Sunday, December 14, 2014

Written for this week's The Sunday Whirl.











Nativity plays are not what they used to be. Only one in three UK schools hold one and they are mainly only the faith based C of E or Catholic schools. They have forever been the highlight of the scholastic calender, but that's all changing now. Despite the best endeavours of traditionalists, the so called ‘lunatic left’ is winning the day. Whilst I normally try not to to tangle myself up in such debates I do have strong feelings on this particular subject.

The secular ‘holiday play’ at one local primary this year features a stage setting which resembles a scene from  Star Trek with spinning planets, dangling spacecraft: a place where angels would fear to tread!  Instead of wings and halos, the children wear oxygen tanks and helmets. There is no straw on the floor, instead they shuffle through sand. Mary has become a Martian and Joseph a Jubiterist! The animals are now robots and the wise men have become a captain and his crew.

Whether you believe in the Christmas Story or not and whatever your faith, I see no reason to shelve it. It is not performed just to spread the word, but also to entertain in the way a good fairy story does. Our children have always enjoyed Alice in Wonderland and Mary Poppins. They are hardly factual stories, but they’ve not been banned. As for Father Christmas...!


Please feel free to disagree with me; I like nothing more than a healthy debate. However, bring it on back I say

5 comments:

  1. Indeed...if we are going to spread fiction at least let us pass it on as true to it's original form and intention as we can...amen to that (says Alice)

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  2. It's taking secularism way too far, as happened even longer ago in France. Telling the Nativity story from our Christian culture gives children so much, and takes nothing away from followers of other faiths. Long live the Nativity play.

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  3. Christmas is a religious festival and should be celebrated regardless of others opinions. You do not have to join in, however it should not be altered to please non believers; they can worship Midas, Star Trek who ever else they like whenever they like. If it offends stay away. Christmas is about love not shooting someone out of the Galaxy.

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  4. I so agree with what you've said here. It's about someone's birthday for Christ...well you know...and I'm agnostic, so no axe to grind here. But if you're going to celebrate a holiday that's attached to a birth, at least have the decency to acknowledge that that's what you're doing....no matter what else you believe. I maybe don't buy into the whole rest of the story ... for me the jury is still out on that ... but it doesn't make sense that we'd tell people they can't do the things that honour that birth when it's the basis for the whole holiday in the first place. Just sayin'.

    http://thepoet-tree-house.blogspot.ca/2014/12/come-they-close.html

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  5. I was raised Catholic. I've long since parted ways with the church, but I still appreciate the beauty of some of the stories.
    I have to say that some of the attempts to make the holiday perfectly non-religious end up being perfectly sterile. Why not honor the various beliefs instead? I don't know, guess that's just me.
    Thank you for visiting us at poetryofthenetherworld.blogspot.com and for your kind comment on my poem. It means a lot to me.

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