stumblingblock

From to time it surfaces during discussions, not doing something to avoid being a stumbling block, avoiding something to not give offense to the weaker brother.

There was this baptist church on the Dutch side of the great pond. They thought they were very serious about such things.
None of it's members ever visited a cinema, not even to watch a completely harmless family film, because outsiders might draw the wrong conclusion
None of them used alcohol, or even bought wine for cooking purposes and none of them smoked.
No dancing, no contemporary music, no Pokémon, no Harry Potter, no Sinterklaas, no Easter bunnies.
They thought they were doing not being stumblingblocks pretty well.

Meanwhile the sundayschool classroom for the children of the congregation was to small. So they were taught in 2 shifts. While one group received their lessons the group that was not being taught played outside the church and vice versa.
That's to say both shifts of children spend their time not in school stoning the ducks in the nearby pond. By the time they had butchered them all, the locals had arranged it so that the church got kicked out of the neighbourhood.

Nobody on the outside had noticed all those actions taken to avoid being a stumbling block.
But they certainly noticed those ducks dying...
And they also noticed the lax response of the parents.

 

James
The most disturbing thing was, that it wasn't simply soft parenting. Those parents weren't averse to corporal punishment and they were very strict with their kids in all sorts of ways, they just seemed to have a complete blindspot when it came to this. Those kids meanwhile behaved themselves well when there was adult supervision and the moment it was gone, pandemonium would break loose immediately.

csmith
We are talking vandalism and cruelty to animals here, not poaching. They never tried to eat the animals. The participants were basically all kids between 5 and 15 in that church I believe.

williemakeit
Those adults had trouble perceiving that there could be a need for supervision in this case. The area in which the building was located was deemed save. A residential area with limited trafic and a public pond with a couple of ducks, what could go wrong?
I also suspect that the sundayschool thing just isn't a big priority with that church.
The sad thing is that the adults are truly worried that some outsider would see one of them buy a bottle of beer, that would be in their perception a dreadfull testimony.
Secular people in the Netherlands however see no connection whatsoever between Christianity and never drinking alcohol. That's an aspect of American Christian culture that never caught on overhere.

 

Lacy Evans
No geese. No swans either.
As for the ducks, this went on for many months. I suspect (but don't know for sure) a number of ducks permanently relocated to other ponds.
Ducklings and their mothers however are a lot more vulnerable.
We are talking about 2 groups of 20+ kids each here, going at it each week.

 

csmith
We're talking about bored callous children, not entrepeneurs.


Side note: Chinese food overhere, is very different from Chinese food in the states. A lot of Chinese restaurants even have no duckrecipes on the menu at all. For those that do duck almost never is a big seller.

 

Bob
"Are you saying that if these parents had lower standards the ducks would still be alive today? "
"
I'm saying that those parents clearly did not understand some very basic things about their own children and the people that surrounded them.
The fact that their kids were only wellbehaved when they were continously supervised.
The fact that the people in the neighbourhood liked to visit the pond with their (grand)children, feed bread to those ducks and that the actions of those baptist children that messed that up was the only thing those locals ever seem to have noticed about those baptists.

"How can you know the motives of those parents in that church?"
"
Our juniorpastor sometimes preached at that church (and still does at their new location), there is regular fellowshipping going on between their deacons and our elders. Guess who makes the tea for those meetings? I am nosy and have sharp ears. The parents of a college friend of mine were on the other side of the conflict. I got a reasonably close inside look at the motivations of both sides in this case.

" Is there such a thing as being too separated?"
"
Case in point.

williemakeit
According to certain French culinary traditions sparrowsized birds can be fine eating.

 

P_Barnes
"I think there are a lot of aspects of American Christian Culture that have never caught on in The Netherlands."
"
American Christian writers are remarkably successfull in the Dutch Evangelical camp. With the exception of guns, booze, KJVO and some of the most peculiar anti-Catholicism I can't think of anything that hasn't caught on strongly. I have met Dutch adherents of all of these exceptions as well.

"I would be quite surprised to learn that there were (are) any Christian fundamentalists living in Holland that weren't transplants from the USA. "
"
Start being amazed. The strongest Calvinists among the American fundamentalists are most often descendents from Dutch immigrants. Some of the hypercalvinists that stayed overhere think of them as soft compromisers.
Next to them there are the Evangelicals, most of these are of the neo-evangelical persuasion, but there are pockets of historical fundamentalists among them. Both my own church and the one I've been telling about can be counted among them.

"The image I get of The Netherlands (from television, naturally) here is that it is the most liberal country in the world."
"
There is quite a lot of truth in that assesment, it's not a complete picture however.

"I apologize for getting off-topic in your thread"
"
This thread has been of it's originally intended topic as far as I'm concerned from the first response, can't say I care.


" but I thought you might be interested to know that at least some Americans are presented with the image that Holland is morally lax, somewhat "leftist" and "these things don't happen here". "
"
I already know. I think that that assesment is correct when talking about mainstream Dutch culture. With the exception, that I'm fairly certain that most of those things happen in the US as well, they are just slightly better hidden on your side.

 

superdave
And I've heard of a Calvinist preacher in the Netherlands who condemned those Dutch Reformed Christians in Michigan as so soft when it came to Calvinism that they were basically Roman Catholic in his eyes.