‘I’m not religious’ he said. It’s a great line. I’ve used it to good effect in the past. I reassured him that despite being a ‘Vicar’, neither was I. But he didn’t bite. We carried on chatting. And then it came around again. This time I went further and repeated that I wasn’t religious and didn’t live my life by a religious code, like the five pillars of Islam. That got him hooked and it opened up a conversation.

But what was I, if I wasn’t religious? The sound bite goes ‘Christianity’s not a religion, it’s a relationship’. Nice. Neat. Naff. This was a 46 year old northern copper and I was expected to tell him that Jesus could be his boyfriend! There had to be a better way of explaining the gospel than that. I know we’re not supposed to be ashamed of the gospel but is our gospel really Jesus is my boyfriend? Because that’s what everyone’s thinking when they hear the words ‘relationship’.

I’ve replayed that conversation over a few times in my head. I’ve tried to think what I should have said. And this is where I am at the moment. I used it with the lads from the rugby club at our Pub Christmas Carol Service. They may have had one shandy too many to have appreciated the subtlety and nuance of my new phraseology. But I was happier with it than I’ve been with the relationship line.

At the heart of Christianity is a lifestyle. It’s a lifetsyle that Jesus made possible by his death and resurrection. It’s a lifestyle in which there’s both direction and certainty.

Admittedly none of those words appear in Paul’s gospel presentations in Acts, but hear me out. Those words are the implications of Jesus’ lordship and his work of salvation; two themes which dominate his sermons. I knew that I had to translate biblical language and categories into phraseology that real men and not simply metrosexuals could relate to!

To live in relationship with God is to pursue a lifestyle. Everyone has a lifestyle and makes lifestyle choices. The Christian’s lifestyle is one with Jesus as Lord and Saviour. What that means is that he provides direction as he rules over me by his word and he provides me with security about what lies ahead so that I can live my life with certainty. When you put it like that it sounds attractive doesn’t it?

The gut wrenching toe curling experience of using the word ‘relationship’ with blokes is no longer part and parcel of my gospel presentation. Jesus is not my boyfriend. And I don’t think he’ll be sad about that. He’s my Lord and Saviour, which makes him far happier. But what on earth does that mean? As Lord he provides me with direction, like a lifecoach but without the tracksuit. And as Saviour he gives me security for the future so that I can live a confident present.

This change of terminology is not principally about saving face, honest. It’s about prolonging the conversation. If it keeps the gospel conversation going just that little bit longer because the bloke hasn’t checked out on hearing the word ‘relationship’ then I’m a happy man.

In 1 Corinthians 7:12-16, Paul addressed a particular situation brought about through the conversion of one person within an existing marriage. This introduces massive issues into any marriage. And sometimes those issues are irreconcilable. The believer and the unbeliever serve different masters, believe radically different things, live fundamentally different ways and are heading to eternally different destinations. They are not small things. This is not a situation that Jesus addressed in the gospels and Paul concedes that. Nevertheless, as an apostle his words carry the same authority as Jesus’ teaching. This is a situation that has happened in our own church situation and, God willing, as people are brought to faith through courses like Christianity Explored we will continue to face in the coming years. 

The action to be taken by the believing partner is dictated by the attitude of the unbelieving partner. The believing spouse should not be the one to initiate a divorce if the unbelieving spouse is happy to remain. Paul’s instruction to the newly converted partner was to stay married and not to leave. The need for this advice was apparently caused by a quirky view of defilement rampant in the Corinthian congregation. Apparently some in the congregation were suggesting that an unbelieving spouse contaminated the marriage. But Paul says the transferral works in the other direction. The unbelieving partner does not defile the cleanness of the believing partner but the holiness of the believing partner sanctifies the uncleanness of the unbelieving partner. Clearly this cannot mean that an unbelieving spouse automatically gets saved because their partner professes faith. He means that they have massive advantage of having a Christian life lived out in front of them. Paul supports his assertion by comparing the marriage situation to that of the family. Having believing parents is a positive thing for kids. They’re not saved by their believing parents but they are set apart.

