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M&S Christmas Ad - What it Says About the Post-Christian West || SLP483 · The Speak Life Podcast

0:06
SPEAKER_01: Well, hello and thank you so much for downloading episode 483 of the Speak Life Podcast.
0:12
SPEAKER_01: My name is Thomas Thorgood, media producer at Speak Life.
0:15
SPEAKER_01: And I don't know if you saw, but Marks and Spencer have just released their clothing and home Christmas advert for 2023.
0:24
SPEAKER_01: Sorry, it feels strange to be talking about Christmas at the very beginning of November.
0:30
SPEAKER_01: But hey, our hand has been forced by these uh all the uh the shops releasing their Christmas adverts already.
0:39
SPEAKER_01: This particular advert has caused a bit of a stir online.
0:42
SPEAKER_01: People haven't liked it, it hasn't gone down well.
0:45
SPEAKER_01: Uh for good reason, arguably.
0:48
SPEAKER_01: Well that's uh the case that uh Glenn will make in this episode of the Speak Life podcast.
0:54
SPEAKER_01: Getting into some of the themes of this advert, but perhaps more disturbingly what this advert shows us about our current time, our current culture, and how we need to go back to what Christmas is all about.
1:10
SPEAKER_01: Now, obviously, if you want to watch the advert and watch Glenn reacting to it, you can find the video on our YouTube channel, youtube.com forward slash speaklifemedia.
1:19
SPEAKER_01: But it should all come across fairly clearly over the audio of this podcast.
1:25
SPEAKER_01: Glenn does explain what's going on, so I hope it all makes sense.
1:31
SPEAKER_01: Enjoy Glenn's reaction and stay tuned to the end of this episode because I will be speaking to Joe, who is one of our students who has joined us for a year of Speaking Life.
1:43
SPEAKER_01: So do stay tuned at the end.
1:53
SPEAKER_00: Hello, I'm Glenn from Speak Life.
1:54
SPEAKER_00: We like to see all things through the lens of Jesus.
1:56
SPEAKER_00: Today we're gonna have a look at Marks and Spencer's Christmas ad.
1:59
SPEAKER_00: It's not their entire Christmas ad, I don't think.
2:01
SPEAKER_00: I think there might be future Christmas ads that are going to come out, but this is for their clothing and home department, and it has received much criticism, and I think we're gonna see why it's received much criticism.
2:13
SPEAKER_00: I think we're also gonna see uh there might be a take on this that saves it, maybe.
2:18
SPEAKER_00: Um, but I don't think really in the end.
2:21
SPEAKER_00: And I think what's wrong with this ad is wrong with the world.
2:24
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
2:25
SPEAKER_00: This is why we can't have nice things, and we'll see why.
2:29
SPEAKER_00: So here we go.
2:30
SPEAKER_00: Uh it released on Twitter, at least, with this uh bit of copy.
2:34
SPEAKER_00: Sound the claxon, our clothing and home Christmas ad for 2023 is here in November, which is interesting, isn't it?
2:41
SPEAKER_00: Like uh officially in the church calendar, Christmas begins on December the 25th, and then you have 12 days of Christmas.
2:48
SPEAKER_00: But in a consumerist world, Christmas begins on the 1st of November, apparently, and it's all about kind of indulging ourselves and having the most bling Christmas we possibly can, so that literally by the afternoon of the 25th of December, we are done with Christmas.
3:03
SPEAKER_00: We are through.
3:04
SPEAKER_00: We are um completely, you know, loosening the buttons of our Christmas clothing, and we we'd write off the next 11 days of Christmas.
3:13
SPEAKER_00: I think that's interesting about how Christmas is getting earlier and earlier.
3:16
SPEAKER_00: Well, because the shops want it to be earlier and earlier, and consumerism demands that it be earlier and earlier.
3:23
SPEAKER_00: And let's see uh what consumerism makes of Christmas.
3:28
SPEAKER_00: So here we have Hannah Waddingham.
3:30
SPEAKER_00: She is the girl boss owner of Richmond FC in Ted Lasso.
3:34
SPEAKER_00: Uh, but she's overwhelmed by Christmas.
3:36
SPEAKER_00: Look, there's just so much to do, and is it really worth making a snowman out of glue?
3:41
SPEAKER_00: And uh cottonwool is Tan France, who's apparently famous.
3:45
SPEAKER_00: I've never heard of him, but there he is.
3:47
SPEAKER_00: And oh dear, uh I roll because of the decorations, Zowie Ashton.
3:52
SPEAKER_00: I didn't know about her before this ad, but there she is, she's an actress.
3:55
SPEAKER_00: She seems to be having fun though, doing charades.
3:59
SPEAKER_00: Sophie Ellix Baxter.
