Celebrating Christmas

There has been a lot of nonsense in the United Kingdom press lately about odd attitudes towards the celebration of Christmas. There have been quotes regarding the banning of office decorations at this time. There have also been people suggesting that street decorations rtelating to Christmas might be offensive to people of other religions. Much of this has come from those who are keen to promote political correctness. Over the years they have sniped at expressions such as accident black spots, gollywogs, black holes, etc. Basically, this has all been a load of rubbish.

Back in the 1980s I became very active in my trade union. It was a time when we were suddenly required to stop using the expression, "chairman", in favour of chairperson. Sexism was being outlawed. In addition we were being harangued to take a different view of homosexual men and lesbians. I accepted all of this because it was necessary to halt the traditional marginalisation of particular groups of people. In fact, I would assert that it was not Christian to continue with the old stereotyping of people. Therefore I was able to accept what was said and retrained my brain to change the words I spoke.

But now, in 2006, we are being harangued into certain things which do not stand up to the test. In the UK we are still, albeit nominally, a Christian based society. I would like to think that, for the most part, we accept many different people of varying faiths simply on the grounds of their humanity. I hope that our Christian beliefs cause us to accept as neighbours those of other faiths. But I cannot accept that Christmas festivities should change because we are now a multi-race society. If we visited a Muslim or Hindu country we would be expected to accept their ways and laws as the basis for living. In the UK our visitors and new residents need to accept the make up of our society.

When he came 2,000 years ago, Jesus gave us a new set of rules to live by. He declared the old rules outdated and established a new set of laws to live by which reflected the incarnation of God. Suddenly the people who followed him heard that a rich man was not favoured by God and that a he had problems with entering the Kingdom of Heaven. Jesus preached the Sermon on the Mount which seemed to echo the Magnificat sung by his mother, Mary, before his birth. He gave us a new set of values which were to take us onwards from that point.

This new set of values has continued right up to the present time. In recent years the churches of the UK have become less and less well attended. Our society has become more interested in the new age where commodities impress us and describe our achievements. Yet we must not lose sight of the fact that our laws have all been laid down on the basis of the new laws given to us by Jesus. The majority of our population may not espouse Christianity but it is still affected by Christian influence.

Therefore I assert our society has Christian values and standards. I see no need to do a U turn and begin watering down our Christmas way of celebrating the birth of Jesus. Many people of other faiths celebrate Christmas with us, simply because that is the way things are done in the UK. This makes sense. I met a Jew one December and noticed that in his house there were Christmas cards on one wall and Hannukah cards on another. This made perfect sense. In fact, he was the first person to wish me "Happy Christmas" on Christmas Day that year!

We live in a multi-racial society and can learn a lot from each other. But this does not mean we have to abandon all Christian ethics and practices because churches are poorly attended. The fact that society has, for the most part, decided against the relevance of regular worship is no reason to turn everything on its head and treat our country as if it is a foreign state. God will eventually call his church to account and require it to start anew. The day is coming when we all begin, once more, to realise that God is still speaking and calls us to worship as before.