There is a striking lesson for those of us in Christian marriages. Even in this situation the enormous incompatibility introduced by conversion is not a sufficient reason to initiate divorce? Incompatibilities are really just differences. And rather than them being catastrophic to a marriage, they can provide opportunities to grow in our loving service of one another.

The situation in a ‘mixed’ marriage is different if the unbelieving partner wants out. In that situation the believing spouse can allow divorce. In all likelihood the unbelieving spouse will leave and seek sexual fulfilment elsewhere. So, once again sexual immorality severs the marriage bond. If the unbelieving partner can no longer stomach the faith of his or her spouse and they decide to quit then the Christian can let them leave. They can do this with a clear conscience and no doubt with a heavy heart but they are not sinning. The reason to let them leave is that there is no guarantee that they will become a believer by staying. There is no promise from God that if we marry an unbeliever that they will get saved.

In the first instance this will apply most directly to those of us with unbelieving husbands or wives. If they’re keen to stay, and we pray that they are, remain in your marriage. They’ve come under the influential witness of a godly partner and so the last thing you should do is leave. But if they want out then you are no longer bound to that marriage and should co-operate with their desire to walk away.

In (39) Paul explicitly prohibits the marriage of a believer to an unbeliever. And perhaps as we think about the stresses of this situation we can appreciate why. So let me say to you ‘don’t marry a non-Christian’. It’s not that they’re worse sinners than us, they’re not, it’s that they’re unbelievers and that introduces a level of tension into the marriage that you can do without. The single girls amongst us are more susceptible to this than the men. Perhaps that’s a matter of statistics. There are more single Christian women in the church than single Christian men and so most men can in general expect to find someone willing to have them. But I think it’s also an issue of idolatry for the women. Being married is the thing that many worship. It’s the thing that they think will make them happy and bring fulfilment. If we believe that lie then we’ll make a decision that we may regret for the rest of our life. Perhaps not for the first five years when he’s keen to accommodate to your faith out of love for you. But after that, perhaps when the kids come along and there’s less slack in teh system. Decisions about how you spend your Sundays, how you raise the kids and how you sepnd your money will have a less Christian shape to them. We need to believe God’s word on this. There’s something worse than being unhappily single for the rest of your life, and that’s being married to an unbeliever.

Just got to the end of our box set of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. Absolutely loved it. It’s right up there with the Aaron Sorkin’s other great series, The West Wing, for must-see TV. I’m gutted that a second series was never commisioned. If anyone knows the Director-General could they let him know that I’d gladly pay more as a licence fee if we could have more TV like Studio 60 and less of the dross that fills up the nightly scheduling on the BBC!

However, I did find one thing really disappointing; Sarah Paulson’s portrayal of the Christian character, Harriet Hayes. At one level it was terrific to have a central Christian character who wasn’t completely bonkers. The Vicar of Dibley is endearing but she hardly encourages anyone to take Christianity seriously. Usually the TV depictions of Christian characters are so horribly caricatured that you’d prefer there weren’t any at all. It was great therefore to have a normal, sensible and characterful Christian. But we also got one that was compromised. I guess it was always going to be that way but it wasn’t accompanied by the realisation that this was wrong. Apparently one of Aaron Sorkin’s inspirations for Sarah Paulson’s character was Kristin Chenoweth, the acress who played Annabel Schott in The West Wing. When you compare some of the storylines in Studio 60 with events in her life there are striking similarities. We’re all moral failures to one degree or another, but you can only wonder what Sorkin would be writing these days if Chenoweth had lived like a Christian in her decisions about who to date.

