A Church of England bishop has attacked "sentimental" Christmas card portrayals of the Nativity, saying that Jesus's family were asylum seekers and the three Wise Men were part of an assassination plot.
The Bishop of Lichfield, the Rt Rev Keith Sutton, said the shepherds were not the lovable characters depicted in Nativity plays but were on "the fringes of society" and that, for most people, Christmas was a chore.
He ridiculed the "superficial" and "false" images on cards and in songs of "a little helpless baby" whose mother travelled on a "cute donkey" to a stable "stuffed full of cuddly animals".
In fact, he said, Jesus was born to an unmarried mother from a religious family, "with all the cultural and social pressures you can imagine".
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sentimentality is wrong and so is stetching the truth into a lie. Jesus was convicted of nothing. Pilate said "I find no fault in this man." What William says about the wisemen is true too. Keith needs to read his Bible! This is dramatising the situation and the next thing Keith will be reading from Max Lucardo about the smells and noises in the stables. Let's forget about those things, like the idols called "nativity scenes" that draw our attention away from God and His word and into our own imaginations. Read the Bible, pray and meditate on it and God will speak with us daily. Too much is made of Christmass. The whole Bible testifies to Christ (John 5: 39)
This "bishop" should read his bible a little more slowly and carefully, I would recommend maybe starting with Matthew chapter two verses 7-12
those devout and God fearing men were being used by Herod, and were warned by God of the fact, and did not go back to Herod with the childs location...I agree about us "romanticizing" much of the story, but let's not get all romish and add to the Word...
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