4:01
SPEAKER_00: Uh she's doing some kind of art and craft, and now she's gonna put a flamethrower to Christmas, and here we go! And you see Noelle, the French word for Christmas, and it is being torched in front of us.
4:13
SPEAKER_00: And uh the backing track is Meatloaf's I Would Do Anything for Love.
4:18
SPEAKER_00: Now, that might come in handy if you want to give it a redemptive twist this uh video.
4:25
SPEAKER_00: There might be a redemptive twist at the end because you know the redemptive twist in the song.
4:29
SPEAKER_00: I would do anything for love, but I won't do that.
4:31
SPEAKER_00: And you think, well, what what won't you do for love, Meatloaf?
4:34
SPEAKER_00: I thought you'd do anything for love.
4:35
SPEAKER_00: Turns out in the song that he would not cheat on her.
4:39
SPEAKER_00: You know, the the woman in the song sings, Sooner or later you'll be screwing around.
4:43
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I won't do that.
4:45
SPEAKER_00: The one thing he won't do is betray love.
4:47
SPEAKER_00: So there might be a redemptive twist to this.
4:50
SPEAKER_00: Have you considered that?
4:51
SPEAKER_00: There might be a redemptive twist to that.
4:53
SPEAKER_00: That actually, as they are deconstructing Christmas, there might be a foundation.
4:58
SPEAKER_00: We might hit rock bottom, we might have a foundation for the kind of Christmas we will have at the end of it all.
5:04
SPEAKER_00: Is this all deconstruction?
5:06
SPEAKER_00: Are we left cast adrift as atoms on the sea of consumerism?
5:12
SPEAKER_00: Or does this little film end with a rock bottom?
5:17
SPEAKER_00: Does it end with a foundation?
5:18
SPEAKER_00: Does it end with uh something that we can cling on to at the heart of Christmas?
5:22
SPEAKER_00: Uh probably not.
5:24
SPEAKER_00: But if you're desperate to uh put a positive spin on this ad, you might see that.
5:29
SPEAKER_00: But here we go.
5:30
SPEAKER_00: Sophie Alex Baxter is uh torching her Christmas cards, because who can be bothered sending Christmas cards?
5:35
SPEAKER_00: Because that's about connecting with people, right?
5:38
SPEAKER_00: And catching them up on your news, and then they catch you up on their news.
5:42
SPEAKER_00: That's it.
5:42
SPEAKER_00: That's about kind of bonds of love and friendship.
5:45
SPEAKER_00: Um we're gonna put a torch to that, aren't we?
5:49
SPEAKER_00: Oh, she loves it.
5:51
SPEAKER_00: Hannah, no, can't be dealing with oh, but she's got the drink.
5:56
SPEAKER_00: There's tan.
5:57
SPEAKER_00: Oh, he's gonna throw away the board games.
5:59
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so board games are a brilliant part of Christmas, aren't they?
6:03
SPEAKER_00: Board board games are where you sort of come together, and hopefully you don't play Monopoly, because that would take the 12 days of Christmas.
6:10
SPEAKER_00: But you know, hopefully you can kind of play Pictionary, and maybe you'll still have a functioning family at the end of Pictionary, although that that might not be likely.
6:17
SPEAKER_00: But board games bring you around into this kind of common experience of of life in the family.
6:25
SPEAKER_00: But did you did you notice even though they've got board games here, they don't actually have any children.
6:31
SPEAKER_00: Even though Zowie Ashton is doing her charades, like it's it's all grown-ups.
6:36
SPEAKER_00: Everything is a very adult, very middle class, very well-to-do Christmas.
6:42
SPEAKER_00: And okay, so that's the MS demographics.
6:44
SPEAKER_00: They're just pitching it at the adults, but it's adults who have forgotten children at Christmas.
6:50
SPEAKER_00: I'm a Christian, so I'm used to saying to people, look, Christmas is not about the children, it's actually about Christ.
6:56
SPEAKER_00: And I'm used to that.
6:57
SPEAKER_00: But this isn't even about children.
6:59
SPEAKER_00: It isn't even about family coming together, it isn't even about personal connections between people.
7:04
SPEAKER_00: All of that has to go in the fire because, well, why?
7:08
SPEAKER_00: Let's see.
7:10
SPEAKER_00: Enter the fish tank.
7:12
SPEAKER_00: He feels better.
7:15
SPEAKER_00: Oh, Elf on the Shelf! Baseball bat.
7:19
SPEAKER_00: Actually, deconstructing Elf on the Shelf, I can fully get on board with that.
7:22
SPEAKER_00: Elf on the Shelf is taking the moralism of Santa and cranking it up to kind of Chinese Communist Party levels of surveillance.
