Despite an awful year, keep faith

One has to admit from the start that this year has not been a good one for religion's image. The attack on the World Trade Center was the most prominent horror to demonstrate the destructive power of religious fanaticism, but it was by no means the only one. Outside a school in north Belfast some Christians seemed to show, in Swift's words, that they have just enough religion to make them hate, but not enough to make them love one another. The Holy Land was stained with the blood of Jews blown up by Palestinian suicide bombers and Palestinians killed by Israeli forces.

It is, indeed, not difficult to draw up a long charge sheet against religion, and we should acknowledge this first. To speak only of the tradition from which I come, it is certainly true that many Christians behave in a strikingly unchristian way, and that our capacity for envy, hatred, malice and all uncharitableness is unlikely to attract recruits to our faith. We may argue that Christianity is a religion designed for sinners, so Christians are by definition bad. But in the world's eyes, it often seems that Christianity is a religion for hypocrites.

We may argue, too, that without our faith we would be even worse. But, if anything, the reverse view is gaining ground. Religion is coming to be seen as part of the problem, not part of the solution.

FAITH schools are regarded with suspicion, as a divisive force. Many people automat i c a l ly associate the word " religion" with bigotry, fundamentalism and mindless zeal, not to mention burqas, stonings and other affronts to modernity. But there are good answers to these charges. To take the events of 11 September and those in Northern Ireland and Israel first. If you examine these conflicts carefully enough, you will - in my view - find each to be in essence political. People's allegiances may be determined by their religion, but their craving for power and for mastery of particular pieces of territory cannot properly be called religious, while the brutal methods which they use in pursuit of their aims are often explicitly condemned by the very faiths which they claim to defend.

The answer to bogus or perverted religion surely is not no religion but true religion. Without the life of the spirit, not only Christmas but life itself becomes intolerably vacuous.

As proof, one need look only at the debasement of the Christmas festival now it is being increasingly deprived of its religious content. The resulting pap is so unsatisfying that many people simply dread the coming days. Without religion, we find ourselves left with a series of wearisome meals taken in overheated rooms, these banquets the culmination of months of mounting mental and physical strain for whoever takes responsibility for "doing" Christmas.

Excessive eating and drinking is interspersed with bouts of excessive present-giving, with hour after hour of ghastly rubbish droning away in the background on the television. Almost the only people-who show an unquestioning excitement about Christmas are small children. For them it is still an intensely exciting event, while for the rest of us, from the age of perhaps 11, it is not as wonderful as it used to be, unless, perhaps, you are lucky enough to see at first hand the wonder felt by a new generation of children.

Even the conventional view that Christmas should be a family festival is tarnished. A friend of mine once remarked that there are members of his family he would not allow through the front door if he did not happen to be related to them.

Another friend, who had enjoyed some distinction as a diplomat, never found any negotiation half as hard as the talks which started round about August concerning where his mother was to spend Christmas.

All this falls so short of what we really need. And yet the answer is still there - in the Christmas story, handed down to us in the Bible.

This is an example of true religion. It gives no sanction to vengeance or lust for power. It is the beginning of a story of redemption through weakness-God enters the world as a baby. This is an astonishing way to come, but also a very natural one. Everyone arrives as a baby, yet there is nothing more miraculous than a newborn child.

JESUS is completely vulnerable. Mary and Joseph have been unable even to find a hotel room. They are away from home, attempting to comply with an oppressive demand from the tax man, and Mary has to give birth in a stable. Nowadays this is often presented as a rather twee idea, but in practice one can guess it was dirty, inconvenient and dangerous - King Herod was seeking the baby in order to kill it.

A Christmas that is presented only as a twee story, or one that is deprived entirely of its religious significance, is, of course, deeply unsatisfying. But the answer is to go back to the story's real meaning. If the coming days have any point, it is to celebrate a birth.

As the angel told the shepherds, "I bring you news of great joy ... in the town of David a saviour has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord."