_ _ _ _ _ _ mas

Oh, dear! Poor Christians – well, some bishop geezers, anyway – are worried that the Christ is being taken out of Christmas again.

They conveniently forget, of course, that Christ wasn’t there in the first place. Oh, it wasn’t called Christmas back then, of course, but the midwinter festivities, as we all know (and as Christians know only too well, also), were pushed to one side by the cuckoo in the nest that was Christianity.

It made sense. Get people to drop their traditions in favour of a new set of celebrations? No way! But infiltrate and you’re in. If you can do it fairly seamlessly, well, hey presto, you replace the old with the new.

According to the Daily Telegraph link we’ve provided above, the Bishop of Croydon, Nick Baines, has written somewhere that the language used in some traditional carols risks turning the nativity into “just one more story alongside the panto and fairy stories”.

The story doesn’t make it clear (and it ought), but I assume he’s referring to “inclusive” or “acceptable” words that have been substituted for the old in some traditional carols.

But, whatever, the irony obviously escapes him: “panto and fairy stories”? Er, yes, Bishop, you’ve hit the nail right on the head.