7:28
SPEAKER_00: The elf on the shelf is there to report back to Santa and to see, you know, he he really does see you when you're sleeping, he really does know when you're awake, he's he's watching and waiting to spot your mistake.
7:38
SPEAKER_00: That's that is elf on the shelf.
7:40
SPEAKER_00: So if we are going to deconstruct anything from Christmas, this is one thing I can get on board with.
7:45
SPEAKER_00: Well done, Zowie.
7:49
SPEAKER_00: And Hannah is about to shred Christmas crowns, and isn't it interesting?
7:54
SPEAKER_00: What happens with Christmas crowns is they turn into glitter.
7:58
SPEAKER_00: And what is glitter?
7:59
SPEAKER_00: Glitter is fragmentary, shiny glitz.
8:04
SPEAKER_00: And there is nothing to it, there is no substance to it, there is no connection to it, it is utterly atomized, and the only good thing about it is, well, look how pretty it looks.
8:14
SPEAKER_00: It dazzles, right?
8:16
SPEAKER_00: And is that what Marks and Spencer's in this ad are doing to Christmas?
8:21
SPEAKER_00: They are kind of atomizing us, atomizing us, atomizing us, atomizing us, but at least it glitters.
8:26
SPEAKER_00: And they've gotten rid of.
8:28
SPEAKER_00: It's not just that they've gotten rid of Christ.
8:30
SPEAKER_00: You know, again, as a Christian, I'm used to saying, don't take the Christ out of Christmas.
8:34
SPEAKER_00: And what's the joke?
8:34
SPEAKER_00: You know, if you take the Christ out of Christmas, all you're left with is MS.
8:38
SPEAKER_00: And MS won't save you, right?
8:39
SPEAKER_00: Well, guess what?
8:41
SPEAKER_00: MS, when you zoom in on what they've got for us, they don't even have children, they don't even have tradition, they don't even have family, they don't even have connection.
8:50
SPEAKER_00: They've got atomization, radical atomization, to the point where all you're left with is glitter, and all that glitters is not gold.
8:57
SPEAKER_00: This Christmas, do only what you love.
9:00
SPEAKER_00: This Christmas, do only what you love.
9:05
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
9:05
SPEAKER_00: And and I think they've done a brilliant job of summarizing this life philosophy.
9:10
SPEAKER_00: This Christmas, do only what you love.
9:15
SPEAKER_00: Uh, first time we've seen a child there.
9:16
SPEAKER_00: Look, she she's um she's quite happy about the atomization of all the Christmas hats.
9:21
SPEAKER_00: The d the destruction of all Christmas hats apparently makes this girl happy.
9:26
SPEAKER_00: But doing only what you love does not make us happy.
9:28
SPEAKER_00: Do you remember the Simpsons Halloween episode where Homer is given an ironic punishment in hell?
9:34
SPEAKER_00: And of course, the ironic punishment is to give him only what he loves, right?
9:39
SPEAKER_00: And uh so you have this demon of hell saying this.
9:45
SPEAKER_00: So you like donuts, eh?
9:47
SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
9:48
SPEAKER_00: Well, have all the donuts in the world.
9:54
SPEAKER_00: Only what you love.
9:56
SPEAKER_00: Um I love them all.
10:05
SPEAKER_00: I love them all.
10:05
SPEAKER_00: And of course, the the joke is um if you are force fed with only what you love, that would be hell for you.
10:12
SPEAKER_00: The twist in in The Simpsons here is that Homer is actually made happy by um being given only what he loves.
10:19
SPEAKER_00: But um, this is a fantasy.
10:20
SPEAKER_00: This is this is not how life actually operates.
10:24
SPEAKER_00: This Christmas, do only what you love.
10:26
SPEAKER_00: It is the incarnation of you do you as a Christmas sentiment.
10:31
SPEAKER_00: And yet, if Christ said you do you at Christmas, you know what would happen?
10:37
SPEAKER_00: We wouldn't have Christmas.
10:38
SPEAKER_00: Um, Christ would remain in heaven and we would be left to our own little desires that enslave us and imprison us and diminish us and eventually kill us.
10:48
SPEAKER_00: You do you is not a life-giving message.
10:51
SPEAKER_00: This Christmas, do only what you love.
10:54
SPEAKER_00: In a context where there just aren't children, there isn't family, where you're not writing to people, where you don't have the board games where you're in connection with other people, where apparently having fun playing charades is the thing you need to be saved from.
11:09
SPEAKER_00: You do you is a terrible message.
11:11
SPEAKER_00: And let's see what people are saying in the comments.
11:15
SPEAKER_00: Because underneath on Twitter, um, there there has not been a lot of love for this ad.
