Three Wise Men blowing vuvuzelas. Why does CofE take the knee to football?

THE Church of England is suggesting vicars hold Nativity plays in which the Three Wise Men wear football shirts and scarves, blow vuvuzelas and swagger off stage to the tune of Three Lions. Instead of myrrh and frankincense, they present the baby Jesus with deodorant and muscle rub. The shepherds are playing football instead of abiding in the fields, and the angels tell them that the approaching Saviour is ‘greater than Ronaldo’.

The angels, I regret to tell you, also sing ‘He’s coming soon!’ to the tune (you’ve guessed) of ‘football’s coming home’. There’s even a football in the manger.

You could accuse me of a sense of humour failure if any of this was remotely funny. But it is only pathetic, the actions of a body which has been defeated, struggling to stay popular by toadying to its enemy.

I have often jeered here that the weird football obsession is in fact a pagan religion, with its violent, spiteful and deceitful rites, from the dirty tackle to the pretence of pain, performed in vast temples, with TV beaming it to billions.

In time, it is bound to edge out the less entertaining faiths which have until now guided much of human behaviour. But I think this drivel from the CofE is proof.

The leadership of that Church, always the first to surrender to the spirit of the age, has even advised vicars to avoid having carol services on the Sunday before Christmas in case they clash with some football tournament now raging in the Middle East.

A document called Making The Most Of The World Cup Final 18th December 2022, says: ‘Churches often hold carol services in the afternoon or evening, and this could still be possible if you choose the time carefully… but what if there are penalties?! It may be best to avoid that day altogether and host a carol service on Saturday 17 instead.’

And the grotesque Nativity play, called Greatest Of All Time, is one of ‘just a few ideas for how you could use the World Cup as a missional tool this Advent and Christmas’. I am not making this up.

Actually, the Bishop of Derby, Libby Lane, has quite rightly said: ‘I personally do not think that the World Cup should ever have been awarded to Qatar.’ And the Church has rather slowly come round to noticing that Christianity gets a pretty raw deal in that Islamic state.

I tend to think that the best response to that is to go ahead with Advent and Christmas with confidence.

I think there must be quite a few people who see in this World Cup that football’s supposed glamour, and its modern attempts to take the knee and wear campaigning armbands, are as empty as a spent firework and as tawdry as discarded tinsel.

It’s really about nothing more than money, a greedy industry without any real principles, whose supposed heroes are all too human when they are tested.

A lot of us would be glad if the Church was prepared to risk a bit, to make the point that there is a higher authority in the world than FIFA and a lasting glory that remains after the TV lights have been switched off and the millionaire commentators have flown home.