{"id":12184,"date":"2024-12-04T10:04:05","date_gmt":"2024-12-04T15:04:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/?p=12184"},"modified":"2024-12-04T10:06:39","modified_gmt":"2024-12-04T15:06:39","slug":"performance-of-handels-messiah-canceled-by-school-for-religious-content","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2024\/12\/performance-of-handels-messiah-canceled-by-school-for-religious-content.html","title":{"rendered":"Performance of Handel\u2019s \u201cMessiah\u201d Canceled by School for \u201creligious content\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_12178\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-12178\" style=\"width: 1200px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12178\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/409\/2024\/12\/school-orchestra-handels-messiah_credit-Adobe-Stock.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1200\" height=\"900\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-12178\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Adobe Stock<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>A Finnish primary school has canceled a performance of Handel\u2019s famous \u201cMessiah\u201d during the Advent season, seemingly over concerns that its religious content might offend some students. The concert was meant to take place at an unnamed school in Uusima and was to be performed by the Finnish Baroque Orchestra and the Helsinki Chamber Choir. The school has not revealed its direct reasons for the cancelation, but in 2022 a performance of the song in H\u00e4meenlinna led to one student complaining about the song\u2019s religious content. Finland\u2019s National Non-Discrimination and Equality Tribunal ruled to compensate non-Christian pupils with 1,500 euros. However, on November 19 the H\u00e4meenlinna Education and Welfare Committee\u00a0voted 6-5 against compensation.<\/p>\n<p>A number of political leaders announced their displeasure at the song\u2019s removal. &#8220;Not like this!\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hs.fi\/suomi\/art-2000010822295.html\">stated<\/a> Social Security Minister Sanni Grahn-Laasonen (Kok). \u201cWhat kind of society is it where schoolchildren don&#8217;t get to hear a baroque concert and get to know cultural history?&#8221; asked Social Security Minister Sanni Grahn-Laasonen (Kok). He added that \u201csuch oversensitivity does not protect rights, but limits opportunities.\u201d European Parliament member Mika Aaltola called it \u201ca joke.\u201d \u201cDid we think about giving up our cultural heritage in education and schools?\u201d Laura Kajander, executive director of the Baroque Orchestra, stated the decision only hurts the children. \u201cIf concerts are cancelled, it is the children who suffer,\u201d said Kajander.<\/p>\n<p>According to <a href=\"https:\/\/cbn.com\/news\/us\/school-cancels-handels-messiah-performance-amid-backlash-over-christian-music\"><em>CBN,<\/em><\/a> 65 percent of Finns identify as Christian, with 32 percent falling into the \u201cnones\u201d category, or those who don\u2019t identify with any particular religious belief. The country has two official state-sponsored churches: the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland and the Orthodox Church of Finland. Church attendance in the country, however, <a href=\"https:\/\/o-re-la.ulb.be\/analyses\/item\/1424-finland-recent-trends-and-patterns-in-religion-secularism-and-atheism.html#:~:text=Depending%20on%20the%20surveys%2C%20monthly,less%20than%20once%20a%20year.\">remains low<\/a>, with anywhere from four percent to 14 percent attending a church service at least once monthly while 10 percent to 24 percent do not attend at all. Membership within the church remains a cultural duty rather than any actual religious practice, with only around <a href=\"https:\/\/cne.news\/article\/4033-column-from-finland-are-we-witnessing-a-historic-change-in-religiousity\">25 percent believing in God<\/a> in the way the church taught about him. Teemu Laajasalo, bishop of the Diocese of Helsinki warned against the loss of God and the loss of the country\u2019s identity. \u201cChristian traits cannot be cleansed from our environment,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Even if art were banned, cleaning our environment from the traces of Christianity would require quite a few changes: we live in 2024, there are seven days in our week, and double wages are paid on the seventh day of rest. All of these have their history.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Finnish primary school has canceled a performance of Handel\u2019s famous \u201cMessiah\u201d during the Advent season, seemingly over concerns that its religious content might offend some students. The concert was meant to take place at an unnamed school in Uusima and was to be performed by the Finnish Baroque Orchestra and the Helsinki Chamber Choir.&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":627,"featured_media":12178,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7,137,74],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-christian-news","category-christian-persecution","category-exorcism"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Performance of Handel\u2019s \u201cMessiah\u201d Canceled by School for \u201creligious content\u201d<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2024\/12\/performance-of-handels-messiah-canceled-by-school-for-religious-content.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Performance of Handel\u2019s \u201cMessiah\u201d Canceled by School for \u201creligious content\u201d\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A Finnish primary school has canceled a performance of Handel\u2019s famous \u201cMessiah\u201d during the Advent season, seemingly over concerns that its religious content might offend some students. The concert was meant to take place at an unnamed school in Uusima and was to be performed by the Finnish Baroque Orchestra and the Helsinki Chamber Choir.&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2024\/12\/performance-of-handels-messiah-canceled-by-school-for-religious-content.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Christ News Today\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2024-12-04T15:04:05+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2024-12-04T15:06:39+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/409\/2024\/12\/school-orchestra-handels-messiah_credit-Adobe-Stock.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"900\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Cecilia Buchanan\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Performance of Handel\u2019s \u201cMessiah\u201d Canceled by School for \u201creligious content\u201d","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2024\/12\/performance-of-handels-messiah-canceled-by-school-for-religious-content.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Performance of Handel\u2019s \u201cMessiah\u201d Canceled by School for \u201creligious content\u201d","og_description":"A Finnish primary school has canceled a performance of Handel\u2019s famous \u201cMessiah\u201d during the Advent season, seemingly over concerns that its religious content might offend some students. The concert was meant to take place at an unnamed school in Uusima and was to be performed by the Finnish Baroque Orchestra and the Helsinki Chamber Choir.&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2024\/12\/performance-of-handels-messiah-canceled-by-school-for-religious-content.html","og_site_name":"Christ News Today","article_published_time":"2024-12-04T15:04:05+00:00","article_modified_time":"2024-12-04T15:06:39+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1200,"height":900,"url":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/409\/2024\/12\/school-orchestra-handels-messiah_credit-Adobe-Stock.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Cecilia 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