A Christmas Message from the Primate of the Traditional Anglican Communion
"At the first Christmas night, in Bethlehem, Mary and Joseph were exiled to a dark and cold shed behind a hotel. Doubtless they could hear the noise of the international crowd who had come to "The City of David" for the great census of the whole world. They could hear the drinking songs, the revelry, the dancing. They could see the flickering of warm fires through bedroom windows. But they had nothing but animals and hay.
This Christmas, two thousand and six years on, nothing has changed very much. Christians are cast out of the mainstream of life as seldom before.
Across much of the world that is controlled by Islamic governments, Christians will be forbidden to openly celebrate this Christmas. They will gather in dark places, hidden like Mary and Joseph, and long for better times.
In China, too, there will be hidden and furtive gatherings, as the emerging world power maintains its absolute control on anything religious, and torments and persecutes Christians who acknowledge a a greater power and a global church. Wherever the shadows of Communism still caste their darkness, Christians hide in back sheds and remember the One who was born in a back shed.
And in our Western richness, with lights and trees and shopping and festivity, the One in whose honour we feast will not be mentioned. Carols and cribs are banned in schools and kindergartens and in public places, in a new attempt to silence the Christians and appease those who have chosen other gods. Even we who celebrate our freedoms find ourselves shrinking from the ridicule of a world that has forgotten how to believe, but remembers how to sin.
And yet the Christ child was born that the world would be free of sin. Sin against the old and the infirm and the unborn, sin against creation and sexuality, sin against a God whose very nature demands worship and respect. These are sins of power against the powerless. In the Child, God shared the weakness of those who have no earthly power. He chose to be born into a world dominated by a great empire, at the very moment when it commanded a census to demonstrate its global domination. The Child stood against the Empire, and conquered it.
So will He conquer again, and in our lives He lives. We will conquer the powers of darkness because He is with us. We will defend the defenceless, because His strength is with us. And above all, we will love the unloved, because He has so loved us, that He gave His life...
Love somewhere where there is no love this Christmas. Show the love of Jesus in a darkening world. And may the Child richly bless you, who bear the name of Christian."
+John Hepworth
