Mythmas or Christmas?

(Photo: Getty/iStock)

There are many things about Christmas that are entirely predictable – you can list your own set. Mine would include turkey, malt whisky, great carols, mince pies, the struggle with wrapping presents, family celebrations (and tensions), senior clergy telling us that the real message of Christmas is how we should all be nice to one another. And of course the atheist grinch who just has to express their faith that everything religious about Christmas is just a pointless myth - at best a rehash of a pagan festival, at worst another attempt by the powerful to exploit the gullible.

As regards the latter, some of us in the church make the mistake of trying to deal 'apologetically' with the emotive arguments that are made. I put up a sign outside our church stating simply that we would have a carol service for those who wanted it. A well-meaning brother suggested that it should be more provocative – "why not say 'was Jesus really born of a virgin?'". Normally I need no persuasion to be provocative, but on this occasion I declined. Why? Because I don't think it is that provocative – and mostly because I have never heard a normal non-Christian ask that question? It's the kind of sneering, mocking point that is made by cyber-atheists, but it is so easily refuted that it's hardly worth the time pointing out that if God is God, then enabling his Son to be born in the womb of a virgin is not exactly the most unreasonable miracle in the world!

Christmas is a time for proclaiming the Good News of great joy that is for all the people, not for telling us why those who want to deny that news are wrong. Let's proclaim Him, then we can deal with the questions. However, each year in the mainstream media some intellectual always writes an article that is so unreasonable that it demands a reply and also serves as an open door to proclaim the good news. This year's prize for Christmas joylessness goes to Neil Mackay of the Glasgow Herald.

To be fair, as well as the usual clichéd criticisms of Christianity, he did accept that his militant atheism had been turned down a notch because of meeting people like the Rev Martin Fair, former moderator of the Church of Scotland and a 'real Christian'. But this crumb of comfort was offset by the now all too familiar prejudices which seem to pass for intelligent comment by the scripturally illiterate literati of the modern world.

Mr Mackay informs us that religion is 'simply another social structure which wields power and is therefore, rightly, subject to critique'. In a sense of course that is true, but it sure ain't the whole truth. Imagine saying that to the socially outcast shepherds who the angelic choir visited to announce the Good News. Or the pregnant teenager who was about to give birth to the Messiah in the most difficult of circumstances. It's a bit like telling a woman giving birth that her sex is just a social construct!

Apart from the moralism - 'shouldn't religion be about kindness? - and the judgementalism - 'so many people of faith are cruel' - Neil went on to contradict himself by telling us that religion (because in his world all religions are essentially the same) was simply another ideology, before going on to tell us that it is not an ideology, but rather a myth.

Citing the example of a chaplain who apparently upset a bunch of children at a school assembly by saying Santa wasn't real, our commentator asked his big question: "what difference is there really between Santa and your Bronze Age god?"

Apart from the chronological snobbery, note how Neil has no trouble in lumping together Jesus with 'Odin, Zeus, vampires and Nessie' – as all being made up. For him the only difference is that religions have more power than Santa in the modern world. Given that our current Santa is more a product of the US corporate giant that is Coca-Cola, I suspect even that statement is not true. I note that corporate capitalists/communists tend to have a great deal of power.

Then, as so often our fundamentalist atheists do, Neil offers us paedophilia and hypocrisy done in the name of religion as proof that the Bible isn't real. This argument, given that the Bible spends far more time warning about idolatry, false religion and hypocrisy, than it does about atheism, is somewhat self-defeating. The Bible warns us of the very thing that Neil rightly despises. Doesn't that make the Bible right?

Neil is also not very tolerant. "I find it intolerable that churches dare tell citizens, based on myths, how to live their lives." He is of course pronouncing, like some kind of secular Pope, that all religions are based on myths. We can demonstrably show that that is not true – but then Neil's fragile secularist faith would be shattered, so he must keep his eyes firmly shut to any kind of evidence. But, speaking of hypocrisy, Neil tells us that some people who believe in God have no right to tell others how to live their lives, while he promotes an ideology which does precisely that!

In our native Scotland we used to have an education system based upon the solid truth of God's Word. Now we have moved into the quicksand of progressive ideology. One Christmas a colleague of mine was in a primary school teaching about the Nativity. When they stated that Mary was a pregnant woman, a 10-year-old girl shouted out "you can't say that, you don't know that, Mary could have been a man". That's because in modern Scotland children are taught that men can become pregnant! What was that you were saying, Neil, about teaching based on myth?

But our intrepid commentator is not finished. He now goes on to argue that "the last time I checked, nobody had committed an act of terrorism, started a war, or burned someone at the stake because they said Santa didn't exist". In a week when an alleged Saudi atheist committed a terrorist atrocity against people in a German Christmas market, I'm not sure that this argument stands the test of time. It certainly doesn't stand the test of history. Some of the great mass murderers in history were atheists – think of Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Hitler ... sometimes it seems that not believing in a God of justice who will call you to account for your crimes acts as an incentive for you to think that you can commit them with impunity.

But it's Christmas so let's not leave it on such a negative note. Mr Mackay says something with which I entirely agree – as they say, even a broken clock is right twice a day. Neil ends by telling us that "Christmas is a time for forgiveness, but also a time for change. It's the season of the year when Scrooge-like we see ourselves truly in the mirror, realise our faults and become a better person. I believe that's called redemption." Well Amen to that! Yes to forgiveness. Yes to change. Yes, to becoming a better person. And yes, to redemption. But what does all that mean?

It certainly isn't the endless and boring moralism which is supposed to pass as relevant social commentary from the Church ... and which reaches fever pitch at Christmas. Neither is it the endless and boring secular moralism which is supposed to pass as radicalism. 'You'd better watch out; you'd better be nice – cos Santa Claus/Jesus Christ/ is coming to town' may be the atheist/liberal gospel, but it isn't good news. In the words of that epic 'carol' from the Verve, Bittersweet Symphony, 'change, I can't change ... I'm a million different people from one day to the next'. We do need to look into the mirror – the mirror of God's word ... and there see our need for redemption and forgiveness. We can't just decide to be a better person; we need to be born again, to start all over, to be given spiritual life. And that never happens when we continually run on the moralist's hamster wheel.

So finally, we get to the real thing, the real person, the one whose incarnation we celebrate at Christmas. Jesus is no myth. He is the ultimate reality and he is the reality we all need. And here is the astonishing news worthy to be shouted out by angels, wise men and shepherds: He has come for us. He was born to die for us – to take away our sin, and to create in us a clean heart, a new heart and turn us into new creations. He gives us forgiveness, redemption, and makes us into better people. It's the ultimate Christmas gift - one that is offered to all of us, even cynical commentators and unbelieving clergy, even to you and me. Believe, repent and rejoice – the Lord has come! Happy Christmas.

David Robertson is the minister of Scots Kirk Presbyterian Church in Newcastle, New South Wales. He blogs at The Wee Flea.