Today’s new “fundamentalism” is in danger of leading to expulsion, exclusivity, extremism and polarisation, says the Archbishop of Wales in his Christmas message.

 

Dr Barry Morgan warns any kind of fundamentalism, be it Biblical, atheistic or Islamic, is dangerous, because it allows no room for disagreement, doubt, debate or discussion. 

 

Virulent attacks on religion by atheists, he says, are undermining Christian society, leading to new rules such as Christmas being renamed as “Winterval” and Christians being forbidden to wear crosses at work. Meanwhile, religious fundamentalists use God as an excuse to justify violence, vilification and separation.

 

Rather, he says, the message of the nativity story is that God loves all humanity, in all its variety – from the shepherds, who would have been insignificant nomads in their day, to the Magi, foreigners or strangers in the land, people on the fringes of society.

 

Dr Morgan says, “God is not exclusive, he is on the side of the whole of humanity with all its variety. And that can be an uncomfortable truth to embrace.

 

“ When Jesus at the beginning of his public ministry goes to the synagogue at Nazareth and says that God has anointed him: ‘to preach good news to the poor, to proclaim freedom for prisoners, recovery of sight for the blind, release for the oppressed and to proclaim the Lord’s favour,’ his fellow countrymen drive him out; they cannot cope with such a God as this, a God who is all embracing especially those who are life’s victims. The God they want is a far more tribal figure, a God made in their own image, a God whom they can control and manipulate and manage.

 

 “But that is not the God portrayed in the nativity stories and therefore not the God of Jesus.”

 

 

The full text of the Archbishop’s Christmas message is below.

 

One of the great problems our world faces is the growth of fundamentalism. The Oxford Dictionary defines it as “a religious movement based on strict adherence to certain tenets held to be non negotiable”.   And the words non negotiable say it all – because fundamentalists believe so strongly in the truth of their convictions that they assume they are right and any contrary opinion is wrong. 

 

A new phenomenon has arisen in our country however, what can be called atheistic fundamentalism. It advocates that religion in general and Christianity in particular have no substance and assumes that most people will accept their premise that faith has no value and is superstitious nonsense. 

To have a coherent and rational debate about the tenets of the Christianity is perfectly natural. To have a virulent, almost irrational attack upon it claiming that what is being said is self evidently true is dangerous, not just because it refuses to allow any contrary viewpoint but also because it affects the public perception of religion. It leads, for example, to local authorities calling Christmas ‘Winterval’, to hospitals removing all Christian symbols from hospital chapels, or to schools refusing to put on nativity plays, or allowing children to send Christmas cards with a Christian message, or airlines refusing staff the freedom to wear a cross round their necks.

 

All of this is what I would call the new ‘fundamentalism’ of our age and any kind of fundamentalism, be it Biblical, atheistic or Islamic, is dangerous, because it allows no room for disagreement, for doubt, for debate, for discussion. It leads to the language of expulsion and exclusivity, of extremism and polarisation, and the claim that because God is on our side, He is not on yours.

 

Contrast all that with the message of the angel to the shepherds in the nativity story in St Luke’s Gospel, “I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all people”. It is a message of joy and good news for everyone – no one is excluded, everyone is embraced, from the shepherds, who would have been seen as nobodies by respectable Jewish society, to the magi - Gentiles, who would have been strangers in the land. 

The Gospel writers make the point that Jesus is the focus of all God’s promises and purposes from the beginning of creation. God is not exclusive, he is on the side of the whole of humanity with all its variety.

 

And that can be an uncomfortable truth to embrace. When Jesus at the beginning of his public ministry goes to the synagogue at Nazareth and says that God has anointed him:

“to preach good news to the poor, to proclaim freedom for prisoners, recovery of sight for the blind, release for the oppressed and to proclaim the Lord’s favour,” his fellow countrymen drive him out; they cannot cope with such a God as this, a God who is all embracing especially those who are life’s victims. The God they want is a far more tribal figure, a God made in their own image, a God whom they can control and manipulate and manage.