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Pepijn

Danish society is often oblivious to religious sensitivities. Apparently my kid will go to church today. No permission slip needed.

Message from our government run day-care:
"In addition to a lot of festive fun the children had cozy Christmas lunch with delicious food. Tomorrow the last event of the year awaits, a visit to the church, together with the other children institutions."

I hope the kids wear high-vis gear.

-vis-for-jezus

note: Although utterly non-religious we're fine with this.

I am curious whether the obviously non-Lutheran religious parents (Hindus, Muslims) were actually asked in person. I'm a bit afraid they were and the motivation was a well intended one..

edit: "fine" if it's just a visit as I want my kid to be exposed to different ideas and tales. We'll also do Harry Potter :-) I'm now reading some comments from Danes that make me a bit on edge for what will come in three or four years though.

Lol. Someone -now blocked- just DM-ed me about going back to my own country.

Like, seriously, we have a child who needs a lot of healthcare. We'll leave after we drain all the tax kroner we can. 💰 💰 💰

Flags & Hygge for your thoughts. 🇩🇰

(oh 💩, I think we're a net tax payer still)

@Pepijn after verification, only the "big" kids are going to church - so their parents may well have been asked for permission.

@juliette I do wonder a bit if this is due to the rainy weather and them not wanting to dress up 15 poopy, jumpy spider ants...

@juliette @Pepijn They definitely don't ask for permission at my son's school. All they want to know is whether we'll pick up the kids at the church after the event is over or if the kids are going back to the SFO at the school.

@Pepijn Quick, get another chronic condition!

@EvilCartyen shit shit.. I'll look into prions. I bet Danish Crown has some.

@EvilCartyen Still feels like something Danish Crown can facilitate.

Maybe I can lick some halfrotten mink? I bet those can be found in our area.

@Pepijn

You know, the national sports of Denmark are drinking, consuming pork, and depression.

It's basically patriotic.

@Pepijn It’s worse here in England if anything. My kids were taken to an evangelist Christian “panto” (without dames etc) at a Baptist church without permission slips etc on one days’ notice. I am not at all happy with the amount of “worship” (their word) required by the school.

I am sorry to hear you’ve had this abuse. From an outsider who was hoping to move to Denmark for a while, there does seem to be a side to it of expecting everyone to just pipe down and quietly fit in.

@Pepijn I'm a Dane who loathes people like that commenter. Whenever people question how things are done the way they've always been done without taking a moment to reflect, the cave-people come out swinging their clubs for no other reason than not wanting things to change ever. Ironically, for someone defending an institutionalized Christian tradition, they show zero Christian values. Just the type of person Jesus would choose to hang out with, right? Riiiight? ;)

@Pepijn I have had to de-indoctrinate my children of all the religious garbage my kids were fed in daycare and the first years of school. The most impressionable age 😡

It made me so mad. I am astounded and horrified at how much Christianity is (completely unchallenged by other views or religions) spoon fed to our young kids.

@Trine_DK @Pepijn I too (quietly and staying on my half) don't spare my children for my opinion about religion. I am fine with them thinking what they want -so did I at that age - but they reallllly should know that there are alternatives.

@Pepijn For some reason they build a huge Church here in Skanderborg in the middle of a living area with schools nearby. They apparently need to ring the church bells very loudly at 8:00 (Thinking about complaining how loud it is). I am not sure a Mosque would have got the same liberty. I always get irritated when I hear it, but then I try to remember how cosy I thought it sounded when I was a child, and what I think about religion as an adult.
kirker.dk/kirke/hoejvangen-kir

Kirker.dkHøjvangen kirkeOplev den nye Højvangen kirke: En folkelig samlingsplads i Skanderborg med fleksible faciliteter og enestående arkitektur.

@Orewoet @EvilCartyen I grew up with this view (just three floors up) from my single glazing sleeping room window. Laying in bed while its massive bells generate both audible sounds and vibrations powerful enough to feel in my body is still something I miss from my Sunday mornings. Seeing a St. Matthew Passion performance inside the building was very much an ethereal experience.

The people going there on Sunday actively campaign against abortion and for gay people to have children though. :-|

@Pepijn @EvilCartyen And I immediately get fascinated by the history of the building just by looking at the picture. It seems to be old (Standing on slightly elevated ground - there almost certainly were buildings there before the first part of this church was build.) It has gone through a lot. Maybe the first part (also serving as a defensive building) build around 14-something?

And:
We might share a Dutch opinion about religion that was popular around the last quarter of the last century?

@Orewoet It has an amazing history. Martinikerk in Bolsward (there, now you can locate my parents house ;-)).

Like a swampier version of Athens it was constructed on one of the bits of higher ground surrounding the former Middelzee bay. From this a dry passage went to the higher ground facilitating city hall.

The town has a very complex history with religion btw. It's still covered in churches from various denominations and there's a schedule so the bells don't intermingle.

@EvilCartyen

@Pepijn @EvilCartyen "The current church was built between 1446 and 1461, the small medieval church which stood at that location previously was demolished to build the new one."
😊
(Scored some - easy perhaps - points there - and I thought that the bottom part of the tower was earlier -and I think it probably was a bit earlier than the rest of the (huge) church).

Wow - you lived Very close to the church!
That must have been impressive and probably part of your identity as a child.