11:21
SPEAKER_00: Let's let's put it that way.
11:23
SPEAKER_00: For instance, Bobby just says, I don't get it.
11:26
SPEAKER_00: And some poor intern doing the social media for Marks and Spencer has said, this year's ad is about recognizing that we all have different Christmases and reminding people that it doesn't matter how you celebrate.
11:36
SPEAKER_00: Just do what makes you happy.
11:38
SPEAKER_00: Love hearts.
11:39
SPEAKER_00: Um and how are people responding to that?
11:41
SPEAKER_00: There are there are 1.2 thousand, uh one thousand two hundred comments under that.
11:47
SPEAKER_00: Um I mean the whole video has been ratioed.
11:50
SPEAKER_00: Um it it's it's something like 2,000 quote tweets and about 300 retweets.
11:55
SPEAKER_00: And how many comments uh we've got going on for 9,000 comments underneath.
12:00
SPEAKER_00: Um here are some of them.
12:02
SPEAKER_00: This is terrible.
12:03
SPEAKER_00: Sack the ad agency.
12:04
SPEAKER_00: This doesn't fit your demographic.
12:07
SPEAKER_00: Does it or doesn't it?
12:08
SPEAKER_00: Because what's what's interesting is um they have all the economic incentives in the world to give us a message that is perfectly fit for Marks and Spencer's demographic.
12:20
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
12:21
SPEAKER_00: Whatever you say about how cynical their view of Christmas is you have to assume that they're good at marketing.
12:28
SPEAKER_00: You have to assume that that they at least want to give people what they think people want.
12:33
SPEAKER_00: They're doing them, right?
12:35
SPEAKER_00: This this Christmas, they are doing what makes them happy, and what makes them happy is reaching their own demographic.
12:41
SPEAKER_00: This ad is to some degree a mirror to where our society is at.
12:46
SPEAKER_00: It it really is.
12:47
SPEAKER_00: Um, Mike says, so nothing matters anymore.
12:50
SPEAKER_00: Traditions don't matter, culture doesn't matter.
12:52
SPEAKER_00: Just do what makes you feel happy.
12:55
SPEAKER_00: Well, nothing in the advert recognizes people who hold Christian values and who enjoy the true spirit of Christmas.
12:59
SPEAKER_00: It's truly awful.
13:01
SPEAKER_00: I I think that's a comment that applies more generally to sort of supermarket Christmas ads down through the years.
13:07
SPEAKER_00: It's not even that it doesn't hold Christian values.
13:11
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't hold human values.
13:14
SPEAKER_00: This this ad.
13:15
SPEAKER_00: Get ready for a ratio, and a boycott, you know what a ratio is.
13:18
SPEAKER_00: It's if the quote tweets are far higher than the retweets, then you know you've got a whole bunch of people saying, get a load of this nonsense, it's terrible, right?
13:26
SPEAKER_00: And and that's what a ratio is.
13:28
SPEAKER_00: And a boycott, he reckons, well, we'll think about the boycott in just a second.
13:32
SPEAKER_00: There is only one Christmas, and it is the Mass of Christ.
13:35
SPEAKER_00: You ought to allow this Christian nation to celebrate its holiday without being an apologist, have some grit.
13:42
SPEAKER_00: Uh Richard Morris says, Oh yes, I'd forgotten.
13:44
SPEAKER_00: The Spirit of Christmas is all about being self-centered, silly me.
13:47
SPEAKER_00: And you you just do get that sense, don't you?
13:50
SPEAKER_00: Um that even in the other advertisements that talk about Christmas spirit, at least the Christmas spirit is Scrooge recognizes that, you know, he needs to be a self-less human being rather than a self-ish person.
14:03
SPEAKER_00: And even Scrooge, though, though it's not explicitly Christian, is Christian-ish in its assumptions.
14:08
SPEAKER_00: This is just purely consumerist.
14:11
SPEAKER_00: You do you.
14:12
SPEAKER_00: This Christmas, do only what you love, and this is where we're headed.
14:18
SPEAKER_00: Oh, she loves it.
14:20
SPEAKER_00: Love this mus, not that mus.
14:23
SPEAKER_00: Now, often Christians complain about when people take the Christ out of Christmas, and you know, when people send me uh Christmas cards and it's got an Xmas, I don't think that's crossing out Christ.
14:32
SPEAKER_00: Uh X, the the Greek letter chi is the first letter of Christ in Greek, and it's commonly been an abbreviation for Christ.
14:39
SPEAKER_00: I don't mind so much Xmas, but love Thismas is fascinating because okay, we get rid of Christ and we insert this.
14:47
SPEAKER_00: And it's the sense of if an alien comes to planet Earth and says, What is this Earth thing you call Christmas?
