Just saying “no” to religious holidays
Something interesting is going on in Sweden. A service company there has proposed that that industry move away from mandatory observances of Christian holidays and towards allowing individual employees to negotiate what holidays, if any I suppose, they’ll observe.
[link] Almega, an organisation that supports service companies in Sweden, has proposed a move away from public holidays based on Christian beliefs. It should instead be up to employees to decide which holidays to take on the basis of their own religious faith.*
“Why should a Shiite Muslim be free on Epiphany if he or she wants to be free to celebrate the Day of Ashura? I think this will become the norm in the labour market in the future,” Almega’s Magnus Kendel told Metro.
I think this is a very good step in the right direction. At least one person disagrees referring to the move as having an “anti-Christian” bias. I guess that’s true. If one defines “pro-Christian” as the ‘right/privilige to enforce Christianity and all it’s related baggage upon populace regardless of the personal beliefs and/or disbeliefs of those subjected to such’.
Seriously. How can anyone get “anti-Christian” out of such a move? I don’t think you can unless you think Christianity, for whatever reason, deserves to be treated in a different and superior manner to all other customs, beliefs and/or religions. It’s not like Almega is proprosing that Christian holidays be done away with or that Christians are being told they will not be allowed, under any circumstance, to observe their holy days.
* emphasis added
About Author
Interesting idea which seems to convey respect for non-Christian theists. Of course, this means it would never fly in the U.S. I wonder what they’d do about atheists.
As for how people can get “anti-Christian” out of this, you nailed it when you said “…unless you think Christianity, for whatever reason, deserves to be treated in a different and superior manner to all other customs, beliefs and/or religions.” This seems to be exactly how many Christians see it.
I do not find this objectionable. A nuance on the “anti-Christian” claim, is that a form of Christianity was an established religion in Sweeden untill just a few years ago: There may be those who see European civilization as “Christian” and to some extent for a certain historical period one could argue that is so. The work of disestablishing completely Christianity from the culture would appear as being anti-christian. Of course while Christianity can be the religion of the culture it often is also an alternative relligion and was at first such and to some degree a religion of resistance against Greco-Roman culture.
All that to say while I don’t agree with the sentiment I could see where it would come from and may be more a desire to preserve a certain culture and not merely out of some blatant sense of priveledge.
However, I don’t think one could even if it was desireable to preserve that. And if US corporationswere on the whole more generous with allowing their people vacation and time off I would be all for this happening in the States.