Over on the other side of the world, in my own country, England, there are some gentlemen’s clubs which have a rule that at the dining table no-one can talk about three things — business, politics and religion. What do they find to talk about you might wonder. In my experience, the rule only leaves one topic – personal gossip and the latest scandal.

Today I’m going to break that rule and talk about religion. I come from a not very religious country, but in the corner of it, Northern Ireland, they were fighting religious wars only a few years ago. There’s a story about the foreigner who arrived in Northern Ireland during the conflict. The taxi driver from the airport asked the crucial question which was put to all visitors: “Are you a Protestant or a Catholic?” The visitor replied “Neither, actually I’m an atheist”. The taxi driver said “No, you foreigners don’t understand. You have to choose your side. Are you a Protestant atheist or a Catholic atheist?”

I remember my first trip to Peru. It was interesting to see the churches of the Spanish conquerors built right on top of the sacred places of the natives. You could still see the massive cyclopean stones of the ancient builders under the even blocks of the Spanish church. It clearly helped conversion to Christianity to take over some aspects of the local religion. In Europe most of the Christian festivals were held at the same time as the major pagan festivals – especially the mid-winter festival which became Christmas. One of my heroes, Oliver Cromwell, when he ruled England four hundred years ago, decided that the pagan festivals had to be stopped and he more or less banned the celebration of Christmas together with dancing on Sundays. These bans were very unpopular, not because of religious beliefs, but because he was trying to ban drinking and parties.

What goes around comes around, and I would suggest that in England, Christmas has more or less gone back to being a pagan celebration. Of course the drinking and the parties are back in a big way. But the religious element has disappeared. In my youth every school used to have a nativity play, but this has been more or less banned from public schools because it might upset the non-Christians. In a recent survey ninety five percent of children were aware of Father Christmas, but only thirty percent were aware of Jesus Christ.

Have a very Merry Christmas.

Isn’t it an odd world that we live in?