Excerpt:
Supermarkets were accused of ‘airbrushing Christ out of Christmas’ yesterday after it emerged that less than one per cent of cards they stock have religious themes.
Many stores display hundreds of different Christmas cards yet offer just a handful featuring traditional Christian scenes.
Some had no cards at all with religious references in their extensive ranges.
The Daily Mail visited major outlets of the big four supermarkets – Asda, Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Morrisons – in seven towns and cities.
Out of 5,363 cards sold individually or in multipacks, just 45 featured Christian scenes such as the Nativity – 0.8 per cent.
The worst offender was Morrisons, which had six out of a range of 973 cards, or 0.6 per cent.
Second worst was Tesco, despite chief executive Sir Terry Leahy, a practising Catholic, writing to a customer in October to tell her: ‘We have increased the number of Christmas cards that will be available with a religious theme this year.’
[…]The Mail was contacted by a Tesco customer earlier this week who said her local store in Ely, Cambridgeshire, had just a ‘handful’ of cards with religious themes last year – and still had only three out of 67 last month, despite a personal assurance from Sir Terry.
After she had repeatedly contacted customer services, she received a letter from the company chief.
‘Sir Terry promised more cards this year,’ she said.
‘But the selection of cards with anything relating to the true meaning of Christmas was tiny, so he has not kept his word.’
Tesco said it had doubled the range of religiously themed cards this year but refused to give numbers, saying they ‘vary from store to store’.
An Asda spokesman said: ‘We sell five different Christmas cards that have religious sentiment and traditional designs.’
Morrisons said: ‘We stock types of cards that appeal to our customers.’
A Sainsbury’s spokesman said: ‘The ranges that appear in our stores reflect what our customers want to buy.’
In case anyone is trying to remember, this is the meaning of Christmas:
This makes me sad. I feel sad for Christians who are being marginalized. We are the only ones who can be mistreated and marginalized with impunity. Christianity is the religion of loving your enemies and turning the other cheek, after all. I think I know why people are doing this – because they are more interested in being liked by non-Christians than being liked by Jesus for telling the truth about him. They think that Christianity is about being nice to others first, instead of being nice to Jesus first. Well, I for one do not care what people think about my faith. I can do just fine without any earthly friends. I hope it doesn’t come to that, thought!
I am OK with not being happy and popular. I don’t mind if honor the real message of Christmas doesn’t make me happy and popular.
WINTERY KNIGHT 