Christian Christmas Vs. Secular Winterval

|PIC1|With the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams and his predecessor Lord Carey of Clifton, launching a joint defence of the Christ-centred Christmas over the weekend, joining in the war over Christmas seemed inescapable.

What has been proclaimed by Christians time and time again in this spiralling war, is that Christmas is Christian, and that it comes from the Christian faith. A good point, and a good place to start: take the Christ out of Christmas and we are left with nothing but the ‘mas’ (or should we call it ‘Ristmas’?).

Quite rightly so, nod the secularists, who are giving the three cheers to the latest version of a non-Christ Christmas – ‘Winterval’ – (and all of a sudden Ristmas does not seem so completely ridiculous).

Councillors and bureaucrats “do not want to offend anyone” – except the very Christians to whom the midwinter celebrations belong. If we really are the great multicultural nation we claim we are, then shouldn’t we be able to decorate the town with Christmas lights and Christmas decorations and Christmas this, that, and the next thing, and still be able to call it Christmas. This is, after all, the point of the decorations in the first place.

Those at the National Secular Society seemed particularly proud of themselves for launching an anti-Christmas online gift shop, boasting of their collection of “beautifully produced” secular greeting cards which “Celebrate the Season” and have “not a Madonna, Angel, Wise Man or shepherd in sight”. In other words, it sells cards.

Therefore, wouldn’t a truly anti-Christian Christmas be no Christmas at all? Why Winterval? Why anything at all? Why does the right of the Christian to celebrate his or her own religious festival have to be matched by a secularist celebration which is based on absolutely nothing at all except the point of making a point?

And shall all non-Hindus now all join in anti-Diwali celebrations just to make a point? Would this be quite so easily tolerated? And would the secularists delight in quite the same Schadenfreude if it were for any other faith than the Christian faith?

It all begs the question: what is the point again? If Christ is not in Christmas then certainly for Christians there is no Christmas and there is no point. But for a secularist celebrating a winter festival, surely it begs the same question?

But perhaps Christians shouldn’t be so hasty in pointing the finger at the non-Christian secularists (who secretly enjoy Christmas!).

Of course Christians should come out and say that Christmas is Christian – period. But it should not end there. Where is the ‘because’ in all of this? “Christmas is Christian because...”; “Christmas is centred on Christ because...”

It is time that Christians stopped being on the defensive and started being on the attack. Christmas belongs to Christians, it belongs to Christ, and even if Winterval becomes the next ‘in-thing’, even the secularists will have to concede that it did not come about by itself but comes from the very thing they seem so proud and eager to deny: the Christian Christmas.