h2g2 Socialist Advent: What Child Is This?
Created | Updated Dec 27, 2015
For over a thousand years, the peoples of Europe1 had only one religion: official Christianity. Their beliefs and practices, even their calendar, were decided by authorities who arranged the stories to benefit the ruling classes. But a few times a year, at Christmas and just before Lent, and maybe around May Day, the unwashed masses put in their oar.
Christmas carols tell us what they felt.
Guess what? They were more interested in the fact that the Creator of Heaven showed up in a barn, and didn't belong to the One Percent, than in all the fancy theology of St Thomas Aquinas.
This week's song contrasts the idea that most people have – that Important People are born in royal hospitals – with the notion that maybe, just maybe, that brat next door has a significant destiny.
Carollers of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your mall privileges.
Carol of the Week: What Child Is This?
