Christianity is about so much more than Christmas

Jan 3, 2023 by

by Giles Fraser, Telegraph:

It may not be strictly true that Oliver Cromwell banned Christmas. He was too busy fighting a civil war to bother himself with the anti-Christmas legislation of 1644. But for his grim Puritan colleagues, the Romish associations of Christ’s Mass, and the boozed-up Yuletide revelry associated with it, was incompatible with their serious-minded and sober approach to faith. Carol singing was forbidden. Festive parties outlawed.

Unsurprisingly, this wasn’t a widely popular move. Which was why, when the monarchy was restored in 1660, and on into the 18th century, Christmas came to be celebrated all the more vigorously, the Georgian period being one of the creative high points of Christmas’s continual reinvention.

This is my first Christmas as a vicar in Kew, south-west London. My wonderful new church, St Anne’s, was built the very year that George I came to the throne (1714) and could hardly be any more festive looking. Resembling a glorified jelly mould, it is set on an open green alongside the Thames, surrounded by pubs selling mulled wine and Kew Gardens, with their spectacular light show. It feels like the perfect place for O Come, All Ye Faithful.

And today, at least, the faithful – or faithful-ish – will come in their numbers. This afternoon, children will dress up as donkeys, kings and shepherds to be cast in the play of all plays, and later, at Midnight Mass, adults will fill the pews to hear about the light coming into the darkness and the darkness not having overcome it.

But for all the crowds that will gather at this time of year, all is not well with the Church of England, nor indeed with other denominations. Still recovering from a modern ban on Christmas gathering by our godly overlords, the underlying trend is one of declining numbers. The most recent census data, released last month, showed the proportion of people describing themselves as Christian had fallen below 50 per cent for the first time since census data collection began.

Covid isn’t the root cause, but it didn’t help. Increasingly, more and more people do not see the point of church. At best, they see it as one Sunday option amongst others, something to be considered alongside children’s football, shopping, dog-walking and a host of other leisure activities – just a bit less fun. Some churches re-invent themselves as entertainment in a needy desire to be popular. But they cheapen themselves. Others remain defiantly serious, but often empty.

So what, people may ask? Christianity has had its day. But, actually, Judeo-Christian assumptions have underpinned every aspect of life in the West for roughly the past thousand years, shaping the way we think about everything – from art to law, morality to freedom. Our constitution makes no sense without it; our intellectual traditions are incomprehensible without it; even the very idea of the secular is a Christian idea.

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