John Coulter: Churches should ponder how to put Christ back into Christmas festivals

In many cases, Christ has literally been removed from the traditional festive greeting to be replaced with the slogan - Merry Xmas! Of course, many liberal theologians will argue that the X in Xmas is symbolic of the name Christ.

However, to many in the evangelical wing of the Christian faith, the phrase Merry Xmas is really symbolic of the growing commercialisation of Christmas and the diluting of the festivities to celebrate the Virgin Birth.

The increasingly woke pluralist society seems hell bent on ensuring no one gets offended by the real religious meaning of Christmas with the phrase ‘Happy Holidays’ becoming even more popular in the secular society.

Granted, many Christian churches will still have their traditional Christmas morning services tomorrow and many church members will have already endured the cold and rain to participate in annual carol singing around the villages, towns and hamlets of Ireland.

But even as Christians meet across the island tomorrow, whether it be for morning worship or family gatherings, perhaps they should take time to ponder how Christ can be put back into traditional Christian festivals.

No sooner will Christmas Day be over than the chocolate eggs will be on the shop shelves and the advertising campaigns will shift into top gear for the Easter holidays - with probably little or no mention of the reason for that season, namely the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus.

It’s already clear that one trait of this third millennium is that Christmas festivities seem to be starting earlier in the year. Even in July, many hotels and restaurants are advertising their Christmas offers and menus.

From September, we can enjoy the Christmas movie television channels with wall to wall films. Hallowe’en Night on October 31 seems only to be a pause to take a brief breath commercially before the final hectic rush into December 25.

And no sooner will the Christmas Day turkey be digested than the shops and stores will be unleashing their Boxing Day or St Stephen’s Day sales - yet another financial victory for commercialism.

The practical danger which the Christian Churches face is that if people who do not regularly attend worship, or see themselves as not being religious, do not understand Christianity’s ‘reason for the season’ message of Christmas, how are the denominations expected to be taken seriously as relevant voices in community life?

Put bluntly, singing a few festive carols, and having the Sunday school children stage a nativity play won’t cut the mustard socially - the churches need to be practically active in their communities, not shutting themselves away from reality of the current cost of living crisis and becoming so-called holy huddles.

The real message of Christmas is that Christ was born to save mankind from itself. But Christian churches need to play their practical part in this process by helping the poor, needy, lonely and suffering in our society.

Is the real reason that the churches seem to have lost Christmas to Xmas that Christians have become too judgemental and not compassionate like Christ Himself? How, as Christians, can we call ourselves followers of Christ if we do not act like Him?

With falling pew attendances across many denominations, if people will not come to church, then the churches need to go out into the community. With homelessness cases increasing, could our church premises be used as havens of rest for those without a proper roof over their heads?

Indeed, have many of us in the Christian faith fallen into the Xmas pitfall of not actually getting the true meaning of Christmas? As we tuck into our turkey dinners tomorrow, perhaps we Christians should ponder a simple question - what would Christ do?

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l Dr John Coulter has been a journalist since 1978