From the Telegraph

Most Britons do not believe the Biblical story of the birth of Jesus, a study has found.
Young people were particularly doubtful about the nativity, with 78 per cent of 16-24-year-olds saying they were not convinced of its historical reliability.

Overall, 70 per cent were sceptical of the baby’s birth in a manger to a virgin mother, according to the poll of 1,000 people by the British Marketing Research Bureau.

Almost a quarter of those questioned who described themselves as Christians admitted they did not believe certain aspects of the Bible’s teaching about Jesus.

This is an encouraging statistic: among North American Anglican clergy, 95% are skeptical of Jesus’ virgin birth. Oh alright, I admit I am making up that figure, but it can’t be far off.

From The Corner:

I have long suspected that Christopher Hitchens’s enraged atheism is the reaction of a man all too conscious of being chased by Francis Thompson’s “Hound of Heaven.” But having just attended a discussion between Hitchens and Msgr. Lorenzo Albacete at New York’s Pierre Hotel, I think his case is even more interesting than that. In the course of the discussion, Hitchens claimed not to be a reductionist; he said mankind cannot do without the “numinous” and (I think this was his other phrase) the “transcendent.” (He located this in, for example, Verdi’s “Requiem.”) Now the numinous and the transcendent are exactly what we believers mean by God. Hitchens says what he doesn’t believe in is the “supernatural” — but that’s merely a quibble about words. If you use the word “nature” — as so many people do — as interchangeable with “what is” or “being,” then God is not “super-natural” at all, because — as Aquinas, chiefly, reminds us — God is the pure act of Being itself, Ipsum Esse Subsistens.

Christopher Hitchens doesn’t believe in God, but he does appear to believe in the transcendent. For example, he clearly believes in the mind as something distinct from the brain; he believes in good and evil, beauty and ugliness and, to win his audience in a debate, uses adroitly chosen anecdotes and a barrage of comically insulting adjectives rather than reason. In his debates his appeal is emotional rather than rational.

For Christians, God is transcendent and is the creator of not only the material universe, but of mind, soul and spirit; he is also the arbiter of good, evil, beauty and ugliness. Unlike more honest atheists such as Satre and Camus, Hitchens isn’t willing to jettison these products of the numinous: one of his favourite debate questions reveals this reluctance: “what”, he asks “good deed can be done by a theist that cannot equally be done by an atheist”. Note the use of the word “good”; without transcendence, “good” becomes a mere electro-chemical phenomenon in Hitchens’ neocortex – a notion that Dawkins may go along with, but Hitchens wouldn’t.

So where does Hitchens’ transcendence come from? In a similar vein to Satre – whose claim is that if there is no God, existence precedes essence and so we become the creators of our own essence through our actions – Hitchens seems to think that, even though we are the products of evolution, humanity has by its actions created its own transcendence. So he feels justified in declaring some things good, beautiful, inspiring and so on.

I am a Christian so, as far as I am concerned, this is all nonsense.

Perhaps Rowan Williams’ brain isn’t as waterlogged as I first thought. He appears to support the idea that humanity begins at conception and continues beyond the the point where old age or disability has robbed us of the appearance of sentience.

Hence the reverence which as Christians we ought to show to human beings in every condition, at every stage of existence. This is why we cannot regard unborn children as less than members of the human family, why those with disabilities or deprivations have no less claim upon us than anyone else, why we try to makes loving sense of human life even when it is near its end and we can hardly see any signs left of freedom or thought.

A practical application of Cor 1:18

Prison chapel not to have a crucifix

The multi-faith room at HMP Lewes will have footbaths installed so Muslim inmates can wash their feet before prayers.

For Christians, however, there will now only be a plain wooden cross and a portable altar which can be removed if other faiths are using the room.

The new £200,000 development at the East Sussex jail has been designed as a multi-faith room with the space split into two.

One side is dedicated to Christian worship and the other is for other faiths in the 485 inmate category B jail.

But a spokeswoman from the Independent Monitoring Board (IMB) revealed the traditional Christian crucifix depicting Jesus nailed to the cross will not be used.

After discussions between the prison chaplain and Muslim imam it was agreed a toned-down wooden cross would be used instead of a crucifix.

But wait, there’s more: even Christmas lights are offensive!

Mother told to take down her Christmas lights… in case they offend her non-Christian neighbours

A woman has spoken of how she was told to remove her Christmas lights by a housing association worker – in case they offended her non-Christian neighbours.

Dorothy Glenn decorates her home in South Shields with hundreds of festive lights every year, including a giant tree and a 4ft Santa Claus.

But she was left stunned this year when a South Tyneside Homes worker called at her house to inform her that the decorations she was displaying might be offending her neighbours

That brings out all the nut cases:

The Vacuous Vicar: Vicar bans Christmas carol O Little Town of Bethlehem.

The Mad Muslim: Muslim lawyer Anjem Choudary brands Christmas ‘evil’.

The Potty Parishioner: Mother reprimanded for breast feeding during cathedral carol service (the mother’s not the potty one).

The Cockamamie Committee: School choir forced to pull out of winter festival because carols were ‘too religious’.

The Loonie Lefties: Once in royal David’s city stood a big apartheid wall.

Refreshing sanity from Archbishop Peter Akinola

As a matter of fact, I saw a card with the inscription, season greetings, and I said what season? Winter season or rainy season? If we are celebrating Christmas, then we are celebrating Christmas season, not any other season but the birth of the Christ.

