Be open to love regardless of faith

Coun. Ben Isitt is offended that someone left a poinsettia on his desk. Shame on the office decorators and holiday-season enthusiasts! Didn’t they get the memo about the offensiveness of such overtly Christian symbols? Haven’t they heard about the separation of church and state?

A poinsettia on your desk, a decorated tree in your local town square — these are important community symbols. Your reaction to them takes the measure of the kind of person you are. Will they be an occasion for thanks, an exchange of goodwill and friendship?

Or will they be an occasion for resentment, indignation and accusation?

The historical success of Christianity is evident everywhere, most obviously in the fact that the decorated Christmas tree — an innovation of the first consumer society, Victorian England — adorns commercial centres (which everybody visits) rather than churches (which very few visit). This secular symbol of communal festivity — itself a blend of Christian and pagan elements — could hardly be more inclusive.

Isitt therefore misses the point about the poinsettia on his desk twice over. In the first place, it is a sign of secularization, not of the intrusion of church into the state (for vivid examples of the latter, visit Iran or Saudi Arabia). Second, and more importantly, it is a symbol of love, openness to which requires no particular faith. Reacting with resentment unhappily misses the point.

Richard van Oort Victoria