14:53
SPEAKER_00: And Marks and Spencer just says, Well, it's this, and it's whatever this person wants to do, it's whatever this person wants to do, it's whatever this person wants to do.
15:02
SPEAKER_00: The alien is none the wiser.
15:04
SPEAKER_00: What is this?
15:06
SPEAKER_00: This mus is whatever you want it to be, and it's just that's this hall of mirrors.
15:11
SPEAKER_00: And all of a sudden, you don't have a thing that Christmas is.
15:14
SPEAKER_00: It's just whatever you want it to be, you do you.
15:17
SPEAKER_00: And isn't this at the heart of the fracturing of society today?
15:22
SPEAKER_00: We don't have a grander vision for where we've come from, we don't have a grander vision for who we are, we don't have a grander vision for the bonds of entangling love and community that constitute us.
15:35
SPEAKER_00: We don't have any of that, we just have you do you.
15:38
SPEAKER_00: And it's absolutely tearing us apart.
15:41
SPEAKER_00: It's it's this mess, not that mess.
15:44
SPEAKER_00: And it's so interesting that a true Christmas, I think a Christmas that's far more recognizable to us, is a Christmas in which if you come to the Scrivener household, we do Christmas in a certain way.
15:55
SPEAKER_00: If you go to my wife's family, they do Christmas in a certain way.
15:59
SPEAKER_00: And we've all had to kind of ri wrestle with and negotiate with the different Christmases that people like.
16:05
SPEAKER_00: But you don't at that stage say, fine, I'm gonna go off to this room, you go after that room, you go upstairs, and we'll have our separate Christmases and just tweet it all with the hashtag love this must not that must.
16:16
SPEAKER_00: That is no recipe for a society, not even a family.
16:20
SPEAKER_00: What you need to do is if you come to the Scrivener household, you're going to get a Scrivener Christmas.
16:26
SPEAKER_00: And we're probably going to play Pictionary, even though it will end in tears.
16:30
SPEAKER_00: And we're probably going to go for a walk after after Christmas lunch.
16:33
SPEAKER_00: And that lunch is probably going to take place at a certain point because we want to see the king's speech.
16:37
SPEAKER_00: And etc.
16:38
SPEAKER_00: etc.
16:39
SPEAKER_00: And if you come to our Christmas, you are welcome, but it is not a sense of inclusion, okay?
16:46
SPEAKER_00: And here here's what this video kind of teaches more broadly about society.
16:50
SPEAKER_00: I think society says we are all atomized individuals, we are all like individual chintzy bits of glitter.
16:58
SPEAKER_00: And if we can kind of swirl around together and the light is right, it looks dazzling for a moment.
17:04
SPEAKER_00: But that's who I am, that's who you are.
17:06
SPEAKER_00: We are atomized individuals who can swirl around in a moment of spectacle, but that is not what a society is.
17:13
SPEAKER_00: A society is woven together as strands of interdependence.
17:18
SPEAKER_00: And and therefore, a Christian virtue is to welcome you into my Christmas and to say, I know it's a bit awkward, you might not like charades, you might be mortified at the idea of acting out in charades.
17:33
SPEAKER_00: That's okay.
17:34
SPEAKER_00: You can sort of nurse your mold wine in the corner and just enjoy it along with the rest of us.
17:38
SPEAKER_00: We're not going to change charades.
17:40
SPEAKER_00: We're still going to do charades, but we're not going to have a doctrine of inclusion that says, okay, charades is off because you know Betty doesn't like charades.
17:52
SPEAKER_00: We're not going to do that.
17:53
SPEAKER_00: And we're not going to take a baseball bat to certain traditions just because one or two people don't like it.
17:58
SPEAKER_00: Everybody is welcome to take part in a thing that already has a shape, that already has a direction, that's going someplace.
18:09
SPEAKER_01: Hi folks, it's Thomas Thoroughgood here, media producer at Speak Life.
18:13
SPEAKER_01: You might recognise my voice as the guy who does the filler bits on the podcast.
18:17
SPEAKER_01: It's part of my job to think of how we can include you more in the work of Speak Life and bring you behind the scenes, if you will.
18:24
SPEAKER_01: And so we have a very exciting thing called the Speak Life Discord server.
18:29
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18:34
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18:40
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18:45
SPEAKER_01: Okay, back to the podcast.
18:50
SPEAKER_00: So Christians are fully on board with welcome.
18:54
SPEAKER_00: I think that's a fully Christian idea for a society.
18:56
SPEAKER_00: Welcome.
18:57
SPEAKER_00: We are not on board with inclusion.
19:00
SPEAKER_00: Inclusion is founded on diverse atomized individuals who all equally have a voice.
