'Pray now, buy later', Church urges
Updated on 24 November 2008
The Church of England has urged Christmas shoppers to "pray now, buy later" as it launched a campaign aimed at reviving the Christian traditions of the Advent season.
The Advent period running up to Christmas, traditionally a time of reflection and contemplation, has been "squeezed" by consumer pressures and frenetic activity, the Church said at the launch of a new website.
And in a pre-recorded videocast message for the website, the Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams said "calendar" was the only association for most people in relation to Advent.
"Advent is a time when you have calendars, and the Advent calendar is a countdown to Christmas, and it means daily sweets and chocolates," he said. "It's a slightly thin and rather inadequate account of what has been for a long time one of the most important and significant times in the Church's year - a time of waiting, we sometimes say."
He added that it was a "pity" that carols were overused in a commercial context in the weeks before Christmas.
"It's been said so often, it hardly needs saying again, but it is rather a pity that for a few weeks before Christmas we are saturated with Christmas carols," he said. "We don't have quite the sort of quiet we need to think, 'Well what would it be if Jesus really came as if for the first time into my life?"
A spokeswoman for the Archbishop said Dr Williams' remarks were aimed at the overuse of carols in commercial context such as shopping centres in the run-up to Christmas. "He does not mean that there should not be carol concerts held in Advent," she said.
The Archbishop's message was given at the launch of www.whywearewaiting.com, in advance of the Advent season which begins on Sunday. The website features an online calendar, podcasts, reflections and "waiting tips" on the Advent season described as a "daily dose of chocolate" for the soul.
The Roman Catholic Abbot of Worth Abbey, in West Sussex, Fr Christopher Jamison, said the message of the campaign was "pray now, buy later" and not about telling people to stop shopping.
He said: "It is pray now buy later. I really do believe that it is a real opportunity for people to just start thinking that maybe 'slower and less' can be better than 'quick and more'. One of the tragedies about the way Christmas is celebrated now is that Advent has disappeared. Advent with Christmas is fantastic but Christmas without Advent is dreadful."
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