Does Christmas, hollowed out of its spiritual aspect, have any relevance anymore? Perhaps it is time to return to the more substantial native beliefs that were flattened by a Christianising colonisation. Writes Kalundi Serumaga.
The dominance of secular activities – shopping for gifts, feasting and drinking – over the religious roots of the Christmas season is a fitting symbol for the one religion that has done more than any to shape the world as it currently is: increasingly devoid of spiritual ballast.
Whole continents owe their countries, official languages, official symbols and even judicial systems to the energies of first the Roman Catholic Church, from the time of Pope Alexander VI, to the Christianity spread by the British, Spanish, French and Dutch empires.
One feature that is often remarked on by visitors from Africa and the Caribbean to the UK is the contrast between the full drinking pubs on a Saturday, and the empty, magnificent old churches on a Sunday. Europe, it would seem, is no longer a Christian continent. It simply holds a legacy of Christianity. It is an interesting fact about Christianity that it did not establish a single state in its name throughout the region in which it was founded. This is quite unlike Islam which, though coming much later, had a much more visible cultural and political impact on the region, to the point of creating a succession of Islamic states and kingdoms there. Read more