There is constant unrest between those on the two sides of the Christmas stamp divide. The what? I hear you ask. There’s a divide? A big one? Well no, but to some people apparently it matters, it raises fundamental question about Christmas in modern Britain. What are we celebrating? The birth of the son of God, by immaculate conception, in a stable… or the passing of the winter solstice, the lengthening of the days, the return of light and greenery.
For most people the answer is a bit of both. While some concentrate of the whole Jesus born for our sins (yet curiously with Caucasian Jesus’ in their representations.) others, such as myself, bitterly resent great many things about Christmas, the Jesus thing being right up there.
Last year the Royal Mail issued its Christmas stamps to frustrated criticism from the church. They were, winter wonderland scenes, white and blue, with snow and children… There was not a cherub, a miracle, or a piece of superstitious tosh in sight.
The Royal mail, in what was presumably a very tired fed up voice, advised the Church of England, once again, that its Christmas stamps alternated between secular and religious themes. The Church replied that it wasn’t good enough, that the sky would fall in, God would be angry, just you wait…
And so as this years release has come about the Church of England is apparently delighted by the pictures of infant Christ in the arms of the Madonna generally looking serene with the happy glazed expression of a child almost certainly being given cough medicine as a sedative.
And once again the royal mail has advised that it is pleased the church is happy, and that next year it will be the secular Christmas depicted, apparently the theme is likely to be pantomime characters… So next year the church will no doubt be appalled at stamps with pantomime dames (or transvestites as they will doubt be referred), Cinderella going to the Ball, following the use of sinful magic! No doubt the sky will fall in, God will be angry, just you wait…
Lets not forget the church is not at all happy about the success of Harry Potter owing to its magical content. They don’t like magic in general, probably because of the similarity to putting one dove under silver cover, saying some magic words, then removing the cover to reveal a plenitude of birds, and the feeding of the five thousand. We’ve all seen the trick where a magician pours liquid of one colour, say clear like water, into a cup, and it comes out a different colour, say… red?
The Royal Mail has taken a very diplomatic approach to what for them must be an annual headache. And it falls to the Christian church to start spouting off about the true meaning of Christmas being destroyed, staking their ever-diminishing claim on the festival in increasingly possessive grasping way.
Can I have a volunteer please?
Christina Baxter, chairwoman of the House of Laity of the Church of England's General Synod, you’ll do!
On the subject of the Madonna and Child image on a first-class stamp: "I very much welcome an explicitly Christian theme for that particular stamp.
"Although the others are not to my personal taste, I nevertheless welcome stamps that carry values that are explicitly Christian, and I hope they will produce Christian stamps next year too at Christmas."
These people!
They are getting their own way and they still have to use this small minded, loaded language to complain. Why can people who parade belief systems so adamantly, not listen to it? The Christian faith is, apparently, an open kind, tolerant faith, which wants “explicitly Christian” theme in its postal currency.
“Stamps that carry values” Yes, values such as, 26p. 45p and that clunker, £1. Who looks at a stamp for moral guidance? Well apparently, Christine Baxter, thank you for your pointless bull crap, you may go back to the small shuttered room we found you in.
And apparently she doesn’t even like them? Why not? Its her fiction Jesus, you know the one that is white, in fact on the second-class stamp he’s bloody ginger! So maybe the Royal mail is still sticking it to them. Since the Mary depicted is a brunette, God, apparently, is a carrot-top.
But nit picking aside, the Royal mail has in its mature and rational policy on the themes of its stamps allowed the religious to show them selves up again. They quite simply can’t share with others. They personally have a faith, which they always want to impose on everyone. Christians want shops closed on a Sunday, they hijack the Pagan festival of Yule and try to make us all believe it relates to the son of God.
And in all honesty we aren’t a religious country, people say Christian when asked, (70% in the 2001 census) but for the most part they aren’t really, it’s a comfort thing. The churches are empty and the rhetoric of the church on issues like this only goes to show their desperation to remain relevant in these more clinical and rational times. Oh, and before I forget the others have these tendencies too, their Muslims who want sharia law in our cities and the Jews seem to have been having an armed sit-in in Jerusalem for the past 60 yrs and seem quite comfortable.
It is that curious by-product of devout faith, that it is so threatened by any other points of view. The Christians tell the Story of Daniel in the lions’ den as a show of how strong their faith is. Yet this faith can be dismantled by one small piece of printed-paper 1-inch square with an adhesive substance applied to one side.
It is insecurity, so lets have a rule, only those who are secure in their beliefs, who can accept that other people differ in their view and could be just as right, or more likely wrong, as them, are allowed to talk in public on the subject… which fingers crossed will rule everyone out, and the Royal Mail can get back to what they do best, printing stamps, and loosing my post.
J.
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