DramatisDei

It’s time to start writing Christmas cards and attaching this year’s Christmas stamps. If you live in the UK they are a rather nice series of pictures of stained-glass windows. But over the past few years Christmas stamps have become another target of the politics of Christian outrage. 

Back in 1966 when the first British Christmas postage stamps were issued at the instigation of the then Postmaster General, Tony Benn, it must have seemed like a jolly wheeze that would brighten up Christmas. No-one could have foreseen that forty years later Christians would turn the tradition into a religious battlefield. 

 The problem probably arose because for four consecutive years from 2001 to 2004 the stamps were solidly secular. A suspicion grew that Christian themes were being ignored to avoid offending those of other religions. It is hard to tell if this is true – I can’t find record of any official announcement to this effect and since there has always been a mixed bag of “religious” and “secular” themes in a fairly haphazard order it could just be that each year they chose the best designs presented to them. What is clear is that the right wing press and some Christians promoted this story and this resulted in an email protest movement that threatened to set the Royal Mail and the Christian establishment against each other. By 2005 no news report  on Christmas stamps was complete without a controversy angle.

 In 2007 the Royal Mail, apparently as a reaction to this, issued as usual a themed set of Christmas stamps (Angels, commemorating Charles Wesley and his most famous Carol “Hark The Herald Angels Sing) but also, as an experiment, a set of two “Madonna and Child” stamps as a clearly, undeniably Christian alternative (although if Charles Wesley and herald angels aren’t clearly Christian – well, I’m confused). These were initially greeted favourably so they have been re-released in the following two years. Unfortunately this led to other protest movements – including one complaining that the Royal Mail is trying to hide the Madonna and Child stamps under the counter and one complaining that the Royal Mail is trying to foist Christianity on a multi-cultural and largely secular world. Oh well, if you offend everyone you must be getting something right.          

Interestingly, those first Christmas stamps back in 1966 featured designs arrived at through a children’s competition. The winners (announced on the children’s TV programme “Blue Peter”) were ‘King Wenceslas’ by Tasveer Shemza (aged 6) and ‘Snowman’ by James Berry (aged 6). There was no recorded Christian protest. Since then the Christmas sets have been themed as shown in the table below.

 A few thoughts on all this:

• If we push for “Christian rights” we run the risk of backing ourselves into a Christian ghetto. Christ called us to transform the world, not to complain about it or protect our place in it.
• Anyone suggesting that Charles Wesley or Angels or children’s nativity plays are “marginally Christian” has lost a sense of church history.
• The Bible doesn’t support the idea that there is a line between religious and secular. All of life is God’s
• Anyone suggesting that this is high on the list of issues for Christians to campaign about has lost their sense of proportion.
• At a time when many large organisations have virtually banned the word Christmas, the Royal mail could be seen as positively evangelistic.
• A suggestion: rather than issuing the same “Christian alternative” each year (boring and anyway a farce when the main stamps are Christian) each year there could be the normal Christmas issue plus a re-issue of the previous year’s set. So long as the themes alternate (religious/secular) this should keep Christians and non-Christians happy each year.
• Historically, most of these stamps whether “religious” or “secular” are quite nice and brighten up Christmas. Lets enjoy them!

 Anyway, here are the themes year-by-year

(Table derived from looking at the collections at Collect GB Stamps)
Some themes were hard to discern and some were hard to classify as secular or Christian – Ely cathedral is hardly secular but pictures of its carvings hardly convey the meaning of Christmas either.