Thursday, December 20, 2007

Christmas Foolishness

With Christmas drawing nigh, we are again being bombarded with the foolishness, even the outright malice, of the ignorant and of those who would undermine the Christian faith.

This piece would be better run on the excellent blog GetReligion, but I offer it for your consideration. In it, a journalist does a half-baked job of reporting on what may have been a half-baked BBC radio interview with the Archbishop of Canterbury, who was discussing some of the legends and traditions that have grown up around the Nativity story.

Full text here

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

The Spectator asked numerous prominent people whether they believed in the Virgin Birth and published their answers. My favourite answer was from one of The Spectator's columnists, who said that he knew the answer because his daughter was studying theology and she told him that most modern theologians don't believe in it. So there. And it's probably at an 'accredited' theology faculty, too.

I thought Christmas was when it was because it was 9 months after Annunciation, which was when it was because it was thought to be the actual date of the original Good Friday. But I agree about the snow: who ever thought of snow at Christmas? Don't people known that Christmas is hot????

Albion Land said...

Having grown up in Florida, I actually went swimming one Christmas Day. Of course, I caught a cold, but believe me there was no snow. So I guess that proves Jesus wasn't born.

poetreader said...

Is one surprised at the ignorance of religion in general and Christianity in particular in the newsmedia? I don't know why one would be. While there are without a doubt a few newspeople who attend church and/or have an informed faith, but no study I've encountered implies that this might be a statistically significant number. The ignorance in the media is pervasive and seemingly invincible.

ed

Albion Land said...

Let me take this opportunity again to recommend to all of you the excellent blog GetReligion, which is linked in the sidebar here.

It is produced by a number of journalists, all of whom are very devout Christians, and never ceases to provide cause for amazement.

Anonymous said...

The Christ-Mass is celebrated when it is, because it is 9 months after the Annunication, which is six months after Zechariah's division served in the Temple. The early Church was celebrating it in Rome -before- Marcus Aurelius invented Sol Invictus as an attempt to compete with the Christian celebration.

Albion Land said...

Oh boy.

Here is a link to the transcript of the interview. It's from his own website, so we must assume that he acknowledges it as his own.

Kyrie eleison.

http://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/sermons_speeches/071219.htm

John Dixon said...

No doubt some of you do not live in the USA but note that Rush Limbaugh 'spanked' the Archbishop of Canterbury today at length. He built up to it by pointing out how all the kooks and such always attack Christmas during Christmas. He also asked the question (I paraphrase) 'if you do not believe it why are you a bishop?

So today a revisionist Archbishop got hammered before 20 million listeners. (A few which are 'conservative episcopalians)!

Thanks Rush.

John

Fr. Robert Hart said...

I see that Sandra McColl and Labrialumn deserve an A+. They must have read Dr. William Tighe's article. I will post the link again, and consider it a Christmas tradition here.