Wednesday, December 14, 2005

Confusing the end of Christendom with the death of Christianity
Many people still seem to struggle to grasp the significance of the end of Christendom (see here for more on this). The reality of church from and on the margins seems hard to deal with.
We fear loss of power and status.
Indeed I hear some people talk like the loss of privilege for Christianity in the UK means the end of the church. While it clearly means we need to re-discover our place, purpose and mission is it really that bad?
(maybe this is easier for Baptists than Anglicans as we have no wierd state connections or seats in the House of Lords to give up!)

Lets take Christmas as an example. Many moan about the loss of "traditional" Christmas stuff, the fact it is now "winter holiday" etc. But the reality is that much of Christmas has little to do with the birth of Christ anyway! We adopted and took over other people's holidays and rituals.
Yet we are still free to celebrate the birth of Christ in a Christian way - in fact maybe the loss of the "way things were" gives us a new opportunity to present and consider the story in fresh ways.

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