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Santa and Stuff

At this time of year the newspapers usually come up with a story about some cleric who has disabused children of the existence of Santa and his place in the Christmas story... "Spoil Sport Vicar Equates Santa with Satan!" and that sort of thing... It goes hand in hand with the "Keep Christ in Christmas" stuff that also starts circulating from late November on...
This year, not only did a couple of blogs kick back against the "Keep Christ in Christmas" thing, with "Keep Chi in Xmas", which I posted on facebook this time last month, but there was also at least one post offering a partial rehabilitation of old St. Nick...
But thanks to my friend Lynda Gould, I also came across, on facebook, the following "Anti-Santy Rant" by Glen Scrivener which offers a reflection on our attitude to God and Jesus in the light of our attitude to Santa Claus... You can see a version with Glen Scrivener delivering it to camera, here... But this is the version we'll be using in our Christmas Service this morning.



We moan about the commercialisation of Christmas, but that points to something rotten at the heart of western Christianity in general. Jasmine Alibhai Brown is right in this article from the Independent a few days ago where she says:
"Christianity is dying not only because people would rather shop than go to church on Sundays, but because it is not longer true to itself and has sold its soul to capitalism."

Christians are just as obsessed by "stuff" as everyone else in the western world, be it the latest i-whatsit or whatever, indeed there is an entire Christian commercial sub-culture. But perhaps, on this one day in the year when the shops actually shut, we should stop and re-evaluate our attitude to such stuff - and about our attitude to the God who is the giver of all good gifts... and especially the indescribable gift of his presence... Jesus Christ, Emmanuel, God with us...
Have a  blessed Christmas.

I also hope you have enjoyed the past 25 days of reflections...

Happy Xmas... Christmas, or whatever you chose to call it...


 Shalom
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