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Richard Littledale's
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Oh groan all ye faithful It has all the predictability of an argument about a White Christmas, a repeat of The Great Escape or somebody not liking their Christmas present. At about this time of year somebody somewhere in the media will pick up on a story about Christmas where the church can be painted as a killjoy. This year the fall guy is Right Rev Nick Baines, the Bishop of Croydon. Nick has written a book entitled 'Why wish you a merry Christmas' which does, to coin a phrase, exactly what it says on the tin. Why, it asks, do we sing sentimental and sanitised carols against a backdrop of harsh reality where the gap between the Christmas story and our own appears to grow ever wider? Carols which sing about a non-crying baby or Christian children who are forever 'mild and obedient' don't do the church any favours when it comes to being taken seriously. Instead the result is that the Christmas story is ranked alongside every fictional story in people's minds: "Every story is given the same value and so every story is relegated to fictional fantasy - or, at best, to some vague moral parable aimed at encouraging children to be nice to each other". Headline hungry journalists have turned this into a story about a miserable Bishop who won't let us sing carols (see the BBC website). Nothing could be further from the truth. Nick is a witty, warm intelligent Christian whose deepest wish is that people should engage with the Christmas story rather than glossing over it. His comment to Views on the subject was that people should "read the book and think for themselves". The church's greatest danger is surely that we underestimate people's wish or ability to do just that. When we offered people the opportunity to 'appear' in the Christmas story at the getinthepicture event, they were falling over themselves to do so. People want to believe in the Christmas story, and it is up to the church to help them rather than hinder them. |
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