A Parliamentary debate has today been scheduled on something which the MP Mark Pritchard calls “Christianophobia”. His complaint appears to centre on a perceived fear that people in this country are somehow afraid to express Christian sentiment due to “political correctness” and a wish not to offend minorities. The finding recently that four-fifths of schools are not putting on Nativity plays by the Telegraph, allegedly for the same reason, appears to have prompted the debate.
The debate raises the question of whether Christianity in this country should be supported or propped up by the State (more than it is already, of course). As a secularist, I don’t believe that any religion should be supported by the State – it is up to people themselves what cultural traditions – religious or otherwise – they want to keep onto.
But Pritchard forgets that most of the country – well over ninety per cent, in fact – are don’t practice any religion at all, let alone Christianity. With respect to Nativity plays, there may be, perhaps an excessive, desire not to “offend” other religious sentimentalities in some of the more mixed ethnic areas, but it is also a fact that cultures change. It needs hardly to be said that for two or three thousand years before Christianity was (forcibly) introduced into this country, the winter festival now called Christmas had different cultural meanings. Indeed, as we all know, very little of the origins of Christmas has to do with Christianity.
The period we now call “Christmas” has undergone yet another transformation in the last thirty to fifty years in the UK. To all intents and purposes, it is now largely a secular festival, reflecting a largely secular society, as the annual pleas by religious figures to remember what Christmas is “really” about testifies. You could disparagingly characterise Christmas as one that now celebrates Santa Claus as the god of consumerism, and there’d be some truth in that, although it is also one that has the remnants of previous Christian, Roman, Germanic and Celtic beliefs, among other native folk traditions. (Oddly, those concerned with the “true” meaning of Christmas don’t tend to talk about these earlier beliefs.)
The lack of interest in specifically Nativity plays by schools more than likely represents a broader cultural change associated just as much with secularism as with anything to do with “political correctness”. It’s not that there is a rise in “Christianophobia” so much as a radical decline in Christian worship, and a lack of relevance of the previously Christian message of Christmas to the modern day secular festival that is now Christmas.
This is something that has been happening for a number of years, if personal experience is anything to go by. Because of house moves, during the 1980s I went to three different primary schools in Essex – two of which were Church of England Voluntary Controlled – in places which were overwhelmingly white British. Not once did I see, or was ever part of, a Nativity play.
