“Archbishop defends Christmas.” It was recently suggested to me that this would make a striking and popular headline in the national press. Have we indeed reached a stage in our debates about multiculturalism and political correctness where Christmas itself is something that needs standing up for by church leaders? Local authorities earn themselves headlines as soon as they seek to remove the word ‘Christmas’ from our December festivities for fear of offending people of other faiths. Would the church be similarly headlined if it stood up for Christmas? And if so would it be for reasons with which Christians would feel comfortable? Is Christmas in danger of being politicised as a means of asserting Victorian family values, nationalism, increasing the profits of department stores, or whatever? Well, probably not. Perhaps there is something in Christmas itself which is deeply resistant to such distortions of its true meaning. We wouldn’t agonise so much about the commercial domination of Christmas if this wasn’t so.
The Christmas story denotes a triumph over bureaucracy, disruption and exclusion, difficult travelling, family life under pressure. It represents hospitality to unexpected guests and the giving of unexpected gifts. It shines out as light in the darkness to inaugurate the story of ‘God with us.’ But does it need defending in the media? Is it the case that church leaders should be using the media to talk to the 20% open de-churched proportion of the population who are sympathetic to the Church and who might by this means be persuaded to return to something they have at some stage in the past drifted away from?
And if so how (without wishing to put words into the mouth of an archbishop) might an article under such headlines develop? Christmas is a peculiarly sensitive time of year. It makes people who have to live on their own feel even more alone. It re-opens wounds in divorced families where parents take it in turn each year ‘to have the children’ on Christmas day. It causes deep anxieties where families who don’t see much of each other for the rest of the year feel bound to see and get along with each other for the festivities. It creates niggling guilt about the money spent on presents and the homeless who will spend Christmas on the streets. And over all is that desperate sense of having to get everything done in time so that everything will be right. So much seems to hang on Christmas as our major national celebration that perhaps we need an archbishop to reassure us that it’s all worth while. We need an archbishop to remind us of why we do it, and to show us how to make room for grace in all that we do.
But would such a ‘promotion’ of the real Christmas be offensive to other faiths? Not I think if it can show why Christmas is about something which can be recognised as a universal human need the need that confronts us whenever we see a baby. Babies are capable of bringing complete strangers together in interest and admiration. And cruelty to babies and small children unites us almost more than anything else in outrage and generosity. Babies by their very helplessness are hospitable. Babies can warn us against both presumption and despair. They make us feel vulnerable in our ability to care for them and to bring them up well. They make us reflect on our own lives the choices we failed to make, the wrong choices we regret, the help, guidance and inspiration for which we will always be grateful. They remind us once again of the possibilities of wonder and change and new and fresh experience the chance for rebirth in our own lives and the rediscovery of the values which we seek to share with them as they grow up. They remind us of what we hate about the world and that we love it enough to want to change it for their sake. And they rescue us from taking ourselves too seriously. And from taking religion too seriously. However serious the moment during the liturgy on a Sunday morning, it is impossible, standing behind the altar on a Sunday morning, not to smile as a toddler escapes from the back of the church and runs up the aisle looking for a parent or an adventure. And at Christmas we celebrate the fact that God was such a child. Our humanity is so significant in the scheme of things, so worth saving, that God becomes human to save us.
And if that is at least in part what Christmas is about then let it be a reminder to people of all faiths that for the sake of every child that now happens to be born on December 25th we should come together to share our common understanding of that from which we need saving and our common wisdom in seeking salvation.
With my love and prayers for a joyful Christmas and a blessed New Year. Fr Stephen
PS It may be that this letter is now redundant as the Mail has it seems run an article under the headline, ‘ Archbishop attacks PC brigade’s ban on Christian symbols’!
The Vicar Writes
Stephen Tucker