19:08
SPEAKER_00: And if you all equally have an atomized voice, you end up with cacophony.
19:12
SPEAKER_00: With welcome, you actually have harmony.
19:15
SPEAKER_00: You actually have a song that we're meant to be singing.
19:18
SPEAKER_00: And there's a thing that predates us that we fit into.
19:22
SPEAKER_00: We don't constantly smash and deconstruct and take apart.
19:26
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
19:27
SPEAKER_00: That that is what we really need as a society.
19:30
SPEAKER_00: We need welcome, not inclusion.
19:33
SPEAKER_00: We need community, not individualism, right?
19:38
SPEAKER_00: And we need our Christmas that is already in existence, something that we submit to in order to actually be free.
19:46
SPEAKER_00: If you come to a scrivener Christmas, you're going to do things our way by and large.
19:51
SPEAKER_00: But you're going to be much more happy fitting into the warp and wolf of our family than if you go off by yourself and get a meal for one from Marks and Spencer's and sit, you know, with it on your lap as you watch your own YouTube videos.
20:07
SPEAKER_00: Okay, you're going to be far happier submitting to something that is already there.
20:12
SPEAKER_00: And there is something that's already there.
20:14
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
20:14
SPEAKER_00: There is already Christmas.
20:16
SPEAKER_00: We already have Christmas.
20:18
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
20:18
SPEAKER_00: We have this thing, and at Speak Life, we're always doing these Christmas videos, in which we're focusing in on the thing that has already been given to us.
20:27
SPEAKER_00: And like a nativity scene is just a beautiful picture of the cosmos, really.
20:33
SPEAKER_00: Because you've got angels above, and you've got animals down below.
20:37
SPEAKER_00: Those shepherds on the hillside next to Bethlehem, and you've got the magi from the east, the nations.
20:43
SPEAKER_00: And it's this idea of heaven and earth, rich and poor, Jew and Gentile orbiting around Jesus, the light of the world.
20:52
SPEAKER_00: And it is the most unifying vision humanity has ever had.
20:58
SPEAKER_00: And the idea of taking Christ out of it and then keeping the traditions, apparently that doesn't work.
21:04
SPEAKER_00: Apparently, you take Christ out of that, and then you still try to have traditions that are Christless.
21:10
SPEAKER_00: You end up not only getting rid of Christ, you end up getting rid of all that is human.
21:15
SPEAKER_00: You end up getting rid of all that is relational and freeing.
21:19
SPEAKER_00: You end up getting rid of what is truly nourishing about Christmas, which is coming in on a world in which Christ is at the center.
21:27
SPEAKER_00: Now I said that um there might be a redemptive moment in this film.
21:32
SPEAKER_00: Let's see the last eight seconds.
21:36
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so she picks up the elf on the shelf.
21:38
SPEAKER_00: She's Oh that broken elf on the shelf, she saves it, she nurtures it, she protects it.
21:48
SPEAKER_00: Now, is is it that she has found something of Christmas to keep?
21:54
SPEAKER_00: Something like of all the things to keep, it's not elf on the shelf.
21:57
SPEAKER_00: But is it that this weak, broken display?
22:00
SPEAKER_00: Discarded thing is going to find a home in the love of Hannah Waddingham.
22:04
SPEAKER_00: Is is that what now now I don't think that's what's going on.
22:08
SPEAKER_00: But let's let's imagine that there is a redemption of this ad, and in fact, at the end of deconstructing everything about Christmas, we find we've found love.
22:17
SPEAKER_00: We've found welcome.
22:19
SPEAKER_00: We've found nurture.
22:20
SPEAKER_00: We found provision and protection for the weak and the marginalized and the poor.
22:24
SPEAKER_00: And this is what she wants.
22:26
SPEAKER_00: But the the the trouble is, like, look at that grin at the end.
22:30
SPEAKER_00: Is this the grin of a woman who is wanting to nurture and protect the weak, which is right at the heart of a true Christmas?
22:38
SPEAKER_00: Um I'm not so sure.
22:40
SPEAKER_00: I'm not so sure.
22:41
SPEAKER_00: And we can't be sure.
22:42
SPEAKER_00: We cannot maintain the Christian virtue of welcome, of nurture, of having a place for the weak and the marginalized at our table.
22:51
SPEAKER_00: We cannot maintain that without Christ.
22:54
SPEAKER_00: And I think it is it is a fool's errand to try to deconstruct everything about Crispus and somehow still be left with anything recognizably compassionate or merciful or kind or loving.
23:08
SPEAKER_00: I think what we will end up with is just these atomized individuals.
23:12
SPEAKER_00: Now, Christians are kind of the problem here because and I speak as a Protestant, but you know, wasn't it the wasn't it the Puritans that actually banned Christmas, you know, 400 years ago?
