I'm A Christian And I Couldn't Care Less About Whether Cadbury Mentions Easter

Yes, it's nice to see the Church, which is sometimes considered rather spineless and ineffectual, standing up for its followers. But I'd prefer to see that backbone used to make a difference on issues that really matter.

Every Christmas, when people start banging on about there being a "War on Christmas", I find myself rolling my eyes so hard I practically give myself a migraine. But now it's started with Easter too.

The latest row is over some Easter egg hunts put on by Cadbury and the National Trust. But SHOCK HORROR, they were simply called "egg hunts".

This led to the Archbishop of York saying it was akin to "spitting on the grave" of the Christian founder of Cadbury and even the prime minister herself weighed in, claiming it was "absolutely ridiculous" to omit the word.

Guys. Priorities.

Firstly, let's be clear that while the name of the event itself does not contain the word "Easter", the word appears countless times in the associated literature, on their websites and social media accounts.

But I know it's the name of the event - "Egg Hunt" - that's bothering the majority of critics.

Yes, Easter is a Christian celebration. But I don't think that the word "Easter" being in the name of an event makes it any more or less Christian. The tradition of hiding chocolate eggs for children to find is not itself religious. This particular series of events is run by a confectionary company and a conservation organisation. To be fair, it might be a weird if a church event omitted the word. But to be honest, I don't think even Christians go to an egg hunt and spend their time praying their way through it.

Just like I don't buy the idea that there's some sort of war on Christmas, I'm really not convinced that this was a decision to try to secularise Easter.

Although this is nominally a Christian country, many, many people do not identify as Christian. Yes, that's a little sad to people who *do* practise Christianity but to keep on and on about this doesn't do anyone any good, including the Church.

If you're a Christian yourself reading this, then perhaps you disagree with me or think I'm doing our faith down. But I just don't think harping on about how "we're a Christian country" is going to attract anyone to Christianity - in fact it's going to do the opposite. The Church weighing in on this makes it look churlish and frankly a bit like the fun police.

There are plenty of other issues the Church of England should be dealing with, rather than whether Cadbury uses the word "Easter" in an event. Christians are facing very real persecution around the world. According to Open Doors, which tracks persecution trends, Christians are being attacked and even killed for their faith in countries including India, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Mexico, Somalia and Nigeria.

(British Christians face nowhere near that level of risk, but I've previously also written about how it can sometimes be scary to talk about faith in public, which you can read here.)

Yes, it's nice to see the Church, which is sometimes considered rather spineless and ineffectual, standing up for its followers. But I'd prefer to see that backbone used to make a difference on issues that really matter.

And there are CERTAINLY more pressing things Theresa May should be focussing on. Yes, she says her faith is important to her and that's fine but she represents all of the people of this country. In the same way as I mentioned above with the Church, it's fine to stand up for what you believe in, but I really feel that Mrs May should be prioritising far more carefully. Among the issues highlighted by people on social media were: funding from the "tampon tax" being given to an anti-abortion charity, benefits changes leaving tens of thousands of children in poverty, the PM refusing to condemn Donald Trump's refugee ban, the possibility of a war with Spain over Gibraltar...the list goes on. She'll speak up on chocolate eggs, but not on these issues?

There are plenty of things to be outraged about these days. The name of a chocolate egg-hunting event isn't one of them.

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