Sunday prohibitions
Arising from the superstitions thread, what Sunday prohibitions existed in your childhood?
What made you ditch them?
Do any still exist today?
My parents were very strict about what was/ what wasn’t permitted on Sundays. No toys, games, but we were allowed crayoning books ( not paints) books and jigsaw puzzles. No outdoor play.
No sewing or knitting.
We didn’t have TV so that wasn’t an issue.
The worst day was when Christmas Day fell on a Sunday and we weren’t allowed to play with certain new toys, whilst the aforementioned crayoning books were allowed.
Eventually most of our presents turned out to be the sort that were permitted on Sundays anyway. Probably easier for two girls than boys. We acquired quite a collection of Bible-based games.
My parents amended their thinking later in life and I certainly changed my views once I left home.
What made you ditch them?
Do any still exist today?
My parents were very strict about what was/ what wasn’t permitted on Sundays. No toys, games, but we were allowed crayoning books ( not paints) books and jigsaw puzzles. No outdoor play.
No sewing or knitting.
We didn’t have TV so that wasn’t an issue.
The worst day was when Christmas Day fell on a Sunday and we weren’t allowed to play with certain new toys, whilst the aforementioned crayoning books were allowed.
Eventually most of our presents turned out to be the sort that were permitted on Sundays anyway. Probably easier for two girls than boys. We acquired quite a collection of Bible-based games.
My parents amended their thinking later in life and I certainly changed my views once I left home.
Comments
When I went away to university and was trying to decide for myself, I heard a sermon on the subject of the Sabbath v Lord’s Day. By way of example the vicar said that his wife did not sew or knit on Sundays as she did a lot of that on weekdays, so she wrote letters. For him, letter writing was definitely work: on the other hand, he liked to do a bit of weaving if he had a spare hour on a Sunday. This was when I realised that there wasn’t a set list of prohibited activities for all Christians on Sundays ( such was my upbringing).
My parents’ attitude is totally inconsistent. Sometimes we are dragooned to Sunday School, sometimes we go for a drive, or go visiting.
I still do not pay for something on a Sunday, and try to limit the work I expect others to do on a Sunday. However, I focus on positive things I do do, so time for prayer, bible study, that lie in I want etc.
I think they still lock the play areas in Lewis & Harris, and all council leisure facilities are closed which is a source of disquiet as this extends to South Uist and Barra where most folk are RC.
Since I worked all day on Sundays it never made much difference to me anyway!
c.f. last week's news article about an Amazon driver on the Broomway.
By the time I became a Christian I was working as a nurse doing shifts at weekends so keeping Sunday special was never a feature.
Does that mean only hard liquor? At the risk of this becoming an autobiography, when we were in Texas near Fort Worth, before moving to Ontario, you could buy beer in the grocery store on Sunday, but only after 12:00 noon. This meant that just before that hour you would see a lot of people standing around near the check-outs with their beer waiting for it to be legal to pay for it.
I grew up with some restrictions—not surprising being Presbyterian, in the American South, and from a family full of Presbyterian ministers and elders.
For us, it boiled down to spending money. No shopping, for example. We could watch tv, but we couldn’t go to the movies. We could swim at the pool where we had a membership, but we couldn’t swim at the town pool, which had an hourly fee.
Of course, the glaring exception to this was that we’d sometimes go out for lunch after church. That seemed to happen more as I got older, which coincided with my mother going back to work as a teacher. To be fair, she’d readily admit the lack of consistency there. She would note that the restrictions had eased over the generations, and she was willing to ease them a little further.
Also to be fair, while the restrictions were pretty much imposed when we were children, as we got older it was made clear we could make our own choices, and could do so without worrying about disapproval from our parents.
That's my view too. Though I have been an inconsiderate, arbitrary so-and-so with other people's sabbath - I remember being put out that just about the only petrol one could find in N.Wales on a Sunday was at Betws-y-Coed, and I got there on fumes once or twice. Nowadays it's one of those things which is definitely not utilitarian, my choices having a vanishingly small effect on the lives of those who have to work on a Sunday. I try to do it anyway.
