Thanks to the BUGB website I give you this excerpt from today's Daily Mail, quoting the Bishop of Croydon:
In Why Wish You A Merry Christmas - a new book published by the Church of England - the bishop also criticised schools which introduce snakes and grizzly bears to nativity plays.
He said it had the effect of 'relegating the story [of Christ] to fictional fantasy'.
'I always find it a slightly bizarre sight when I see parents and grandparents at a nativity play singing Away In A Manger as if it actually related to reality,' he writes.
'I can understand the little children being quite taken with the sort of baby of whom it can be said "no crying he makes", but how can any adult sing this without embarrassment?'
However, the Right Reverend Nick Baines calls carols 'embarrassing'
He said that Jesus would be abnormal if he had not cried as a baby.
'If we sing nonsense, is it any surprise that children grow into adults and throw out the tearless baby Jesus with Father Christmas and other fantasy figures?' he added.
'Once In Royal David’s City has Jesus as "our childhood’s pattern" — even though we know almost nothing of his childhood apart from one incident when he was 12 years old and being disobedient to his parents — and invites children to be "mild, obedient, good as he", which means what, exactly?
'This sounds suspiciously like Victorian behaviour control to me."
Has to be said I have some sympathy for him.
In Why Wish You A Merry Christmas - a new book published by the Church of England - the bishop also criticised schools which introduce snakes and grizzly bears to nativity plays.
He said it had the effect of 'relegating the story [of Christ] to fictional fantasy'.
'I always find it a slightly bizarre sight when I see parents and grandparents at a nativity play singing Away In A Manger as if it actually related to reality,' he writes.
'I can understand the little children being quite taken with the sort of baby of whom it can be said "no crying he makes", but how can any adult sing this without embarrassment?'
However, the Right Reverend Nick Baines calls carols 'embarrassing'
He said that Jesus would be abnormal if he had not cried as a baby.
'If we sing nonsense, is it any surprise that children grow into adults and throw out the tearless baby Jesus with Father Christmas and other fantasy figures?' he added.
'Once In Royal David’s City has Jesus as "our childhood’s pattern" — even though we know almost nothing of his childhood apart from one incident when he was 12 years old and being disobedient to his parents — and invites children to be "mild, obedient, good as he", which means what, exactly?
'This sounds suspiciously like Victorian behaviour control to me."
Has to be said I have some sympathy for him.
PS - I have posted the picture of the Bishop in case anyone thinks it's the other Nick Baines, out of the Kaiser Chiefs.
Do you not think 'Kaiser chiefs' would be a great name for the house of bishops, though?
ReplyDeleteYes! They could begin: "We will open with hymn number 352, 'I Predict a Riot'."
ReplyDelete