The thing that wound me up the most was Hayes’ willingness to date and sleep with unbelieving men. I’m a big fan of Matthew Perry, I loved what he did with the character of Matt Albi. I’m also a heteroxual male. But even I can sympathise with the temptation he presents to every Christian woman with good eyesight and a heart beat. But real Christian women say ‘no’. They don’t compromise. They let Jesus govern how they use their bodies. But this one didn’t. And that sucks.

Why can’t we have a sexy Christian woman who looks a million dollars but kicks unbelieving men into touch? Is that too much to expect? Every other type of dysfunctional human being tends to get a gig on the TV, why can’t we get a turn? This is such a significant issue for many young Christian women it’d be great to watch a Christian woman who said to a hot guy, ‘no, you may be aesthetically pleasing to but i’m not going to repeat the sins of my mother Eve and ditch my theology just because you’re easy on the eye and I want a piece of you’. Those needn’t be her exact words, you understand!

Intermarriage has always been viewed prohibitively by the Bible. Deuteronomy 7:1-5 makes it clear that the reason for that prohibition is that unless we share the same ideology as our marriage partners there’s every likelihood that we’ll be led astray to idolatry. It’s not a racist thing, it’s a faith thing. God wasn’t saying non-Israelites were wicked, He was saying non-Israelites weren’t His. And so they wouldn’t live His way and they’d influence others to follow suit. Faith in the God of the Bible and faith in anything else just doesn’t mix, never has and never will. And so when Ruth and Rahab marry into Israelite families no one bats an eyelid and it’s not because the people of God had become compromising liberals. They realised that those two women had joined the faith. Solomon, on the other hand failed to live his life by the Bible. 1 Kings 11:1-6 makes it unmistakably clear that the reason for the single biggest contributory factor to his desertion from obedience to the Lord was his love of foreign women. It wasn’t however, his love of foreign women that was his undoing but their love of other gods. And so his heart was led astray.

The New Testament takes a similarly negative view on intermarriage. Although not directly addressing the issue of marriage, nevertheless 2 Corinthians 6:14&15 has massive implications for any couple contemplating a lifelong partnership. In these verses Paul depicts two oxen being yoked together as they would be when ploughing a field or pulling a cart. He uses this illustration to show the incompatibility of a believer and an unbeliever entering into a binding relationship. His point is that it just doesn’t work if you’ve got two people wanting to go in two different directions. As my ESV Reformation Study Bible notes says, ‘The prohibition against being yoked together with unbelievers must be considered in situations where significant control over one’s actions would be willingly yielded to an unbeliever through a voluntary partnership of association’. Marriage, for example.

In 1 Corinthians 7:12-16 Paul discusses what happens when one of the marriage partners becomes a Christian. Whilst this is not immediately applicable to the situation of a believer and an unbeliever contemplating marriage, it does highlight the sometimes insirmountable problems that one partner’s conversion can introduce. Ideally both the converted partner and the unbelieving partner stays. The believer isn’t defiled in any way by their ongoing sexual contact with the unbeliever. In fact it works the other way round. The unbeliever is made holy through their association with their believing spouse. That doesn’t mean that they’re converted it just means that they’re better off than if they had no contact with a Christian whatsoever. I’ve written more on that elsewhere.

But in (39) of that chapter Paul summarises his instruction to widows. And it’s here that his instruction about whom to marry is made most explicit. He’d prefer them to remain single but he permits them to remarry. The only limitation on thier choice of marriage partner is that they must be ‘in the Lord’. In other words, a Christian. But why does he repeat the Old Testament’s limitations? A moment’s thought  reveals why. There’s a fundamental irreconcilable difference at the heart of a marriage between a believer and an unbeliever; faith in Christ. Since faith has implications we won’t be able to keep those differences suppressed for very long.

