Comfort and joy

In the age of consumerism and the worship of technology, is there room for matters of the spirit?

In his Christmas message to the world, Pope Benedict XVI thinks there should always be room for God.

Atheists, agnostics and those who think secularism works just fine in the modern world will shrug off the message.

For Catholics around the world, it can be painful to watch the leader of their Church lamenting the decline in devotion to the faith.

That faith, born of bizarre stories about rising from the dead and God speaking from a burning bush, also gave us Christmas and the joyous rites of Easter.

That faith also promotes one constant theme: that good always triumphs over evil. This theme has defined Christianity through two millennia — over 2,000 years dated from the birth of Christ – so much so that "unchristian" is a word in the dictionary that denotes being selfish, unkind or downright vile.

It is a theme that Christians can be proud of and will never go out of style even as mankind, as the Pope lamented, worships technology and consumerism.

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No other faith has been as associated with doing good and actively helping the weak, the poor and downtrodden wherever they may be found.

Several icons of the Christian faith gave up lives of comfort to seek suffering and be of help. They conquered hearts and souls through non-violence and by turning the other cheek, neutralizing enemies with kindness. They were people on a mission, and the examples they set helped spread Christianity and make it what it is today.

Christianity had its darkest moments when it turned against its original mission and employed violence in the name of faith.

The Inquisition made those who implemented it no better than the pagans who fed early Christians to the lions in Rome.

Indifference to the persecution of Jews, which would culminate in the Holocaust during World War II, will always be a blot in the history of Christianity.

The Church also slips when it challenges science, as when it insisted that the Earth is flat and is the center of the universe. Didn’t Christ say that God’s kingdom is not of this Earth? The princes of the Church should always remember this.

Like all the other major faiths, Christianity also leaves much to be desired in the treatment of women. But at least the late Pope John Paul II apologized for it, and the Church continues to undergo soul-searching on the role of women in Christian life.

Christian values contributed to the development of the concept of universal human rights — a concept that is now being challenged in certain parts of the world as a Western imposition on different cultures.

Many Christians, drowning in political correctness, have become too timid to meet the challenge.

The lines between good and evil have been blurred. People are afraid to be called do-gooders or be accused of intolerance. "Missionary" is just a sexual position.

People who are vocal about believing in beings who walk on water or multiply fish and loaves of bread out of nothing are normally advised to see a shrink. You can understand why people like Bill Gates prefer to worship technology.

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And yet in many aspects of the modern, secular world, we celebrate the triumph of good over evil. We have turned the Harry Potter series and The Lord of the Rings trilogy into mammoth successes. We like stories and movies where the good guys win.

Though the Church frowned on the promotion of wizardry, surely there were Christian undertones in those two works of fiction.

And while Christmas celebrations in many parts of the world have become focused on the temporal and commercial aspects, the religious undertones will always be there. Peace, comfort and joy, goodwill, the importance of children – these are enduring themes that are worthy of spreading around the world.

These are themes that have made even countries where Christians are a minority celebrate Christmas.

If Christmas lights were to serve as gauge, multicultural Singapore and Hong Kong have already out-Christmased the Philippines. In communist-ruled China, Christmas decorations adorn storefronts and the season is seen as a time for gift giving.

You’ve seen the pictures and video footage and read the stories: Christmas is celebrated even in non-Christian countries. Santa Claus has endured as a symbol of happiness over wishes fulfilled.

Even if they doubt the existence of God and do not care to understand the concept of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, people in these countries like the feeling of joy and togetherness that Christmas fosters.

Because of the long-running conflict in the Middle East, Christians in that part of the world have a keener sense of the religious aspect of their Christmas celebration.

They take risks when they visit the Church of the Nativity, believed to be the birthplace of Christ, in Bethlehem in the West Bank.

That courage to take risks despite threats to life and limb helped to spread Christianity and make it strong.

The concepts of doing good and doing others no harm, of spreading joy and helping ease suffering will always be relevant.

If the Church can focus on these messages, it will endure despite unbridled consumerism and the worship of technology.