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Good Morning,

Today is Christmas Eve in those war-torn countries where believers follow the Orthodox tradition of the Christian Faith. For them the birth of Jesus touches a different nerve – not so much a cue for presents, but rather a consolation that God immerses himself in the cruelty of an unstable world.

And here in this country on the day that ends the tenure of Justin Welby as Archbishop of Canterbury some wonder about the future of the Church of England. None can deny the Christian Faith has shaped our past – our language, literature, laws, liberty and landscape but what of the future? Is it now a spent force?

The Church is not the only institution to fall out of favour. But as with other public bodies there’s a disconnect between the national profile and what people experience locally through credit unions, food banks and groups for the lonely, the young and the elderly. The churches and other faith groups offer an adhesive that sticks people together in communities.

But the Church isn’t just a social function. It believes there’s a dormant spiritual instinct to our make-up. It knows too that although many of us love material things we’re not ultimately satisfied by them. It’s like quenching thirst with salt water. From time to time the soul reaches beyond materialism for deeper fulfilment in the realm of the Spirit.

One of the most disconcerting aspects of the teaching of Jesus (especially for people like myself) is the disdain he showed for religious leaders whom he accused of obscuring the path to God.

At the end of his life he told his followers to go into all the world with a message of faith and forgiveness. He urged them to make disciples. But It’s not about dominating the earth.

The word disciple means ‘a learner’. It’s about ‘learning Christ’; about learning from his humility and from the manner of his coming.

Five years ago I visited Bethlehem and bent double to enter the Church of the Nativity through the main door that is barely four feet high. It’s called - ‘the Door of Humility’. It’s a symbol of how Christians believe that God himself stooped low to enter our world, and how bowing the knee in humility is for us the first reflex of an awakening spiritual instinct that feels as if it’s part of our DNA.

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