As I understand it, there are three major issues to face

1. The believer and the unbeliever serve different masters. The Christian lives for Jesus Christ. In our better moments, we’re all about Him. What he thinks about things governs what we think about things, because he’s our Lord. The unbeliever, by definition, chooses not to submit to the lordship of Jesus Christ. It’s one thing to have a difference of opinion about a friend we have in common. We usually agree to disagree and not see them together. But when that friend makes a daily pervasive intrusion into your marriage it becomes more problematic. Jesus is Lord of all, there is no part of our lives over which he does not declare ‘mine’. And that includes our marriages. When he’s pitching up every minute of every day he can feel like an unwelcome intruder to the unbelieving partner. What tends to happen is that the Christian does one of three things. They either grow in their discipleship and then a gap opens up in the marriage relationship. Or the Christian compartmentalises their faith so that Jesus is not allowed to intrude on the marriage. Or the Christian cannot cope with the emotional angst that belonging to Christ causes their partner so they allow their faith to whither and die. Wonderfully I’ve known situations where the unbelieving partner has been converted. But it’s rare.

2. The believer and the unbeliever live in different ways. The believer will live a certain way because Jesus Christ is Lord and Saviour. And so what they choose to do, how they choose to do it and why they choose to do it will all be shaped by faith in Christ. Of course, if a marriage partner shares those convictions there’ll be no problems. But if they share those convictions then they’ll be a Christian. The issues of how we spend our money, our time and our energy reveal what motivates us. And we’re hopelessly naive if we think that these differerences can be worked out without introducing an insurmountable degree of stress into a marriage. Take the issue of financial giving in the surrent economic climate. A Christian will cut back on expenditure on so called luxury items in order to maintain a generous and sacrificial level of giving to their local church. It’s likely that an unbeliever may not take too high a view of the idea that his foreign holiday will be funding the Sunday School parties for the next year. Usually what we think about how we ought to live gets played out in our ambitions for our children. But far to few are thinking that far ahead.

3. The believer and the unbeliever are going to different destinations. This has to be one of the hardest things for the believer to live with each day. The Bible’s clear that where we spend our existence beyond the grave rests on the decision we make about Jesus Christ. The believer and the unbeliever have made different decisions. That disagreement coudn’t be more serious. The believer, if they take God’s word with any degree of seriousness, will know that their marriage partner is going to hell. And it’ll break their heart. Both partners have to live with that thought every day of their marriage. The believer wants not only to pray for their partner each day but to pray with them each day. And so whilst there may be much that unites a couple, whilst they may share many similarities and whilst many may regard them as eminently suitable for one another, if they don’t share the faith it’s what divides them that’ll be their undoing.

And so we’ve got to ask, why would anyone willingly and disobediently go into this situation? Why do we think that we know better than God on this? Why do we value our salvation so lightly that we’re prepared to flirt with spiritual danger? And what are we going to do when the people we love find themselves engulfed by this idolatry. For that is what it is. When anything other than Jesus Christ has captured our hearts and occupies our aspirations we’re serving an idol. And that’s a tragedy. Not only is it wrong; it’s foolish. Our idols cannot save us and serve us the way that Christ can. It doesn’t matter who the unbelieving partner is; they can’t fulfil us the way that obediently serving Christ can.

Don’t read this if you’re at theological college; you won’t believe it. You’ll still be labouring under the misapprehension that God’s going to give you a ministry more like Don Carson’s than like that of his father. Read it about five years out, when your ambitious dreams have been dashed on the rocks of reality!

When I was studying at Moore Theological College a fourth year colleague recounted the story of one of Richard Gibson’s church history lectures. Gibbo drew a graph tracking the ‘performance’ of the church down the ages. There was a sharp upturn just after the new millennium. He asked the class what had made such a difference. Various answers were offered. None was accepted. Brilliantly he exposed the assumption lying within the hearts of most theological students when he suggested that most of us thought the reason for the improved performance had something to do with our graduation. He wasn’t far off the mark, as the guilty silence confirmed.

