And so she makes her annual appearance on the nation’s Christmas cards and in a million crib sets. Mary, Mother of Heaven, the Blessed Virgin, demure, devoted, obedient. Invariably blue. It’s not just the churched who love her; the fiercely unchurched are more than willing to gather at the manger in December to pay their respects.
This should be a source of joy for those of us in the church business. And it is really. But allow me to play the Grinch for a moment to make a missing-the-point case – and, please, this is not the usual attack on the Black-Everyday shop-fest.
The point I want to make is a political one. Mary’s story is brutal and about as far as it is possible to be from a pretty Madonna in a cosy stable, with cute and clean farmyard animals (no dung). It is about oppression, displacement, refugees, genocide, anti-semitism, misogyny and abuse.
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