Sir, - Reading your Editorial "The meaning of Christmas" (December 24th) left me with a sense that I had been diminished as a human being. However, first let me applaud you for focusing on ethics.
A religion, to my mind, should be 70 per cent the working out in practice of its ethical and theological vision, 10 per cent liturgy, 10 per cent escapism (can anyone consistently face the hard challenges of her/his faith?), and 10 per cent speculation, insight, debate, doubt and belief.
There is a Shona greeting (which I used every day for 11 years in Zimbabwe): "Are you well?" "I am well if you are well," comes the answer. It highlights that corporate awareness that we are all caught up in the one bundle of life, which is far from well. We are all disabled, wounded and sick; a mixture of health and disease. The ethical vision and challenge of life calls on us to mend, restore and heal where we can.
Now, to my main point: my reaction was due to both what was said and what was not said, but needs to be said in a Christmas message. The sound of the drums of Christmas beats in the depths of the wounded psyches of the Jewish and Islamic communities. If the life of that remarkable and unforgettable person, Jesus of Nazareth, has inspired many within the evolving tradition of Christianity to aspire to the heights of their humanity, have we not also seen that many, too, in his name, have reached the depths of their depravity?
I write as one who lives currently, still, in Trim, "inward with all the tensions of our age" (R.S. Thomas). I belong to the post-Holocaust era and to the post-September world. We cannot ignore the demonic suffering and the innumerable human deaths which the followers of Jesus of Nazareth have inflicted over the centuries on their brothers and sisters of other religious traditions, especially Judaism and Islam.
Every Christmas message should include an apology and re-commitment to reconciliation. This year it was not made in an Editorial which purported to be giving the Christian viewpoint, and I feel diminished.
The message of the Incarnation has always sounded painfully in Jewish and Islamic ears (because they could not conceive of their God becoming human) and has reverberated with the drumbeat of a triumphalist and superior religion which considered itself unable to enter into inter-faith dialogue with them on a level platform.
I question this position, as is now clear; and believe that the Christian tradition is in fact on a level platform. Over the past 250 years human knowledge has progressed in every subject, including theology. I want to honour theological research into the significance of Jesus and affirm the diverse interpretations (both orthodox and alternative) that have resulted from this study. Like it or not, the orthodox interpretation of Jesus has been challenged. I am not the first to do so; many others have.
It may seem, to quote from your Editorial, that "the central stories of Christmas are best told in poetry and drama. To reduce them to debates about historicity, literalism and modernity is to lose their poetic truth and dramatic impact, and to deprive them of their relevance". However, I believe it is of incalculable importance that every follower of Jesus studies the claims made about him, becomes properly informed, and makes their own mind up for themselves.
At the very least, we owe it to all those who have suffered and died within Islam and Judaism to revisit the question of Jesus's significance for ourselves (see, e.g., The Shape of Living, by David Ford and Reason to Believe, by Maurice Wiles). I do not fully subscribe to this saying of Voltaire, but in this case it has its point: "To the living we owe respect, to the dead only truth."
I think in the future, whether the Christian tradition survives or not, we can find a way to put across a strong ethical and theological challenge to each generation without invoking, as per your Editorial, the story of the Incarnation. I share two things with the (to my mind) real Jesus: a belief in his God and a disbelief in the Incarnation of his God (he would not even have considered it a possibility as a member of the ancient community of Israel). - Yours, etc.,
Very Rev Andrew Furlong, Dean of Clonmacnoise, Trim, Co Meath.