The other day I passed the church in the middle of the city. I stopped to look at the "nativity" scene and paused to reflect that this was the only representation of the real meaning of Christmas that I had seen, not just in the city but in the whole of the Holiday period.
There it was, this church, surviving right in the middle of a crass consumerist bonanza, this collection of shopping centres that have grown so big as to take over the city centre entirely.
Plenty of "Christmas" in the shopping centres. Christmas in your latte, Christmas in the fairy lights, Christmas in the sound comming from every speaker in every shop.
Compare the loud consumerist "Christmas experience" with the quiet, humble, still figures leaning over a tiny baby.
I thought of atheists, who usually have plenty to say during Christmas time... and I said to them: "People are worshipping an entirely different God".
5 comments:
I've been watching The Big Bang Theory too much...
Hi there. I found your blog through Havi's. I like what you write, muchly. (Nice to know I'm not the only left-wing Christian in the universe!)
Here's a silly question -- can I subscribe to get emailed your updates? Because I don't understand how to do that from your homepage. Ah technology & me -- rarely do we get along.
Excellent! Congratulations.
This story has nothing whatsoever to do with atheism, unless you're trying to equate a lack of worship in god with a worship in consumerism. If so, well then, thanks for making the most obscure and poorly thought out insult against atheism, it makes theists seem all the more intelligent with their critiques of atheism.
LotR and Star Wars don't claim to be more than fiction, though (more rabid elements of fandom aside), and nor do their fans believe that legislation, society, people's sex lives should be based around their chosen bit of escapism.
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