23:24
SPEAKER_00: Wasn't it the wasn't it the Puritans who did want to deconstruct Christmas and strip it all back to what is most essential to Christmas?
23:34
SPEAKER_00: There is an iconoclastic Protestant instinct to bring us back to what is most essential.
23:41
SPEAKER_00: And I've heard plenty of talks in which the preacher will say, you know, the shepherds and the magi, they weren't there at the same time, and they're not three kings, and there probably weren't just three of them, and they weren't kings, and they're called wise men or magi, and it probably wasn't a stable, and they just strip back, strip back, strip back, and and they hope that we can strip it back to Christ and just leave you with Christ.
24:02
SPEAKER_00: But yeah, that that can be a dangerous thing.
24:05
SPEAKER_00: To continually deconstruct and deconstruct and deconstruct, you've got to end up with some solid ground beneath your feet.
24:11
SPEAKER_00: And I think the solid ground beneath our feet is indeed Christ, but Christ given to us within a scriptural vision for heaven and earth united, Jew and Gentile united, rich and poor united.
24:24
SPEAKER_00: And I think we should be very reticent of smashing with a baseball bat every aspect of Christmas because we might think it's just traditional and not truly biblical.
24:36
SPEAKER_00: Um I think in so many ways Protestants started this, and at some point we need to put away the baseball bat and enjoy the inheritance that we've been given to celebrate Christmas in that way.
24:48
SPEAKER_00: One final thing.
24:49
SPEAKER_00: Of all the criticisms that have come Marks and Spencer's way, um, one of them they have actually kind of capitulated on.
24:56
SPEAKER_00: Um there were people who complains that this was an anti-Palestine advertisement.
25:02
SPEAKER_00: Uh, because at one point uh on their Instagram they put a still from the video out in which there are a bunch of Christmas hats that are on the fire, and they are red, silver, and green.
25:14
SPEAKER_00: Very traditional Christmas colours.
25:17
SPEAKER_00: And yet people thought, hey, doesn't that look like a Palestinian flag?
25:22
SPEAKER_00: Um let's let's put a Palestinian flag up next to this image, and I'm sure at once you will see it's just an absolute dead ringer for a Palestinian flag.
25:30
SPEAKER_00: But here is the Jewish Chronicle uh reporting on this.
25:33
SPEAKER_00: Uh the Christmas crowns were red, green, and silver, colours commonly associated with the festive period.
25:37
SPEAKER_00: However, as the Palestinian flag comprises three horizontal stripes in black, white, and green and a red triangle, some social media users accused the retailer of acting insensitively.
25:47
SPEAKER_00: MS deleted the Instagram post and published a statement saying today we shared an outtake image from our Christmas clothing and home advert, which was recorded in August.
25:56
SPEAKER_00: It showed traditional festive colours, red, green, and silver, Christmas paper party hats in a fire grate.
26:01
SPEAKER_00: While the intent was to playfully show that some people just don't enjoy wearing paper Christmas hats over the festive season, we have removed the post following feedback and we apologize for any unintentional hurt caused.
26:12
SPEAKER_00: They back off instantly.
26:14
SPEAKER_00: Now, as the Jewish Chronicle says, MS has been subject to anti-Israel boycotts for decades.
26:20
SPEAKER_00: The retailer was founded in 1884 as a collaboration between Polish Jewish businessman Michael Marx and Yorkshire-born cashier Thomas Spencer.
26:28
SPEAKER_00: They have been subject to anti-Israel boycotts a lot, the Marx and Spencer's people.
26:33
SPEAKER_00: And at the first hint of anything looking like a Palestinian flag in the fire, which it doesn't, all of a sudden MS cave.
26:42
SPEAKER_00: And of course you're going to cave if you don't have a kind of a civilizational heft behind you.
26:48
SPEAKER_00: If all you've got behind you is this Christmas, do only what you love.
26:54
SPEAKER_00: If all you've got behind you is you do you, then you are absolutely a cork on the tide.
27:01
SPEAKER_00: And anyone who comes along with a a heftier vision for society and the world is absolutely going to push you around left, right, and centre.
27:09
SPEAKER_00: And and that's everybody.
27:11
SPEAKER_00: Like if we in the West only have a sense of you do you, then there will be people who have a much stronger vision for who they are, where they've come from, and what they're about.
27:25
SPEAKER_00: And our atomized society will absolutely bend to any and every vision that is stronger than it, which is pretty much any vision, to be honest.
27:37
SPEAKER_00: Later this month, we're having our Remembrance Day commemorations.
27:40
SPEAKER_00: Armistice Day, the day of the signing of the peace treaty after World War One, is on the 11th of November.
