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In a Sunday Telegraph survey of 100 schools, only one in five is opting to stage some kind of nativity play. One in three will stage a religion-free Christmas play or have no event at all. Why? 'To avoid upsetting pupils (and parents?) of other faiths.' The Telegraph article seemed quite balanced to me - you can read it here.
It's the readers comments about it I found fascinating:
• In 78 added comments, only three mention 'Christ' (and one of those is as a swear word!) and none mention 'Jesus'
• Most people assume that scrapping school nativity plays is an attack - but not on Christian belief. They see it as an attack on our national identity.
• Many of the writers assume that it is people of other faiths who are pushing to get nativity plays banned - and sadly some go on to say that these 'immigrants' should go back to their own countries and stop interfering in ours.
• The assumption made by nearly all is that the nativity play is all about tradition.
Where does this leave us, as we aim to teach the Bible's fantastic message about Jesus this Christmas? Since most people believe that we should continue to have nativity plays, let's grab that opportunity in any way we can - and then use it to help them see that the Christmas story isn't about tradition, it's about Jesus Christ, our wonderful, loving, rescuing King.
3 comments:
Hello Alison,
Thank you for your recent article in the Briefings. I gave the "Rightly Handling the Word of Truth: How to Teach the Bible to Children" to our children's Sunday School teachers and we will be discussing it tonight. I hope to continue use this as an equipping tool in the future. Would it be possible to get the article as a PDF? Some form of an electronic file? That would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you for your ministry. I will be checking your blog often.
Hi Joshua,
Great to hear from you. The article in The Briefing was their edited version of an article I wrote while on sabbattical earlier this year. Because of the edits that version is now their copyright - but I'm free to send you my original version. It's actually on my blog - see July 26th - as a series of Jpegs (slightly fuzzy, but the only way I could find to add it!). Alternatively, if you can let me know an email address, I will happily email you a more useable version.
I'm delighted that you've found it helpful.
Alison
That would wonderful if you could email me a copy of your article! You can email it to joshuaotte@netzero.net.
Your ministry is having a wonderful impact in New England!
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