This is a book primarily for pastors. That’s not to say that those who aren’t in full time paid gospel ministry won’t benefit from reading it. It’s just that it’s most pertinent to those whose job is being a pastor-teacher of a local congregation. But if you want to understand the insecurities of your average church leader so that you can support him, encourage him and pray for his godliness and ministry, then this is a good place to start.

In the preface, Carson reveals his reasons for writing. He compares the brilliant gifted few whom God raises up for a specific purpose with the more ordinary multitudes. He writes,

‘Most of us, however, serve in more modest patches. Most pastors will not regularly preach to thousands, let alone tens of thousands. They will not write influential books, they will not supervise large staffs, and they will never see more than modest growth. They will plug away at their care for the aged, at their visitation, at their counseling, at their Bible studies and preaching. Some will work with so little support that they will prepare their own bulletins. They cannot possibly discern whether the constraints of their own sphere of service owe more to the specific challenges of the local situation or to their own shortcomings. Once in a while they will cast a wistful eye on “successful” ministries. Many of them will attend the conferences sponsored by the revered masters, and come away with a slightly discordant combination of, on the one hand, gratitude and encouragement, and, on the other, jealousy, feelings of inadequacy, and guilt.

Most of us—let us be frank—are ordinary pastors.

Dad was one of them. This little book is a modest attempt to let the voice and ministry of one ordinary pastor be heard, for such servants have much to teach us’.

This is a book written by one of the world’s foremost New Testament scholars about his Dad’s ministry. For that reason it’s wonderfully touching. I found it deeply moving. I read a paragraph to Rosslyn at lunch one day and unexpectedly found myself weeping, much to the bemusement of my youngest son! I read the rest of it behind closed doors.

The premise of Don Carson’s book is that his old man was simply an ordinary pastor. Unlike his son, no one apart from those whom he pastored really knew who he was. He was a number two and not a number one. Writing about this discovery Carson says,

‘The brute fact is that Tom functioned better as a number-two pastor than the senior man. Freed from thse sorts of responsibilities, Tom began to flourish again, doing the things he did best: personal work with young Christians, encouraging those who needed it, the gift of hospitality and prayer with folk, and steady, workmanlike preaching that always aimed to be faithful to the text’ p116.

Visionaries and pioneers are wonderful gifts to the church. But they can spend so much time up in their strategic thought clouds that they never get round to doing personal ministry on the ground! Every number one needs a number two to make it happen. Tom Carson was that man. But he didn’t really have much to fruit to show for lots of his ministry. He pastored a tiny French speaking church plant in Roman Catholic dominated Quebec for much of his life.

But he persevered to the end. He showed extraordinary commitment to the gospel of Christ and the people of God. And if die with others’ saying that about my service of Christ, then I’ll die a happy man. One of Don Carson’s study assistants read the manuscript of the book and sent an e-mail. He wrote,

‘I used to aspire to be the next Henry Martyn. However, after reading your Dad’s diaries, the Lord has given my heart a far loftier goal: simply to be faithful. I know we are but dust, but what dust the man I read about in these diaries was!’

Tom Carson was a man of remarkable integrity, perseverance and godliness. His loyalty to his family, to his Lord but perhaps especially to his wife throughout her years degenerating with Alzheimer’s is hugely challenging. But what’s wonderful about his example is that all of it is just about attainable. I’m not saying that we’ll all get there. But there’s no earthly reason why we couldn’t. His loyalty is something that we can all mimic. He wasn’t so gifted that his genius beyond our reach. It’s just that he put himself at others’ disposal. And his ministry is valuable and commendable for just that reason. I read this and I wanted to be a better pastor. I found myself exposed, challenged and encouraged. And I trust that, under God, my future service for Christ and for His people will be better for that reason.

And so, if this is ordinary, I’ll have some of that!

Others have reviewed this book; Tim Challies, CJ Mahaney and David Mattis on Desiring God.

This is the title of Mark Driscoll’s e-book. It’s brilliant. It’s brutal. But best of all it’s biblical. You can find it here. It’s free, so you don’t have to pay for it. And since you can download it and print it off, you don’t even have to carry it around in a brown paper bag!

