Christmas 2014 is past; this is being written on December
27. But before we move out of the Christmas mode/mood, I want to return once
more for some unfinished business to that Todd article featured in Post 28. It’s an article well researched and argued and
replete with nuggets I want to share with you now, so you can remember it
for December, 2015.
Todd refers to all kinds of disagreements and perspectives
on Christmas and its public manifestations and then offers to help us “sort
through the Christmas confusion.” Well,
that’s a noble enough intent!
On the one hand we have research from SFU’s school of
business indicating that employees talking freely about religion in the
workplace tend to be more satisfied than those who don’t, with the reverse
being equally true. This research, in other words, suggests that people,
Christians and others, will be happier with Christmas trees in the workplace,
for it opens the way to religious discussion.
Strangely, the above report appeared in a news release from
SFU that also stated the seemingly opposite. If your employers put up a tree,
they “could be sending the implicit message that they value Christian belief…
over other religions.” This could lead
to non-Christians hiding their convictions, which can then lead to stress and
reduced loyalty. An earlier SFU study alleged that a workplace Christmas tree
makes people feel excluded. This latter report, according to the Todd article,
“reflected the way…social scientists often view anything vaguely linked to
Christianity…as colonialism.”
The bottom line of the report is the proposal that
employers avoid acting as if Christmas is the only religious holiday to be
observed by also clearly marking the special days of other traditions. This,
writes Todd, “sounds more like something I could embrace” and to which I, the
current writer, would add an affirmative “Amen!”
Since my return to Canada after an absence of 39 years,
I noticed something peculiar that Todd now brings into the open. “While
aboriginal spirituality…is often exhibited in…educational and public settings,
some Canadians believe anything vaguely Christian… must be erased from the
public square.” I understand Todd to be one of these Canadians. “It is no wonder,” he
suggests, that “many religious people…see the process of secularization and
multiculturalism as mainly one of ‘loss’ and ‘subtraction’.”
Same with respect to other non-Christian religions. Derryl
MacLean, an SFU specialist in Islamic studies, told Todd that “people on the campus
‘bend over backwards’ to show respect to Muslims who wear hijabs and Sikhs who
wear turbans. However, “Evangelicals would be ‘looked at askance’ for
expressing their religious views.”
We have reached a situation where “openness is rare.
Indeed, many Canadians, particularly Christians at universities, are frightened
to express their religious beliefs. A former UBC president told Todd “that
staff and students made it clear…that they feel the campus is ‘ruthlessly
secular’.” Many people feel that “talking
about religion ‘would not be well received’.”
Todd then suggest that we ought to “truly recognize that this
is a pluralistic country with many faiths and secular world views.” “This means encouraging the expression of
virtually all worldviews, religious and secular, in the public square. (And also being open to
criticism of them.)” He notes that many
Muslims, Sikhs, Secularists and even Atheists “merrily put up Christmas
trees.” Research has discovered that by
a margin of ten-to-one BC residents prefer “Merry Christmas” to “Happy
holidays.”
So, pluralist Canada, let’s go for it. Christ 2015 is just around the corner! Feel free….
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