Popular Christmas carols are ‘nonsense’ and have turned the birth of Jesus Christ into a fairy story, according to a respected bishop.
In a new book on the festive period, The Right Reverend Nick Baines, the Bishop of Croydon, claims some of the nation’s favourite carols are ’embarrassing’ and ‘inaccurate’.
He says the songs encourage people to believe that the story of Christ’s birth is as fictitious as Father Christmas or a pantomime story.
Carol lovers, however, defended the traditional songs and say they help people to look beyond a ‘commercialised’ Christmas.
“Christmas has become ‘tame, fantastic and anaemic,’ he said.
‘Bring back the reality. Perhaps we need to recover the nativity play as something to be done by adults for children and not the other way round.'”
How far is Bishop Baines prepared to go with his pursuit of “reality”? That could involve him in a deeper discussion of “what is true” than he is prepared to get into.
Is he prepared to first recognize, then delete, all the “fantastic” elements in the first chapters of Matthew and Luke? Is he prepared to say that it is quite likely that Jesus was born near Nazareth, not in Bethlehem? Is he prepared to admit that major elements of the birth narratives are historically preposterous but religiously significant? And if the latter, when does revelation stop?
I admit that many lines of the Christmas carols are ridiculous, but many lines of many other hymns are theologically and historically ridiculous too. So how far is he prepared to go with his critique and scalpel?
A “respected” bishop, eh? Ah, makes a change, I guess.
But he doth protest too much. Now people will only titter if he shows up at a carol service with ‘Away in a manger’ in it.
I’m more incensed over the ‘neutering’ of the Christmas Carols:
eg. Changing “God rest ye merry, Gentlemen” to “God rest ye merry, gentle friends”. That to me is the real “Nonsense” surrounding Christmas Carols.
And yes, I’m angry that this practice was also put into the current hymnal. (I always sing the traditional words, much to the amusement and annoyance of those around me.)
Jim Elliott
Florida
If I remember correctly, the first line says, “unto us a child is born”,, didn’t it used to be “son”??? Or do I dis-remember?
Grandmother in SC
Greetings.
[b]Grandmother[/b] asks about the lines of a Christmas carol. I am no expert in hymnody, but I have a copy of the 1940 Hymnal to hand (it is also [url=”http://www.oremus.org/hymnal/40.html”]online[/url], of course), and Hymn 34 begins
[quote]Unto us a boy is born!
The King of all Creation, …[/quote]
But Hymn 26 begins
[quote]Sing, O sing, this blessed morn,
Unto us a child is born,
Unto us a son is given, …[/quote]
So one way or another, dis-remembering certainly seems possible. I regret that I do not have a 1982 Hymnal to hand, but I am certain it is online also.
Hope that’s helpful.
regards,
JPB
“Good Christian friends rejoice,
with heart and soul and voice!”
Bah! Humbug!
I’m with you, Jim.
As Commenter No. 1 notes, this is a very slippery slope for the good Bishop. Christmas is lovely and comes at a good spot on the calendar (“in the bleak mid-Winter . . .” and all that), but it has very little to do with the Christian sense of the divinity of Christ. If we only had Mark and John, and knew nothing of either the conflated or separate (and, to an extent, inconsistent) nativity stories of Luke and Matthew, would we think Jesus to be any less significant in marking the new relationship between man and God? Easter is what we are about, not Christmas.
Nonetheless, I fully expect to enjoy the season, both for secular and spiritual reasons. The carols, whether Victorian, ancient or modern, will be part of my enjoyment. The Bishop of Croydon can no doubt find better things to worry about than a few Carol verses.
What would he think of my Christmas Poem then?
Love one another
Give love and a smile;
It will take you and others that extra mile.
For what you give you will receive,
No better time to give, than Christmas eve!
Imagine what a world it would be,
If I loved you and you loved me.
If we multiplied this love to everyone we know,
It wouldn’t be long before it started to grow.
Jesus came into the world, to show us the way;
To love one another every day.
At Christmas time, we celebrate His birth,
So let’s try and remember why He came to this earth.
by Simon Icke 2009