Editorial: Still a season of goodwill for all of us

On this day 100 years ago this column in the Herald was, unsurprisingly, devoted to celebration of the Christmas spirit. To be more precise, it celebrated the keeping of the "English Christmas" that "no hasty word or unkindly deed or selfish thought must stain". It was an editorial for its time: the country was still three years away from being constituted a dominion and the colonial view of England as "home" was pervasive. So, too, was the civilising view of the church. That the world was growing better, the column stated, resulted from the "gradual conquest of men's hearts and minds by the Christianity to which we surrender ourselves".
How much has changed. No longer do we look to an English Christmas. We have our own curious blend of sand and snow, turkey and salad. The traditions brought here by the colonists are now mere dressing, the quaint and disconnected decorations that have no real significance beyond the sensory pleasures they impart. No longer does religion play the central role that it did a century ago. For many, Christmas has become a secular occasion that owes much to presents, food and drink and little to the birth of Christ. And few will think of England beyond offspring and siblings on their OE or relatives left behind. Home is here.

Perhaps the greatest change, however, is in the size of that part of the population for whom Christmas has no personal significance; those for whom another religion and different traditions determine the festivals they observe. The last census identified 200 ethnic groups, 45 of them with populations of 2000 or more. The largest are from Asia, and from cultures where Christianity has had, at best, a tenuous foothold.

The increasing percentage of our population represented by these ethnic groups means it is reasonable to question whether Christmas should any longer be accorded the universal observation New Zealanders have assumed for so many years. Is Christmas a form of religious and cultural imperialism that imposes on all people in our society the assumption that Christianity is the true religion?

In 1779, the year in which Captain James Cook died, a German dramatist and philosopher, Gotthod Ephraim Lessing, penned a play entitled Nathan the Wise. In it Nathan, a Jew, answers a question from the Islamic Sultan, Saladin: what is the true religion? Nathan quoted a wise judge who, faced with a similar question, said: "After a thousand, thousand years, here then will sit a judge more wise than I, who will pronounce." Saladin acknowledged that the judge's thousand, thousand years had not fled and the question remained unresolved. He and Nathan parted as friends. The Muslim warrior died in 1193 and we are little closer to the end of that million years and the answer to the question.

Lessing was calling for toleration between religions because no one set of beliefs could be seen to be superior to another. Christmas does not, however, represent an attempt to impose one set of beliefs on others. It is not a manifestation of religious imperialism any more than an Easter egg is a tool of religious conversion. Christmas is the imparting of a message with a universal meaning, so much so that it can gain ready acceptance in any heart or home. That message is: Goodwill to all people.

The act of giving, irrespective of whether it is surrender to commercial pressures, is an expression of that goodwill. So is the sharing of a Christmas meal and Christmas cheer. Inasmuch as it presents that universal message, it can be shared by all. A willingness by Christians to share this special day, and a willingness of non-Christians to recognise Christmas as a significant time in our society, are expressions of tolerance that is sorely needed in a world in which the misuse of religion for political ends is giving rise to dangerous intolerance. Christmas is, then, an expression of harmony as well as a day of profound significance for one of the world's great religions.

There can be no better way to mark Christmas Eve than to recall the wish with which this column ended on December 24, 1904: "Peace on earth; goodwill among men."