One of the things I love about our Anglican Church is the strong heritage of liturgy. Standing together to say a creed, or praying together in common prayer is both unifying and edifying.
When my congregation prays from authorised liturgy, I know that the words we speak together are theologically trustworthy. As we pray the words of our Prayer Book, we are subjected to the discipline of God-centred prayers, rather than the I-and-me-isms of much of our contemporary 'common' supplications.
When I use prayers or liturgy from another source, I carefully scrutinise the theology. I keep a careful watch on what the words say about God's sovereignty, and how it claims that God reveals himself. My heresy detector is on high alert when I introduce new prayers and creeds.
Yet, it's so simple to let our guard down when we introduce new songs to our church's repertoire. Just because a song has a great feel and a catchy tune often means that it gets a special place on our playlist. But this is dangerous.
Many of the lyrics of contemporary music are Trojan horses for bad theology. We let a nice song into our church without realising that it is teaching things about God that we wouldn't want to say from the pulpit or the prayer desk.
However, with all of this in mind, I wonder if we fail to subject Christmas carols to the same high standards? Is it possible that Christmas carols have inadvertently bypassed our theological firewall?
Take, for example, the beautiful carol, 'Away in a manger'. It's an old favourite for us all. It has a beautiful tune which kiddies and grannies adore. It vividly portrays the wonder of baby Jesus in his humble surroundings.
Yet, the Christ of 'Away in a Manger' sounds more like a stuffed doll than a human infant. Just because Jesus was divine didn't mean that he didn't cry like a baby. Have we unwillingly let a false picture of Jesus into our churches, one that fails to give accurate testimony to his true humanity?
It appears that I'm not alone in asking this question. In the article, 'Traditional carols are nonsense"”says bishop', Nick Baines says that "I can understand the little children being quite taken with the sort of baby of whom it can be said ‘no crying he makes', but how can any adult sing this without embarrassment?" He goes on to add that "If we sing nonsense, is it any surprise that children grow into adults and throw out the tearless baby Jesus with Father Christmas and other fantasy figures?"
Is this simply a politically-correct over-reaction, or should we be waking up from our nativity slumber to pull the plug on these inaccurate portrayals of the birth of our Lord?