@Pepijn @EvilCartyen Now I understand the slightly awkward angle of the picture 🙂

The building was absolutely part of my identity.

Already at a young age the people dealing with the building shaped my feelings about organized religion: the sacristans ('koster') of the place were aggressive about walking on the grass. Shouting (to 6yr old kids looking for owl poop) we desecrated the place by walking there.

I never understood how with that, the Evangelical Broadcaster, EO, parking TV / radio trucks & dozens of cars on the grass every month was fine..

@Orewoet @EvilCartyen

@Pepijn @EvilCartyen 🙂
Maybe he reacted this way because of the extreme division of the Netherlands in religious columns (zuilen)?
The EO broadcasting company clearly inside the column - speaking their language, but "not yet fully educated children doing earthly things" -not yet (to say the least) in the right column.

And perhaps it Was the worst day of the month for the poor Koster 🙂 .

@Orewoet Hah. Pillarisation did ply a role there. I was probably identified as "catholic". It was a general thing though with adults allowed and even the polite children (lill Pepijn) shushed away.

@EvilCartyen

@Orewoet
Oh, I didn't know about pillarisation, very interesting!

The closest thing in Denmark would probably be the Grundtvigsk/Missionsk split, which seems to have been less institutionalized.

Near the border, Danish/German comes closer, with separate banks etc., funding land purchases by the Right People.

@Pepijn @EvilCartyen

@notsoloud @Pepijn @EvilCartyen It has been extremely strong -with people not even being allowed to talk to people of a different pillar. Let alone do other things.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pillaris

en.wikipedia.orgPillarisation - Wikipedia

@Pepijn I'm a little conflicted about this, since - as a principle - I don't think religion should have any place in public life, and if it was a visit to a mosque or a synagogue I would be annoyed.

On the other hand, I really enjoyed and enjoy being in churches, I like the hymns, I like singing in church, and I find the inherent historical value and knowledge associated with even a village church fascinating. And I do think it's valuable for my children to experience that - in a totally secular atmosphere, of course.

So I think there's a lot of cultural value and learning to be had by visiting churches and singing hymns, I just hope they're not banging on about the God-thing.

My children are, of course, vocally atheist. We live in a muslim-majority area, so it's not like confirmations and baptisms are common here, so they have to actively decide FOR religion, which is probably unlikely when my wife and I are nonbelievers.

@EvilCartyen I went to a catholic primary school. It associated with a local church. We didn't have any religious lessons, ever.

We did do religious activities. F.e. one year I was a sheep in a Bethlehem themed musical (in church). When the final performance came up sheep-me was out as only Catholic kids were allowed..

I came out of that school knowing nothing about any religion. If it wasn't for my dad talking to me I probably would've been "somewhat Catholic" without ever thinking about it.

@Pepijn

We did 'krybbespil' but just in the folkeskole, I was Josef one year and an angel another year. I don't know if they still do that, it was 35 years ago. I guarantee you they don't do it where I live now.

@EvilCartyen I can see you as a decent Josef.

@Pepijn Better than an angel, right? I also think you made a fantastic sheep!

Everyone were dressed in bath towels, it really was comical.

@EvilCartyen I was the best sheep. My mom said so.

My dad was just angry about the entire thing. Especially after I told him I ate some funny cookies at one of the church rehearsals. 8yr old me really appreciated that.

A year or two later I was a Batavi (from the Germanic tribe) in an absolutely historically incorrect performance on how the Netherlands became populated. We wore the same sheepskins again.

@Pepijn I read your toot shortly after I tsk-ed for the umpteenth time as I reached for the button to switch stations from P2 because every morning, it insists on broadcasting a Protestant church service on our national airways.

@CiaraNi That one confuses me to great ends. I refuse to believe there's a large audience for that. And it is completely out of place with the secular and inclusive programming surrounding it.

I get that within Danish society there's some wish for it, fair enough. But put it on P12 or something where people who want it can find it.

@Pepijn @CiaraNi Originally, I think the idea was that elderly people - who are clearly the target demographic - probably don't have acccess to P12, so it had to be a non-digital channel.

But now they're all digital, aren't they?

@EvilCartyen @Pepijn P2 isn't full-time on FM right now, it has shared the channel with P1 for a few years now. After January 1st, P2 is moving entirely to DAB+ or the DRLyd app. I doubt they will stop broadcasting mass though.

@Pepijn Agreed. It's a very visible and demonstrative interruption. I have been known to compare it to radio and television sets in dictatorships that interrupt programmes to broadcast words from The Dear Leader, and may or may not only have been slightly joking.

@CiaraNi
It's a contractual stipulation that they must focus on Danish culture, including the "christian cultural heritage".

Section 3.4:

kum.dk/fileadmin/_kum/1_Nyhede
@Pepijn

@notsoloud That's a fine stipulation, even more so as we see so much knowledge and information decline because of enshittification online. I think they do a wonderful job meeting this requirement, and can still do so without broadcasting a church service from one religion every single day on one of the flagship channels. At the very least, only on Sundays, or at Easter and Christmas.

mastodon.green/@Pepijn@mastodo

mastodon.greenMastodon.green

@Pepijn Completely agree. I have been in DK all of my life, and I still wonder about this - especially because my children go to school with a lot of families from other relegions and people I know to be atheist.

@ruari safety first, you just don't want him left hanging.