It ought to be compulsory reading for every men’s weekend away. It’s going to be at ours. It ought to be used in prayer triplets and accountability groups. It’s best for younger men. I’m not sure how it would go down with a white collar older man who reads the Telegraph. But Driscoll’s not gunning for them.

It’s only a ninety minute read. But in that time he deals with the issues of sexual immorality, extra marital sex, prostitution, oral sex, pornography and masturbation. It’s what you’d expect from Driscoll; wholehearted unrestrained challenge, unflinchingly straight and set within the context of faithful Bible teaching. It’s brief and to the point. You don’t read Driscoll for nuance; you read him for clarity and frankness. And he gives both in spades. And that’s the strength of this book. This is written for men about sexual godliness. But it’s also written for men that struggle. It gets to the heart, it deals with their issues and it doesn’t duck the hard questions. Most of these are answered in two brief Q&A sections on pp 22-25 and pp 31-33.

The moving interview transcript between James Dobson and Ted Bundy, a converted sex offender, conducted hours before he was killed in the electric chair sounds a warning note to all of us who think that pornography is nothing to worry about. Raised in a Christian home, never subjected to sexual abuse of any sort and edcutaed at University he went on to kill at least thirty young women and girls. And porn was the fuel that fired his downward slide.

If there’s a slight criticism there’s not alot about forgiveness from sexual sin. Don’t misunderstand me, Driscoll’s not self righteous at all. But there’s not as much acknowledgement as I’d like that we’re all sexual sinners to one degree or another. It’s a minor quibble. In one sense it’s unfair to criticise a man for what he doesn’t include. I just think that given that most men are nailed by the sins he describes we could have done with some gospel as well as the well deserved, undiluted challenge. He does say this however, 

‘I have written this booklet to discuss these matters in a manner that is both theological and practical, in hopes of contributing to each of you experiencing the power of the gospel to forgive, renew, and empower you by grace’ p3.

And so there may be more grace than I’ve given him credit for. I’ve only read it through once and on second reading I may have to walk back from this criticism.

The best way to sell Driscoll’s material is to allow you to savour it for yourselves. So let me give you a flavour of what you’ll encounter. 

On what he’s trying to accomplish he writes, 

‘My desire as a Christian pastor is to see churches raised up as communities of grace ruled by Jesus and led by his gloriously masculine men who work their jobs, eat their meat, drink their beer, romance their wives, study their Bible, and raise their kids in glory and joy’ p28.

On sexual activity outside of marriage he writes, 

‘Simply, any man who claims to be a Christian but lives in habitual, unrepentant sexual immorality is not fit for Christian friendship and community unless he repents, because he is defiling his friends and their church with his perversion. The cold hard truth is that most guys’ struggles are only known by their fellow Christian buddies and unless Christian dudes man up and stop arguing about stupid secondary theological issues and spend their energies holding one another accountable to get dominion over their underwear, then Christian friendship is nothing more than Christian fakery’ p8.

Someone once said to me that in order to displace the enticing image of a naked woman from our mind’s eye or from our computer screen we need to replace it with an even more arresting image. Try this one for size, 

‘However you go out, do you really wanna be the guy with a computer mouse in one hand scratching his itchy junk with his other hand standing before Jesus and scrambling to explain himself?’ p8.

On the seriousness of this issue he quotes from Proverbs 27:20 and says,

‘Sheol [Death] and Abaddon [Destruction] are never satisfied, and never satisfied are the eyes of man. If we apply this principle to pornographic lust, it becomes apparent that seeing such smut is not going to satisfy your lust but rather inflame it for more images. Lusting eyes may begin with a magazine, web site, or video and continue to view more magazines, web sites, or videos until they become bored and then descend into strip clubs, prostitutes, and/or easy women, which eventually become boring and lead to orgies, voyeurism, exhibitionism, pedophilia, and wherever else a crooked human heart can venture. Don’t kid yourself. Sin is an onramp to death. If you get on it and don’t repent, turn around, and exit, you will find the landscape getting darker, grosser, filthier, and deadlier. You may even be one of the millions of men who murder their own children in the womb of their mother, as yet another sinful fool proving yet again that sin leads to death’ p16.