Christ is the centre, and purpose and essence of Christmas celebration, so if you remove Christ from the card and the greeting, then, what are you people talking about? To the ordinary person, it is a harmless thing but if you look at the background, and you see what is happening around, then you will know it is not ordinary. It is part of the game of the anti-Christ to remove Christ and not only that, to remove all Christian emblems from public domain. As they do that year after year, with time, Christianity will be confined to the oblivion. That is the game, that is the agenda and we must therefore stand firmly against it. That is why I raised the alarm, and I call on the media, I call on all our church leaders in this country to rise against that trend.

If you see any card around Christmas in which they say ‘Season Greetings’, don’t buy it, don’t give it, don’t receive it. If it is sent to you, send it back to sender. When the producers begin to lose money, then they will come back to their senses that Christmas is not any other season, Christmas is about Christ ,the saviour of the world.

Merry Christmas. From here

Irish radio ban on advert about the religious meaning of Christmas
Ireland’s broadcasting regulator finds the phrase “Christmas: aren’t we forgetting something?” offensive

A radio advertisement which reminds listeners about the true meaning of Christmas has been banned by Ireland’s broadcasting regulatory body.

The controversial advertisement says:”Cakes and crackers, Santa and stockings, turkey and tinsel, mistletoe and mince pies and presents and puddings. Christmas: aren’t we forgetting something? This Christmas why not give a gift that means more?” It goes on to suggest gift items such as candles, books and artwork: “So to give a gift that means more, drop into your local Veritas shop or log on to www.veritas.ie”.
The decision to reject the advertisement followed three unsuccessful attempts by an advertising agency contracted by Veritas to meet the BCI wording requirements. The BCI said that the phrases ‘Christmas: aren’t we forgetting something?’; ‘Why not give a gift that means more?’; and ‘So to give a gift that means more’ ”offend the legislation”.

Veritas director Maura Hyland noted the “myriad of adverts being broadcast for alcohol, for example – which are not creating difficulties for the BCI”.

The thought of offending “the legislation” is a supremely satisfying one; but why is the advertisement offensive? One assumes because it uses the “Christmas” word with all its inherent overtones of exclusivity. After all, Jesus made the exclusive claim of Divinity: you can’t escape the uncomfortable fact that, if he was right, all other religions are wrong.

Including the religion that inspired this:

The atheist bus campaign launches today thanks to Comment is free readers. Because of your enthusiastic response to the idea of a reassuring God-free advert being used to counter religious advertising, the slogan “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life” could now become an ad campaign on London buses – and leading secularists have jumped on board to help us raise the money.
The British Humanist Association will be administering all donations to the campaign, and Professor Richard Dawkins, bestselling author of The God Delusion, has generously agreed to match all contributions up to a maximum of £5,500, giving us a total of £11,000 if we raise the full amount. This will be enough to fund two sets of atheist adverts on 30 London buses for four weeks.

For some reason, we did not see any august body of legislators getting upset by this; why not?

The statement “There’s probably no God” is not a scientific statement since we are not given the actual probability and proof; it’s not an either/or statement that could be correct or incorrect as in “there is no God”; it’s not even a coherent religious statement since it requires no belief either that God does or does not exist. So what is it? It is a meaningless statement – which is why it is inoffensive. In today’s Zeitgeist we can give voice to any metaphysical meanderings we like, as long as it doesn’t mean anything that can be pinned down. The Anglican Church of Canada does this all the time.

The meaning of words changes over time; the word “charity” is no exception. Here are two translations of Cor. 13:4-7; the first is from the KJV and second, the Message:

Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, [5]  Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; [6]  Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; [7]  Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.

[4]  Love never gives up. Love cares more for others than for self. Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have. Love doesn’t strut, Doesn’t have a swelled head, [5]  Doesn’t force itself on others, Isn’t always “me first,” Doesn’t fly off the handle, Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others, [6]  Doesn’t revel when others grovel, Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth, [7]  Puts up with anything, Trusts God always, Always looks for the best, Never looks back, But keeps going to the end.

The word “charity” in the KJV and “love” in the message are different translations of agape. C. S. Lewis in “The Four Loves” identifies Affection, Friendship, Eros and Charity. The greatest of these loves is Charity because it is a supernatural rather than a natural love, an unconditional love that is not dependent on any lovable qualities that the object of love possesses.

Over time, “charity” came to mean the provision of help or relief to the poor or almsgiving, a worthy endeavour, but one that falls short of agape. More recently, “charity” has peppered Christian cyberspace with such profligate abandon that I have become suspicious of its intended meaning by those that scatter it hither and thither. We are admonished to exercise charity when arguing against people with whom we disagree. I would be the first to admit that, try as I might, in my dealings with humanity it is second nature to demonstrate my innate misanthropy rather than the true meaning of charity; but is that what our cyber-nannies have in mind?

Some years ago, I enjoyed listening to a talk by Bishop Moses Tay, bishop of Singapore. One of the things he said was this: if North American Christians have a besetting sin, it is that they are too sensitive – you cannot abide criticism. He was correct. It is expressed in society by our conviction that we have a right not to be offended; if someone tramples on that right, we haul them to the Human Rights Commission. Christians are more subtle: rather than appeal to the HRC, we have changed the meaning of the word “charity” to “whatever you do, don’t offend”; and we intone this with axiomatic and monotonous regularity. Inevitably, there are times when it is necessary to take a broad perspective and the charitable thing to say may be unavoidably offensive: Luke 14:26 or Matt 23:27, for example.

For those who disagree, please exercise your God-given intelligence – charitably, of course.