Why Christians Celebrate Christmas (especially in a pandemic)
This Christmas will feel very different, with masks, social distancing and household bubbles (if you have one) but at its heart, nothing has changed. The angels, stars, mangers and even the YouTube carol services are all traces of the same story that has shaped our civilisation for two thousand years. It’s a story that has inspired some of the most magnificent buildings the human race has ever produced, and framed the lives of countless people across the planet, marking their vital moments of birth, marriage and death, guiding them through disasters and delights, politics and pandemics. Today, Christianity is the world’s largest faith, with 2.3bn people, almost 30 per cent of the world’s population. So, despite the much-talked about decline of the church in the west, what is it about this particular birth, this person, that still haunts us so much? No other books from the ancient world are read every week in every country across the world, studied as avidly, or quoted from so fre...