Put away the mince pies! turn off the Queen’s speech! Stop singing the carols!  The National Secular Society’s (anti-)Christmas message has announced that Christmas is a load of humbug. Indeed, the soppy nativity plays are just a cover (he seems to think) for

“… intolerance, bigotry and irrationality. These are the real traditions of Christianity, not the soppy sentimental stories that are fed to children in our schools.”

Mr Sanderson, however, seems to be spreading a certain amount of unacceptable and even dangerous intolerance himself in the shape of a statement that sounds as if it’s merely anti-religion, but sounds a whole lot like xenophobia to me:

Muslims from Pakistan and India, Catholics from Poland and evangelical Protestants from Africa and the Caribbean are bringing with them unpleasantly conservative religious beliefs that sometimes shock and repel the majority. They often seem primitive, hysterical, fanatical and alien, full of hatred and intolerance and crazy, senseless rules.

Mr Sanderson is right, of chourse, that the achilles heel of Christianity is that Christians don’t always heed the repeated call of Christ to love one another. But the NSS isn’t putting up much of a powerful alternative, methinks.  And by ending his message by asking for money for the NSS Mr S shows something of his own limitations – doesn’t he get that Christmas is supposed to be a time of giving?

Me, I need to read through my Christmas sermon, which is neither conservative nor hysterical, but kind, charitable and  rational and will challenge my congregation to remember with charity and generosity the homeless in our city during this bitter winter. (OK, so I’ve given away my theme).  And then I need to pray. I shall pray today against hatred, not only among religious people, but also the hatred of those who hate religion. Hatred, rather than religion, is the cause of so much evil in the world.

If you want to read more about the NSS Christmas message, pop over to the Church Mouse, who points out that the NSS message is “bad will to all who believe in anything other than Mr Sanderson’s brand of secularism.” or to David Keen, or to Ekklesia.  Come to that, you could just read A Christmas Carol - Dickens had a nice line in converting Scrooges to the Christmas spirit.

But most of all, let’s be sure that we remember what’s good about Christmas today: celebrate the birth of Christ, or celebrate in your own way if you are not a Christian, but whoever you are, and whatever you believe, let us endeavour to love one another.