‘Putting Christ at the heart of Christmas’ has nothing to do with Christian Nationalism

When Christmas becomes a political battleground, Christians must remember the child in the manger — and why his way of love leaves no room for nationalist distortions of the faith, says Rev Al Barrett

I was once told a story, that somewhere in a Mexican slum there was a destitute old woman who every year would put up an extensive nativity set. The Christ Child was always in the centre, of course, but around him she would place dozens and dozens of figures of people and animals. This was no matched nativity set! None of the figurines were the same, or even in scale with each other: some were only an inch high, others were several feet tall. She just filled the scene with whatever figures she could find. This woman, I was told, didn’t have any formal education. But her actions each year communicated a profound truth: there is room around the manger for all of us. In the incarnation, in becoming flesh in Jesus, God breaks down the dividing walls between us, and draws all people, all creation, together.

When we’re faced with public versions of the Christmas message that feel contrary to this all-inclusive heart of our faith, what can we do? Navigating the complexity of the issues in discerning a faithful response is by no means a straightforward task!

• We want to say “No” to hostility and division – but we also want to say “Yes” to flawed human beings, because we know we are too!
• We do want to challenge divisive messages, but we don’t want to unwittingly amplify them.
• We do want to continue focusing on ‘the main thing’ – proclaiming and embodying the good news of the incarnation – but we don’t want to avoid saying challenging things, and be seen as tacitly supporting something contrary to the gospel.
• We do want to offer a compelling counter-narrative, but we don’t want to turn this into a competition for attention, volume, numbers – because we’re working with a radically different theology of power.
• We do want to ‘put Christ at the heart of Christmas’, but what we mean by that is very different to the movement of aggressive ‘Christian nationalism’ we’re seeing emerging in our country.
• We do want to affirm our solidarity with refugees and asylum-seekers, but we don’t want that solidarity to be turned into another polarised ‘us vs them’ division that means some of our neighbours hear that we’re not in any sense ‘for them’.
• We do, also, want to find ways of communicating to those who might be drawn to nationalist narratives (who may well also, already, be part of our own church communities, or coming to church this Christmas hoping to find a spiritual ‘home’) that their struggles, and deepest longings, their ‘hopes and fears’, are met in the Jesus, whose birth we celebrate at Christmas, and whom we try to follow all year round.

It’s hard! And this is where the…