Merry Christmas from AllSides!

I stood at the back of the Cathedral at 1:30 on Christmas morning, shaking hands with the midnight worshippers on their way home. I had been preaching about God coming into our lives at Christmastime, especially in the form of the weak, the vulnerable and the homeless.

Most of the congregation were happy, but one man had something to get off his chest. “You should stick to the script!” he said to me. “Christmas has nothing to do with asylum-seekers!” And off he marched before I could splutter out the...

Christmas is (finally) upon us. After months of red-and-green evergreen decorations in every store, and an increasingly unbroken stream of Santa-centric pop songs in every public place, the annual American onslaught reaches its peak this week.

Every year, those of us who don’t celebrate Christmas find ourselves having the same debates over and over again, starting well before Thanksgiving and continuing into the New Year. Well-meaning friends, neighbors, and colleagues insist to us that we should not be bothered by the giant Christmas trees in every building lobby, or the...