I live in a multi ethnic community, where people belong to many different religions. Recently there was an event to mark the start of Eid , Davila and very soon Hanukah. All these religious festivals are openly talked about in my son’s school and celebrated but you can’t find celebrations for Christmas anywhere? On a local poster all the above religious festivals are mentioned but not Christmas – Santa is on it and words like winter festivities or festival of lights, but Christmas is never mentioned. In my son’s school they are going to do play about a baby – but as yet the word ‘Christ’ has not been mentioned.
You can tell by now that I am a little pissed off about this. Who is against Christmas? I don’t think the other religious faiths are? So who is it – is it big business or people who are trying to be politically correct – why is Christmas so offensive? Is it because it has ‘Christ’ in the title? I don’t know. Any ideas….??
when I was in Leicester the lights were multi purpose with the words changable. At the time I thought is was wierd and we ran a put Christ back into xmas campaign. In the past few years I have thought more about how people have more fully disassociated christ with christmas, so now my approach would be different. the baptist church is running a christmas tree festival, where charities decorate a tree, have a collection box and people will visit and judge them. I think in some ways this recognises how far people have moved away from christ, but is a way of drawing them in to help reconnect the story. Whilst I have lots of questions about the process, ethics it does go some way to meet people where theyre at and recognise the shift that has happened
Richard, sounds like a good creative response. I think my concern however is wider in terms of how it seems that it is OK and polictically correct to recognise some religious fesivals including pagan festivals .But as a country (certainly in cities) there seems to be a shyness, embarrassment or something…. about naming and celebrating traditional chrisitan festivals.
I understand that for many Christmas has never been about Christ….but why are Christians getting sidelined?? Is it because it is the majority religion… I don’t know, but I don’t like it.
Whilst I cant answer the question why about the sidelining I wonder if it it actually a good thing, is the need not to be sidelined a christendom hangover, and are we in the between time that people are not ready for us to name and celebrate the christian festivals but need to loose the twisted versions/false story more so the real one can have the space to be celebrated – if you see what I mean. Is it linked to the desert time you mentioned in the previous post and should this inform a response in future.