As I don't have children, and lived hundreds of miles from my parents, it wasn't a decision I had to make. My own childhood followed this pattern, often visiting both sets of grandparents, even though my parents were agnostic, so it may be as much a cultural as Christian habit.
He meant he wanted to watch the England vs Germany football match. 😉
Oh and there would be a “Sunday Cake” for tea. Which meant Mum had iced it.
He had memories of Sunday trips by local train, then a walk before returning home.
The amusing thing is that his family weren't poor, yet they always travelled in fourth class (basically a cattle wagon with a bench round the sides) because it was a short journey and the train took the same time whichever carriage one was in!
Strangely, when we were teenagers we transferred to a church in the city, as it had more to offer for teenagers. This meant using buses ( making somebody work) . I suppose my parents thought it was for our greater good.
I meant hard liquor, spirits, sold at ABC Stores, State Stores, etc. as @Nick Tamen has rightfully specified (Thanks, Nick). Even here in Mississippi -- the creased, cracked, hole-stretched, faded patch of worn leather under the tarnished buckle of the American Bible Belt, one can buy beer in at least 1/3 of counties, with time restrictions, on Sundays. We can also have wine or beer or mixed drinks in restaurants on Sundays as in NC. The MS Legislature is currently debating a bill that would lift Sunday liquor restrictions altogether. One Representative quipped that passing it would help bring MS into the 21st century. A friend mused that it would help bring MS forward -- but only into the 20th.
The first series to feature Sunday play in England was in 1981, possibly the greatest series of all.
Intriguing - because of how and where I remember Gooch's 333, I'm sure there must have been a rest day on Sunday. Was it an irregular thing by then?
Keeping the day holy was the driving concept. In the words of the answers to question 60 and 61 of the Westminster Shorter Catechism:
I recall a study of the Ten Commandments in the Presbyterian campus ministry group when I was in law school. In talking about the 4th Commandment, the campus minister (who had been raised in the Christian Reformed Church of North America, historically pretty strict about Sabbath-keeping) said that asking what we’re prohibited from doing on Sunday was asking the wrong question. The question, she said, should be what are we freed to do—freed by not having to work or deal with those things we have to deal with every other day. That has stuck with me.
I still hear conversations in the PC(USA) about Sabbath-keeping with some regularity. Often, at least one or two people involved in those conversations express some regret over “what has been lost.” Typically, those conversations have a focus consistent with that expressed by my campus minister decades ago—what are we freed to do rather than what are we prohibited from doing.
But even so, I think the question of “How do we acknowledge and participate in the holiness of the day” remains fundamental in those conversations. For example, the approach is likely to be less about simply what would be fun or enjoyable and more about what nurtures relationships with family and friends.
One of the great laments among American Christians of numerous stripes was the fairly recent encroachment of recreational youth sports onto Sundays. It seems to have started with soccer, but sports of all sorts now feature games on Sundays. Because of the ridiculous cult of athletics in this country, few seem to be able to withstand that reality regardless of the staunchness of their faith.
As a confirmand in the LCMS at the time, I was taught to Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy meant We should fear and love God so that we do not neglect the preaching of his word, but gladly hear and learn it. (this is from memory). The emphasis was on honoring the spoken word, not honoring the 24 hour day.
For example, the Heidelberg Catechism, traditionally used in Dutch and German Reformed churches, organizes its questions into 52 “Lord’s Day” sections, with the idea of publicly working through the catechism in one year. Friends who grew up in the Christian Reformed Church of North America (Dutch Reformed in heritage) remember such catechesis during Sunday evening services as a regular part of their childhood.
I’m not certain (it was a very long time ago) but when the Sunday League started in England and Wales, Johnners wasn’t a commentator. That could have led to him being used less for Test matches too.
I do know that Vic Pollard of New Zealand retired from Test cricket when asked to play on a Sunday, and Euan Murray, the Scotland prop forward and Michael Jones, the All Blacks flanker would not play on Sunday