Dundee, Scotland, is making plans to celebrate the rapidly-approaching Christmas event by removing all references to Christianity. Their “Winter Light Night” will feature street art performances, a children’s torchlight procession, and best of all, a solar-powered disco.
However, the move to de-Christianize the annual event has angered the city’s church officials, who claim that this event will remove and deny the season’s true reason for existence. “Christmas is a Christian festival, and the dropping of the term Christmas lights and the telling of the Christmas story is an erosion of the religious festival,” stated The Reverend Allan Webster, Dundee’s chaplain.
He also said, “I am not knocking the whole programme. It is important for all faiths to be able to celebrate their festivals and I must stress I would also be concerned if people of any other religion had theirs diluted.” The city council has not made any official statement regarding the change from last year’s event. I have to say, it does seem obvious that the city is purposefully removing the religious significance of the holiday in favor of a more secular event, probably in the hopes of creating something that will be inclusive of everyone, rather than exclusive of non-Christian faiths. But this is not the way to go about doing that. At the same time, I’d be willing to bet that thousands, if not millions of people around the world already pay lip service to actual Christianity during a celebration without even thinking of its true significance; this event is merely crystallizing that. I’m interested to see if Dundee escapes a good smiting before this is all over.
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