As we enter the week before Christmas, we may look around us and wonder whether the religious meaning of Christmas is relevant any more.
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Big business has all but ensured that many mothers will not be able to share Christmas Day with their children as they work to prepare retailers for Boxing Day sales. The Christmas holidays are being compromised by work demands. What was once a wonderful family time with gifts, a visit to church followed by a sumptuous family dinner is fast becoming just one more time when mum and dad have to work.
So my story today is about Russia, and the revival that Christianity is having in this former totalitarian country.
Not many people know that Russia president Vladimir Putin is a devout Christian. According to Wikipedia, his father was a “model Communist” and a “militant atheist,” but his mother was a devout Christian who had her son secretly baptised. Like so many children, that could well have been his last visit to church, because he was brought up in the secular Soviet Union and worked for the KGB in Germany where he studied West German free market philosophies.
Putin began questioning his atheism after his wife’s car accident in 1993, and a life-threatening house fire in 1996. He was about to depart for a diplomatic trip to Israel, when his mother gave him his baptismal cross. “I did as she said and then put the cross around my neck. I have never taken it off since,” he said.
The Lord does indeed move in mysterious ways. Putin has set about re-establishing the pre-Soviet combination of church and state. “First and foremost we should be governed by common sense. But common sense should be based on moral principles first. And it is not possible today to have morality separated from religious values.”
Moral principles. Common sense. Wouldn’t it be nice to have Australian politicians who were guided first and foremost by “moral principles” and “common sense”?
The UK Catholic Herald says that Russian documentaries extol Putin as the man who resuscitated Russian spirituality. The Patriarch of Moscow has described Putin’s leadership as a “miracle from God”. In his speeches Putin “presents himself as defender of Christian values abandoned by the degenerate West.”
Kremlin-funded propaganda mentions his hostility to homosexuals, which may explain some Americans’ fears for Trump’s reported friendship. American critics have tried to imply that Orthodox Christianity and Russian nationality are inseparable. But as the Catholic Herald article points out, “… there still existed those who thought Russia had lost its way, surrendering its Christian morality to nefarious Western concepts like individualism.”
When we look at the way Australia’s once-great Australian mateship has been replaced by individuals demanding “rights”, then maybe they have a point.
Putin has cast himself in the role of saviour of Middle Eastern Christians. The Catholic Herald story points out, while “Western politicians have finally acknowledged their plight … President Putin gives the impression that he is prepared to go further, and act viciously against the Islamists trying to wipe out ancient Christianity.”
While wary of Russia’s real motives on the world scene, I admire Vladimir Putin’s faith. He will attend the Orthodox Christmas service in the village of Otradnoye. I trust that you and your family will likewise find time this Christmas Day to celebrate the birth of Jesus. – Keith Wheeler