It’s all too commercialised so let’s just cancel Christmas.
That seems to be the thinking for a growing number of people. They reckon that the true meaning of Christmas has been lost in the grab for gifts and the focus on the fat guy in the red suit.
There are certainly people who feel that Christians should just admit defeat on this one and pull out completely. They figure we should find another day of the year to celebrate the birth of Christ, unencumbered by all the extra baggage that Christmas has aquired. After all, we know that the 25th of December is unlikley to be the actual day that Jesus was born so why not pick another date for a holier celebration.
My regular Wednesday morning guest on 98.5 Sonshine FM is Ross Clifford who is the Principal of Morling College in New South Wales and current President of the Baptist Union of Australia. Each week we chat about a range of issues relating to spirituality and belief.
Yesterday we tackled the question of whether we should cancel Christmas or whether we should redeem the day. Should Christians still buy into all the extras that the season has attracted?
One of the interesting things that Ross reminds us is that the Christians originally chose December the 25th to ‘Christianise’ a pagan festival. We redeemed it from the pagans, should we now redeem it from commercialism?
Has Christmas really moved so far away from its original roots? An evening at one of the many carols evenings in every area would suggest that the true spirit of Christmas isn’t as far away as we might think.
If you’d like to hear what Ross had to say just press play on the audio player at the bottom of this post.
Feel free to comment but can I ask you to consider listening to the audio first to get a really good handle on what we were discussing?
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