If you’re a woman don’t go near it; it’s not for you. He says as much. On page three. What he says needs to be set within the context of how total depravity is manifested in men and filtered so that it’s more appropriately packaged for those who are less familiar with his earthy turn of phrase. If you’re a bloke do yourself a favour, download it, read it and pass it on.

Got a question today from one of the staff,

‘can you just remind me your views on Father Christmas. Not a big thesis, but the pros and cons of having him at the Christmas party.  Is it that you want them to leave thinking Jesus is amazing, not Father Christmas was there.  Or….is it ok?’ 

Fair question. Don’t think she was expecting this,

‘Get rid of the fat man in the red suit - this is Jesus’ day, so he can butt out!’

Good to get that off my chest! I know it’s not Jesus’ day. I know Father Christmas isn’t evil. I know all that, but still. He’s usurped Jesus’ position as the good guy who gives gifts. And that’s not right. There’s the world of difference between them. Santa’s fiction but Jesus is fact. Santa rewards the good but Jesus rewards the bad. Grace or works? It matters!

It’s not one of those issues which makes your buttocks numb from fence sitting. Abraham Piper’s post at 22 Words stoked up a hornets nest. It’s a subject almost as controversial as home schooling.

I remember doing a couple of things on this last year. You’ll find them here and here. I remain wedded to my conviction that Santa gets more than enough attention from the world so let’s make sure the church discreetly drops him!

Imagine we were Family Fortunes and I was Vernon Kay and we asked 100 people what they most associate with Christmas, what answers would they give? Work with me guys!

There are any number of things that have become part and parcel of the bog standard Christmas.

In your opinion, what’s critical to Christmas? What’s the one thing that if you were to get rid of it Christmas would become unrecognisable? If you had to ditch one thing from Christmas what would you choose?

Turkey, mulled wine, crackers, the Queen’s Speech, Ant & Dec, Wham’s Last Christmas, the work Christmas party, Carols, Argos, Sports Personality of the Year, Carols from Kings, Decorations, the Eastenders Christmas Special or Grandma.

Of course there are some things that you can ditch and it’s still recognisable as Christmas. Personally, I’m very happy to do without the brussel sprouts, sherry and the Wizard of Oz that were a permanent feature of my childhood.

But I want to suggest that there’s one thing that if you get rid of it then all you’re left with is a bog standard Christmas. It’s adequate; but it’s not deluxe. The trouble is that for many of us is that’s what we’ve settled for. I know it’s what every vicar says at this time of year but bear with me, not only do I get paid to say this, I actually believe it!

It’s been said that if you take Christ out of Christmas then all you’re left with is a mess. I think that’s overstating it, but I like what he’s done there! Can I suggest that if you get rid of Jesus Christ then you’ve ripped the heart out of Christmas? He’s what Christmas is all about. They even named it after him! He’s the reason for the season. But we’ve lost sight of that amongst the tinsel, presents and stress.

The Gospel of Luke tells us that the first visitors at the stable maternity ward were the Shepherds. They went to Bethlehem because they knew that Jesus’ birth was good news of great joy for all people. And so if you take the Christ out of Christmas then what you’re left with is bad news of real misery for everyone. It’s hard to get in the festive spirit with that sort of strap line, isn’t it?!

I’m not an idiot; I know that many of us are happy to settle for a Christ-less Christmas. We’re content with the bog standard version. That’s your decision! But why would you go for a Christmas that’s satisfactory, sufficient, passable or tolerable when you can have one that rocks!