A Scottish minister has called on Christians to reject the “fanciful, fairy tale” of the nativity story.
Revd Andrew Frater, minister of Cairns Church Milngavie, also claimed that too many believers take the virgin birth literally.
A spokesman for the Free Church of Scotland likened Revd Frater’s offering of Christmas without the nativity story to food with “zero nutritional value”.
Fairy tale
Writing in The Herald newspaper, Revd Frater said: “This year I’m promising myself to be more theologically honest. No more going home with fanciful, fairy tale assumptions destined to make Good News seem incredible.”
The minister went on to say that Christians can stop regarding the biblical account as historical.
He added: “Too much serious stuff is going on in the world for folk in my position to even risk the possibility of sounding remote, irrelevant or both.”
It’s non-belief like this which has resulted in the only Christmas decorations outside hundreds of Scottish church buildings being ‘For Sale’ signs.
Revd David Meredith
Non-belief
Revd David Meredith, Mission Director of the Free Church of Scotland, accused Revd Frater of presenting “inert, gelatinous, non-offensive niceness”.
He said: “Rev Frater’s offering of a Christmas without angels, a virgin, a bright star, awe-struck shepherds, a jealous dictator and lowing cattle reminds me of my early attempt at soup, it looked OK but after 10 hours boiling it had zero nutritional value.”
“It’s non-belief like this which has resulted in the only Christmas decorations outside hundreds of Scottish church buildings being ‘For Sale’ signs.”