A Christless Christmas

Ironically, as we approach the new millennium celebrating the 2000th anniversary of Christ's birth, we are coming under increasing pressure to have a secular Christmas. Though they've recently reversed their decision, it was Birmingham City Council who wanted to drop the very name 'Christmas' and rename the festive season 'Winterval'.

Some time ago now, the entertainer and comedian Stephen Fry wrote an article in the Christmas issue of The Listener, arguing in quite a bellicose fashion for doing away with the traditional Christmas. With the bit between his teeth, he lambasted what he saw as the hypocrisy of it all. Let me quote a few sentences.

Get on with the party

'Christmas is a time for saying that Christmas is a time for doing things that, frankly, one should be doing anyway. Christmas is a time for considering people less fortunate than ourselves. Oh, June and August aren't, is that it? Christmas is a time for forgiveness. We should be beastly the rest of the year? Piffle!'

Then, after generally going on about God and (as he thought) St. Augustine introducing Christianity to Britain, he ended with a rollicking couple of paragraphs thus (and I'm toning down the language here): 'So go away St. Gussie, say I. It's cold and dark and loveless outside and this [the Christmas festivities] is as good as it gets. So let's feed the poor now, because their reward is not in heaven, let's drop ash on the carpet, slob around in our dressing gowns, mull wine all day long, forget our 'thank you' letters to granny and to God and have a ripping good time. But let's not just do it on Christmas Day. Let's do it every damned day, forever and ever, Amen!'

Stephen Fry was certainly right about one thing. The idea of Christmas being a time to do good as if the rest of the year isn't, is hypocritical nonsense. But the drift of what he is saying is plain. As Christmas equals fun and partying, let's have Christmas. But let's have it without Christ and God and church. Let's just make it a good time for ourselves and as many other people as we can, and away with all the tradition and religion - forget Jesus, the manger and all that.

He voices the thoughts of the vast majority of our nation in what he says. But it is worth pondering more deeply the idea of Christmas without Christ.

What happens to the joy?

Christmas without Christ gives the impression that we're keeping all the fun and laughter and just throwing out unnecessary nuisances from the festival.

But actually that is not true. If you throw Jesus out of Christmas, the character of the celebration alters completely. It is changed from being a genuine celebration into just an occasion to drown your sorrows.

We obviously live in a world that is suffering. There is poverty, illness and injustice. We all live knowing that we must grow old and die. But the original message of Christmas, if it is true, gives a real cause for gladness. It breaks into the heavy dirge of this world's death march like the sound of joyful jazz from heaven. Jesus is God with us! God has stepped into our shoes amid all the injustice, suffering and death. He has taken away our sins. We're forgiven. And the mystery of Bethlehem leads to the empty tomb and the joy of Easter morning. Death is vanquished!

Now if that is true, it really is 'good news of great joy'. It is unquestionably a reason to pop the champagne corks, carve the turkey and celebrate.

But the 'joy' associated with the Christless Christmas is a very different affair. It is more like a wake than a celebration. It is saying: 'There is actually no hope.' In Fry's words: 'It's cold and dark and loveless outside and this is as good as it gets.' So, the implication is, let's eat and drink and try to forget our situation, for tomorrow we die. It breathes the atmosphere of despair.

Leaving Christ out of Christmas is not keeping the joy and disposing of the junk. It changes everything. The occasion collapses from a celebration of good news into an attempt to escape the bad news. Perhaps, with this outlook, we can understand why, for so many people, Christmas is a sad and rather poignant time.

Where's the goodwill?

Secondly, Christmas without Christ gives the impression that we are keeping all the love and goodwill, but we're disposing of all the useless mumbo-jumbo.

But again, that is mistaken. In leaving out Christ, you are actually cutting the main artery of the rationale for love in the world.

Some people say you don't need a God of love to give people a reason to love one another. They say there's reason enough to be kind to others anyway, for if you are good to them, they will be good to you and society will be a better place.

If secular communism, which at least had the ideal of working for the common good, couldn't make a happy society, how much less can the individualistic West, where we do not even pay lip-service to such a concept?

The Saturday Telegraph magazine in October carried an article on the rise of violence in our society, citing such things as road rage, and abusive behaviour among air travellers. The article said 'a clear consequence of an individualist aspirational society is that we put ourselves before others'. Oliver James, a clinical psychologist, was quoted as saying: 'You can put yourself before others more politely or not, but in the end what you're doing is barging someone else out of the way.'

The reality is that without a firm foundation for kindness, without the constraining love of Christ, people's attitudes tend to degenerate to 'looking after number one'. You will have noticed in Stephen Fry's piece that though he talked grandly about feeding the starving far away, that dear old granny who gets on his nerves could forget her 'thank you' letter. The Christless Christmas very soon says farewell to the goodwill of the season.

Let's keep the manger

We need to keep Christ in Christmas, and the real reason for doing that is more than keeping the joy and the love. We need to keep Christ in Christmas because the story of Jesus is true.

You do not invent a tale about an engaged woman conceiving a child and claiming no man was involved, if you want it to be accepted. That God should cause a virgin to conceive would be simply to invite ribald jokes from the rough Gentile world of the first century. And the strictly moral and religious Jewish folk would be horrified that God might do such a thing.

You do not invent a story about a Messiah for whom there was no room at the inn and who ended up crucified, rejected by his own people, and expect people to see him as anything other than a failure. No, the story of Jesus is too 'incredible' to have been invented. It's the truth - that's why we need to keep Christ in Christmas.

The need to keep Christ at the heart of our Christmas celebrations

Get on with the party

What happens to the joy?

Where's the goodwill?

Let's keep the manger

JEB

Dr John Benton

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