Chestnut Roasting

Two pieces of paper caught my eye today, bundled as they were in periodicals. The first was a parish magazine in which it was observed among other things that two years ago the UK Post Office’s Christmas stamps didn’t portray a biblical theme. A litany of actions to take included not buying un-Biblical stamps and asking the Archbishop of Canterbury to show some leadership. The second paper was wrapped up in that old faithful HBR (Harvard Business Review) and carried an article called ‘Let the Response Fit the Scandal: A step-by-step guide to tailoring your crisis response’.

Normally I groan at the old chestnut that the Post Office is deliberately avoiding Christian themes, as for many years their well published policy has been to alternate Christian and secular designs. But since this year’s offering includes stained glass windows, one from nearby Upavon, I thought I’d check (the wonder of the Internet). Lo and behold, the theme two years ago was angels: Biblical enough, I’d say.

Tybout and Roehm’s HBR article, which also frankly tends to make a mountain out of a molehill-sized idea, is as follows. One-size-fits-all responses will not work on a scandal, the dimensions to which may be manifold. Therefore you must tailor your response according to what it is you’re actually marketing – the brand. They suggest: look at the issue from the outside; recognize the problem, rather than lurching straight to solutions; decide a proportional response, looking at the cost to the brand; and then get on with treating the customers as adults.

What if the ‘scandal’ of non-Christian Christmas stamps was true: what ought we to do about it? Looking at it from the outside, I’d say fewer than half (a lot fewer!) of the cards I send at Christmas go to believers. Believers or not, probably 1 in 50 notice the stamp and then only because for the overseas recipients the design may be unfamiliar and therefore interesting. Actually, I guess more recipients would notice if I used an ordinary stamp, so maybe not buying Christmas stamps would make a point after all. I think the problem is, if our response to Christmas, as Christians, is to drag a Christmas tree and its pagan baubles into church, have candle-lit services to remind people of the good old days before electricity and concern for people’s eyesight, and offer crib services that mangle the Gospel reportage, then we’ve already devalued the brand. If we turn an angry face to the secular world, we betray the blood of Christ who died so that we could learn to love not hate.

I don’t mean we should meekly steal away from problems. But we are as imperfect as the world at large, and maybe we ought to care first about how we reflect the light of Christ in it before complaining of the taste a few stamps leave in our mouths.