Stained-glass windows at St. James Cathedral in Toronto on Dec. 16.Melissa Tait/The Globe and Mail
Michael Coren is an Anglican priest, journalist and author whose next book, Diary of a Lowborn Cleric, will be published in January.
Engelmar Unzeitig was ordained to the Roman Catholic priesthood in Germany in 1939, a month before the outbreak of the Second World War. Unlike many of his fellow Christians, he refused to remain silent about the obscenities he saw around him, and was soon arrested by the Gestapo. Imprisoned in a concentration camp, he became known as the “Angel of Dachau,” working tirelessly for other prisoners and volunteering to help those with typhoid. Eventually, inevitably, he died of it himself.
“God’s almighty grace helps us overcome obstacles,” he said. “Love doubles our strength, makes us inventive, makes us feel content and inwardly free. If people would only realize what God has in store for those who love Him!”
Some would protest that this is hardly a quintessentially Christmas story. I’d disagree, because while the season is a time of joy, family, giving and receiving, its fundamental meaning is much deeper, and in a way paradoxically darker, than that. Jesus Christ – God incarnate – was born to die. To transform the world by initiating a permanent revolution of love, offering us salvation with a new, pristine covenant, turning complacent assumptions upside-down, yes – but ultimately, to die.
The sacrifice is central. Without it, the Christmas story is incomplete – it would make no sense. The wise men’s gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh: The first represented his kingship, the second his divinity, the last, used to anoint and embalm, his death. (I doubt there’s a line of Christmas cards that emphasizes that one!)
It’s not morbid but vital to emphasize this at a time when the Christian faith is in danger of appearing irrelevant, or the plaything of various political extremists. Irrelevant? Because outside of the church bubble we Christians are often seen as odd but harmless eccentrics. A tool of extremism? So-called Christian nationalism, an acidic oxymoron, is growing not only in the U.S. but in Canada and Britain. Ostensibly Christian commentators with audiences of millions spew antisemitism and hatred, perverting the creed preached by a first-century Jewish man born to a poor family in an occupied land to somehow justify closed borders and closed minds.
Not that the Christian left is free of blame, many of whom subscribe to a faith summed up by: “I protest therefore I am.” Christianity is more complex than that, and I’ve seen inspiring, selfless devotion to the poor from people who vote for all sorts of parties. C.S. Lewis’s famous book Mere Christianity took its title from 17th-century church leader Richard Baxter, who wanted to emphasize what united rather than divided Christians. Lewis had a similar idea, but was also responding to those who insisted on qualifying the faith politically.
No: what will save Christianity is Christianity. A belief that we have to be constantly aware of those who suffer, must be humble and gentle, desire justice, show mercy, forgive and embrace, do all we can to bring about peace, resist sin, love God with all our heart, mind, and strength, and love others as ourselves. As Victor Hugo wrote in Les Misérables: “To love another person is to see the face of God.” Hugo, of course, had an ambiguous, often critical relationship with organized Christianity, and good for him.
The baby born to die, and the baby born to be king. No reindeers and snow, no Santa and elves. Perhaps there wasn’t a stable, and the specific date is unreliable. But it doesn’t matter one bit. What matters is the belief that it happened, and while there’s plenty of evidence for it, in the end it has to be personal and has to be a leap of faith.
In early November, I stood by a grave in rural England with my arm around an old friend who was mourning his wife. “Why,” he asked me, as angry as he was distraught, “do bad things happen to good people?” In such situations we should listen rather than speak, try to be there rather than be clever. I said that I didn’t know. Long pause, long hug. But I do know, I eventually continued, that next month I’ll celebrate the birthday of God who took the form of a vulnerable and innocent baby, in part so as to suffer not only for us but with us, so that in our suffering we are never alone.
Christianity may not interest you. It may be challenging and provocative; it may even revolt and outrage. But if lived and understood properly, it changes everything. The Messiah is born, and he resets the entire world. That is the Christmas story.