THE TELEGRAPH: At the core of Christianity is a force for good and we should not forget that.
Dorothy Glen adores Christmas. The mother-of-three from South Shields usually has a tree, a Father Christmas, an assortment of snowmen (and women – no sexism here!) in her garden and myriad, twinkling lights decorating her home. Then she was ordered to remove them all by a housing association worker who claimed the display offended her Chinese and Bengali neighbours.
The Christmas-bah-humbugging jobsworths, who have become the self-appointed, self-important guardians of political correctness, are bound every year to prove their worth. Like the “Ho-ho Homes” that demand the output of a small nuclear plant to illuminate, the tetchy debate over politicians’ choice of cards, and the school “Nativity” plays that combine Hanakkah, Diwali and Kwanzaa, their antics are a staple of the festive run-up.
This year doesn’t disappoint: we have po-faced clergymen rewriting carols to reflect the tenor of our times – hence the uplifting inclusion of hoodies, single mothers, Aids sufferers, and lottery losers in a version of The Twelve Days of Christmas by the Rev George Fisher from Lichfield.
The Rev Stephen Coulter has gone one better and banned O Little Town of Bethlehem from his services in Blandford Forum, Dorset, because, he claims, it fails to reflect the little town’s recent troubles. (Why not ban all vicars from visiting the Holy Land before Christmas and returning home with ideas to ruin their parishoners’ celebrations?) >>> By Liz Hunt | December 16, 2008
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