There are a litany of big, worldwide issues competing for our attention. There are droughts and wars, political turmoil – both domestically and internationally, exploitative systems that negatively affect workers, animals, and the environment.
So here I find myself at Christmas 2019 and in a bit of pickle.
I don’t want my choices at Christmas to mean I keep people in modern-day slavery.
I don’t want my choices at Christmas to mean I’m sending the environment on a crash course with disaster.
But I also choose to not disappoint my nieces and nephews.
I fell out of love with Christmas when I saw how my choices were not truly aligned with the meaning of Christmas. If Christmas is about Jesus, then what does Jesus want Christmas to look like?
Flanders challenges the notion that the Christmas customs of the past were primarily religious. She does not deny their spiritual significance for the believer, but she does contest the idea “that Christmas was once religious, and only in our debased, commercial age has been reduced to its current shabby, market-driven modern form.” In other words, she disputes the presumption that the holiday was in the beginning primarily or even exclusively observed by devout Christians and that only in the last 200 years has its “real” significance been displaced by the forces of secularism and consumerism….
Shopping is also an opportunity to exercise God’s call to steward the Earth and to love my neighbour. Scientists tell us that the sheer scale of consumption has set us on a path of unsustainable use of the Earth’s resources. Species are disappearing at a frightening rate, the oceans are acidifying, the climate is changing and dead zones are appearing in our rivers and seas. Every time I enter a shopping mall I hear the seductive voice of consumerism promising me that I can have everything I desire; but concealing the terrible consequences of that promise….