Survey: 1 of 6 English Youth Clueless about Good Friday
A recent survey found that a surprising number of young adults in England were ignorant of some of the basic facts about the important Christian holidays fast approaching this weekend.
The survey, conducted by the Somerfield supermarket chain, found that one out of every six people in England aged 16-24 years old did not know the meaning of Good Friday. And about 10 percent of the participants did not know that Easter Sunday commemorated the resurrection of Jesus, according to This is London, a London entertainment guide from The Evening Standard.
Meanwhile, 31 percent have no idea where the Easter bunny – a Pagan fertility symbol – originated from.
Get Our Latest News for FREE
A spokesman for The Christian Institute said he believes ignorance about Easter is due to how children are educated.
"Children are taught in a very thematic way rather than being educated about the different ways in which the world's religions celebrate different holidays like Easter," said Mike Judge, according to This is London.
"We're doing our children a great disservice in not teaching them the basic beliefs of Christianity," he added.
Judge reflected that previous generations were raised by attending summer school and learning in depth about the meaning of Easter.
"But there is definitely a generation of parents now who don't know themselves what Easter is about."
Somerfield, which conducted the survey, is an embarrassing case in point.
The supermarket's public relation's agency had written on its behalf a press release describing the tradition of giving Easter eggs as a celebration of the "birth of Jesus." When the report's author discovered her mistake, she quickly wrote a correction claiming that Easter observed the "rebirth of Christ."
Brando, the PR agency of Somerfield, sought help from the Church of England which explained that Easter symbolized the "resurrection" of Jesus.
A third report was finally issued with the correct meaning of Easter.
Ben Wilson, one of the Church of England's press officers, recalls, "I clarified with them that it would probably be best to refer to Easter as a celebration of Christ's resurrection rather than His birth,
"Easter is as hollow as most chocolate eggs if we don't take the chance to think about what it means – that Jesus died, was buried and was resurrected to show us the power of God's love – the power that allows us all to be born to new life."
Wilson noted that he was encouraged to see that according to the survey a fifth of the nation plans to attend Easter service on Sunday, though he wished it was higher.
In total, the survey questioned 1,130 adults about questions related to Good Friday and Easter. It is unclear from reports how many of the 1,130 surveyed were aged 16-24.
