Remember singing at school?

[BrodyGraham]

Everyone's favourite hymn at my school was a lovely ode to optimism and courage in the face of adversity.

Unfortunately it was called 'God Loves a Cheerful Giver'.

 

[air_raid]

Fond memories of singing "Ding Dong Merrily On High" in about Year 9 or 10, and at the peak of the "Gloria, hosanna in excelsis" where you try and make "Gloria" last three weeks, my mate Chris stood next to me forgot to breathe and fully fainted in the middle of assembly. Teachers panicked, we all pissed ourselves.

[tiger_rick]

Just now, BrodyGraham said:

'God Loves a Cheerful Giver'.

That's what the priests at our school said.

[BrodyGraham]

Just now, tiger_rick said:

That's what the priests at our school said.

I was expecting someone being like, "I'll bet you do God, yeh dirty bollox!".

Still, less than a minute. Well played!

[Guest]

4 hours ago, Carbomb said:

Always interesting how so much of organised/state-enforced religion centres around foisting all the regalia of said religion onto the populace, while withholding understanding of the essence of it. I get the feeling that Sydney Carter would've been dismayed at his work being acaporated into the systematised brainwashing of kids in this way.

I didn't know what a Pharisee was for years as an adult, but finally finding out that it was essentially a political designation was interesting. Basically, there was a split in Judaism in the kingdom of Judaea at the time of the Romans - the state religion was "Greco-Judaism" or "Hellenistic" Judaism, so aristocrats had Greek forenames, and their priests were of the Sadducee branch. The demotic strand of the religion was more Hebraic - what is now referred to as "Pharisaic" Judaism, because their members were called Pharisees, and it led to Rabbinic Judaism, i.e. the Torah being written down, and priests being called "Rabbis" ("scholars") instead.

And, crucially for the context of the song - not a fan of Jesus. The song's trying to draw comparisons between educated elites, who don't join in the dance, and uneducated fishermen, who do. They're often used in scripture as personifications of an empty religious way of thinking, hypocrisy and even corruption. They get lumped with Sadducees a bit, but the main distinctive passage I can think of for them is specifically about the resurrection, which the Sadducees explicitly denied. 

 

Basically - there's a fair bit of anti-establishment, anti-empire, anti-corruption thinking in the New Testament, which is very,very will hidden in a lot of the institutions of the church today. "Sold love of neighbour for a seat at the table", as they say.

Edited January 13, 2025 by Duke