One of the biggest chuckles I had over Christmas was a result of an interview with Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Dr Williams, it should be remembered, is a well-qualified and well-credentialed academic in his own right. In the course of the interview, he made reference to the fact that Christmas Day, December 25, was not the actual birthday of Jesus Christ.

He went on to explain that this feast was a pre-existing celebration that was simply taken over by the Christians for ease of timing.

Like the Queen's birthday celebration for us, the actual event does not coincide with the day we celebrate.

He went on to observe that in his opinion, the understanding of the virgin birth was not a “core promise” of Christianity, but rather was a means to understanding a more profound reality in Christian understanding, the divinity of Jesus.

It didn't take long for a predictable response to arrive.

Some senior church leaders were quick to point out the heresy of Dr Williams, and that he was completely wrong and out of touch with authentic church teaching.

Normally when you hear this type of language, it simply means, “I don't agree with what you are saying, and therefore you are wrong!”

It fascinates me how quickly some Christians can leap into conflict, and so easily overlook the essential “core promise” of Christianity, that we “love one another”.

However, the definitive statement appeared in a letter to the editor of The Australian, also pointing out that Dr Williams was mistaken in relating Christmas Day to a pre-existing feast day, when everybody knows that Christmas Day is timed to the January sales.

The letter writer put it all in context by linking the religious celebration of Christmas with the secular reality of marketing and merchandising on a grand scale.

Christianity can never stand apart from all that the world and our life is.

Christianity was never meant to be the rigid imposition of external conformity, but rather the exciting dynamic of releasing the energy of life from within, that achieves its peak in the Christian “core promise” of “love one another”.

Once this principle is lost or compromised, Christianity itself is destroyed. Maybe we should try Christianity sometime!