by Leela Ramdeen, Chair, CCSJ and Director, CREDI
I recall the late Cardinal Hume urging the faithful during an Advent Service for members of his Committee for the Caribbean Community, C5, which he chaired and of which I was Vice-Chair, that we must all play our part to put Christ back into Christmas. That was in the 1980s.
Here are extracts of a UK Daily Mail report on the results of a poll of 2,157 members of parenting website Netmums (2December 2, 2014) : “The schools where Elvis is a nativity star: Nearly half of schools scrap traditional play for updated version starring modern characters… Just one in three schools still holds a traditional nativity play even though 65% of parents want the Christmas story to live on in education. Productions feature aliens, fairies, footballers, drunk spacemen and Elvis…
“Seven per cent of schools even refuse to call the production a Christmas or nativity play, preferring instead ‘Winter Celebration’, ‘Seasonal Play’ or ‘End of Year Concert’…Almost one in ten schools decided against staging a Christmas production at all. Christmas carols are also under threat in schools, the survey showed. This comes amid growing concern Christianity is being marginalised in the UK…
“Netmums co-founder Siobhan Freegard said: ‘While the UK is a diverse and multicultural society and it’s right children learn about all religions and cultures, many parents feel the traditional nativity is being pushed aside…Christmas is about peace, acceptance and tolerance, so let’s see more schools accept back this tradition’.”
And then, on December 5, T&T’s Guardian newspaper reported on a situation in France. The headline read: “French court bans Christmas nativity scene.” “Officials in the western French town of La Roche-sur-Yon have had to dismantle a nativity scene, in the latest row over the country’s secular traditions. A judge in Nantes ruled that it was a ‘religious emblem’ and incompatible with the French principle of ‘religious neutrality in public spaces’.
“Town officials have reluctantly removed a figure of baby Jesus, plaster animals and a desk-sized stable they had erected in the local council building…Jean Regourd, a member of the secular Free Thinking Society, lodged the complaint against the nativity scene…”
And we know how things have also changed in the US and in many other countries.
As the US writer Steven Hemler says: “The drive to omit any expression of religion from public schools and from the public square is especially apparent during the Christmas season. For example, religious Christmas carols are rarely sung during public school programmes. And, the traditional greeting ‘Merry Christmas’ is being replaced by the politically correct ‘Happy Holidays’ in most shopping centres and stores, etc…
“What makes the situation even more alarming is the fact that nearly all religious history and religious viewpoints have been removed from public school classes and textbooks. The only viewpoints presented are ‘naturalistic’ or ‘secular’ viewpoints… Furthermore, under the guise of ‘tolerance’ and ‘diversity’, nearly all colleges and universities seek to eradicate any mention of God from the academy…
“There is clearly no easy answer to church-state issues in pluralistic societies. However, making secularism a society’s ‘official religion’, by eradicating God from the public square, is not the best or only answer. Instead of celebrating religious freedom and diversity, many supposedly tolerant nations are becoming increasingly intolerant of any expression of religion in the public square. Why the double standard?”
Paul Wilson’s Special Report is an eye-opener. Inter alia, he says: “Christmas: a season of generosity, good cheer, preparation for Christ’s birth – and a swarm of lawyers seeking to purge any mention of Christianity from the public square… Secularist Grinches have long sought to obscure ‘the reason for the season’. But censorship of Christianity is increasingly a media mission for all seasons; Christians are pressured to hide their public faith under baskets…the media and secularising influences have sought to drain Christmas of any religious significance…”
In the book The War on Christmas: Battles in Faith, Tradition, and Religious Expression, edited by Bodie Hodge, the writers address the issue of how Christian families can respond “in a culture that seems to be declaring war on truth and rewriting reality”.
Let us recommit to live as faithful Christians. I end with his words: “The grace which was revealed in our world is Jesus, born of the Virgin Mary, true man and true God. He has entered our history; he has shared our journey. He came to free us from darkness and to grant us light…In him was revealed the grace, the mercy, and the tender love of the Father: Jesus is Love incarnate…He is the meaning of life and history, who has pitched his tent in our midst.”
