commandment “Thou shalt not bear false witness”.
But don’t Muslims believe Mohammed ascended bodily into Heaven? Are Christian ministers ignorant of that fact, or are they trying to say it’s not true? They sound like they’re completely unaware of that belief.
Nothing against Christianity per se - I simply agree w/the OP that the “our team rocks, their team sucks” mentality is a crummy way of celebrating Life / Lord / Infinite Is / Deity of your choice.
Do all religions do this? I’ve been to services at various Christian denominations & they always seem to. Even the Unitarian Universalists take some swipes.
Speaking as a non-Christian, this has to be perhaps the MOST ANNOYING thing that all too many Christians do. The basic we’ve got the real religion and you don’t!! Nyeah, nyeah nyeah!! mentality. :rolleyes:
What I do find gratifying are the number of Christians who are standing up to this nonsense! Thanks FairyChatMom!
At least at my (sorta-former) church, I know this happened to some degree. But I don’t remember it happening during very solemn occasions or solemn parts of the service. Mostly it would be just the minister, or whoever was speaking that day, making the remark during the day’s speech/sermon/whatever it happened to be categorized as. But we didn’t, for example, say, “OUR communion doesn’t involve ritual cannibalism!” during the Flower Communion or anything.
I don’t usually have a HUGE problem with religious leaders making offhand remarks about how their religion is better, even during services. But there are times that are meant to be NICE and WORSHIPFUL and such. I think Easter has GOT to be one of those.
Man, maybe my parish is weird (Catholic here), but we have priests read prayers during their homilies written by Rabbis in the 1990s, or tips on ways to pray that they learned from Buddhist monks. I really enjoy it, and it’s sad that it’s apparently quite unusual.
Catholic teaching is that while the RC Church has the fullness of institutional bells and whistles (it’s the best!), salvation is still possible for non-Catholics and non-Christians. So, generally, while you may hear sermons about why RC-ity is the best, you won’t hear it accompanied by insults of other faiths (with the exception of a few jerky RC ministers out there – there’s some in every crowd).
Peace.
“We’re Number One! … and all of you get a silver star for tieing for number two!”
Depends on which Muslim you ask. Some believe that yes, he did indeed ascend bodily into Heaven on the night of Miraj, but others believe that it was a spiritual journey, and that his soul acsended into Heaven only.
