In Britain, a Backlash over Taking the 'Christ' out of Christmas

LONDON — 'Tis the season for many Christians in Britain to lament the decline of Christmas.

Each year in Britain, as in the United States, there are incidents of employers banning Christmas decorations from offices, elementary schools no longer putting on nativity plays and Christian images disappearing from Christmas cards.

But the atmosphere of political correctness has gone so far that it's provoked a backlash.

Trevor Phillips, chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, Britain's equality watchdog, pleaded with Britons to put Christ at the center of Christmas festivities.

During a speech at a diversity conference this week he said that it was time to stop "being daft" about Christmas.

"It's fine to celebrate and it's fine for Christ to be the star of the show," he said.

The speech comes on the heels of last week's first-ever debate in parliament on what some members have dubbed "Christianophobia."

Mark Pritchard, a Conservative in the House of Commons, initiated the 90-minute debate, accusing government officials of fostering prejudice by overemphasizing the sensitivities of Muslims and people of other faiths.

"Today many people from the Christian tradition feel that any religious allegiance is permissible as long as it is not the Christian tradition," he said.

Although the debate produced no legislation, it sparked an outcry from secular critics.

Terry Sanderson, a spokesperson for the National Secular Society in London, said, "There is no discrimination against Christians. In reality, Christians are still very much in control."

The debate follows years of controversies that include a flap over a British Airways employee who was prohibited from visibly wearing a cross necklace while at work.

A recent survey in London's Sunday Telegraph newspaper revealed that only 1 in 5 schools are staging a traditional nativity play this year, supposedly due to fear of offending people of other faiths. Instead, an increasing number of schools say they will be either staging a nonreligious play such as Scrooge or Snow White or giving no performance at all.

Still, there are signs that headway has been made by those arguing that political correctness has run amok.

"Christmas in the UK has been under threat but thankfully, in some areas, common sense is finally prevailing," said Laura Midgley, co-founder of Campaign Against Political Correctness. The group was founded in 2004 to fight rampant political correctness in Britain. Some 15,000 people have signed up to join it or have made a donation.

"Much of this has happened because people who believe in traditions are fighting back and also because many different religions have stood up and said that it's all ridiculous as they are not offended by the celebration of Christmas," Midgley said.

When city officials in Birmingham, England, decided to celebrate "Winterval" rather than Christmas several years ago, a public outcry ensued and the plan was eventually scrapped.

The same outcry occurred in 2005 – mostly from the tabloid media — when the Lambeth Council in South London started calling the borough's Christmas lights "winter lights."

"The public celebration of a religious festival, even though it is not my own, is to be embraced," said Zaki Cooper, a Jewish consultant to the Inter-Faith Program in Cambridge, England. "In fact, many Jews and Muslims regard as a shame the declining religious content of Christmas and its evolution into a more secular celebration."

Recently, a report from the Institute for Public Policy Research, an advisory group for the Labor party, drew criticism by arguing that non-Christian religious festivals should be celebrated on par with Christmas.

"We can no longer define ourselves as a Christian nation, nor an especially religious one," the report said.

Clare Short, a Labor member of parliament, told the Sunday Mercury newspaper that the political correctness debate is "a storm in a teacup."

"The idea that British culture is under threat because Christian festivals are not celebrated is a farce," she said. "Often it is Christian people who can't be bothered to follow their religion."

The Church of England, which split with the Roman Catholic church in 1534 during the reign of King Henry VIII, has been an integral part of Britain's culture and history.

Whereas church and state stand apart in the United States, the state has traditionally supported and funded churches in Europe.

Britons say tensions have arisen between people of different faiths when what appears to be special treatment is given to minority groups.

Last week, newspapers reported that nurses in at least some hospitals in Britain have been told to move Muslim patients' beds five times a day so that they face Mecca while praying.

"This is the kind of thing that is creating anger among non-Muslims and causing them to react," said Douglas Murray, director of the Center for Social Cohesion, a London think tank. "There is a feeling among non-Muslims that they are the only ones who don't receive special rights."

Asaf Hussain, a Muslim from Pakistan who teaches at the University of Leicester, said that widespread political correctness has unnecessarily divided Britain.

He said a policy of multiculturalism should be replaced by one aimed at integration.

"Multiculturalism has created problems because people wind up relating more to their home country instead of to Britain," said the founder of the Society for Intercultural Understanding.

For example, rather than identifying themselves as a British Pakistani, people here will identify themselves as a British Muslim.

"In America, you ask people who they are and they say American Italian or American Pakistani and not American Hindu or American Christian," he said. "This is what we're trying to do here."

Hussain said that Britain should try to spread understanding of different religious traditions rather than produce some kind of lowest common denominator.

"Christmas should be celebrated and the different groups should come together to learn about each other's traditions," he said. "This is what we're working towards."