27:46
SPEAKER_00: Remembrance Sunday is the the next day.
27:49
SPEAKER_00: So Remembrance Day this year falls on a Saturday.
27:52
SPEAKER_00: And since the terrorist attacks that Hamas made on Israel, uh there have been pro-Palestinian marches on these Saturdays.
28:01
SPEAKER_00: And there is one planned for the 11th of November.
28:05
SPEAKER_00: And it will be around the Cenotaph.
28:08
SPEAKER_00: And there have been Palestinian flags draped over the Cenotaph on previous Saturdays, and here we have this clash between a culture that has celebrated Remembrance Day and has remembered certain things on that day, and then a protest that is going to happen.
28:25
SPEAKER_00: And here we have a civilizational clash.
28:29
SPEAKER_00: Who is going to win in a civilizational clash if our civilization is so ephemeral?
28:35
SPEAKER_00: It is like glitter.
28:36
SPEAKER_00: We are just atoms blown on the wind, and all we prize is spectacle and you doing you.
28:42
SPEAKER_00: I remember 20 years ago on Remembrance Day in Australia, I was in the car listening to Triple J, which is the equivalent of Radio 1 in the UK, just the sort of the national broadcaster for sort of rock and pop.
28:54
SPEAKER_00: And so at about 10.59, on the 11th of the 11th, this radio announcer gets on and he says, uh, in a minute, uh there's gonna be two minutes of silence, which is something that uh lots of people have valued down through the years.
29:08
SPEAKER_00: And if that's you, then you might want to turn off the radio now, because here's the latest one from Foo Fighters! And how out blares this song, and I was like, that's fascinating.
29:19
SPEAKER_00: In order to say you do you, you simply can't have a remembrance.
29:25
SPEAKER_00: You can't have an act of remembrance anymore.
29:28
SPEAKER_00: And nowadays, if all our highest ideals are just self-actualization, then we we we can't have nice things anymore.
29:37
SPEAKER_00: This is why we can't have nice things anymore.
29:39
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
29:40
SPEAKER_00: It's because of you do you, and it destroys not only Christmas, it destroys culture.
29:46
SPEAKER_00: And it does not make us free, it makes us atomized, blowing in the breeze, a spectacle of chintz, rather than somebody woven together into a story that was there long ago.
29:59
SPEAKER_00: A story that we submit to, a story that we surrender to, and in the story we find wholeness.
30:05
SPEAKER_00: In the story we find welcome, in the story we find meaning.
30:09
SPEAKER_00: In the story we find ourselves, but not by doing ourselves.
30:14
SPEAKER_00: We let Christmas do us, and that's where freedom is found.
30:18
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you want to explore more of what this Christian story is, we've got a great course for you to do online.
30:23
SPEAKER_00: It's completely free.
30:24
SPEAKER_00: It's called 321.
30:25
SPEAKER_00: If you go to 321course.com, it's a Christianity 101.
30:28
SPEAKER_00: You come in on the inside and you see life again according to Jesus.
30:33
SPEAKER_00: We'd love you to check that out, and I'd love to see you on the next video.
30:36
SPEAKER_00: Thanks.
30:43
SPEAKER_01: Well, now it's time to meet Joe, who is a student at Speak Life.
30:48
SPEAKER_01: So we've been doing this year-out program for a few years now, where we have people from around the country, around the world in in some years, uh, joining us to do a year in creative evangelism, you know, helping us to make Speak Life content and studying alongside us.
31:09
SPEAKER_01: And so that's how I first came into contact with Speak Life in 2020.
31:14
SPEAKER_01: I was a student here, and it was an incredibly formative time for me.
31:18
SPEAKER_01: So I'm very excited for Joe, Eleanor, and Harry who are with us for this year.
31:24
SPEAKER_01: And so I think I'll introduce them one at a time over episodes of the Speak Life podcasts.
31:29
SPEAKER_01: So today we'll start with Joe, and here is my conversation with him.
31:34
SPEAKER_01: Can I ask you a couple of questions?
31:36
SPEAKER_01: Is that alright?
31:36
SPEAKER_01: You can indeed.
31:38
SPEAKER_01: How did you become a Christian?
31:40
SPEAKER_02: Um so I grew up in a Christian family, and it was one of those families which would go to church all the time.
31:47
SPEAKER_02: So my my dad wasn't the minister.
31:49
SPEAKER_02: Um Vickers' kids.
31:50
SPEAKER_02: Vickers.
31:51
SPEAKER_02: I can relate to that.
31:52
SPEAKER_02: Pastor's Are you?
31:54
SPEAKER_02: Get out.
31:55
SPEAKER_01: No way! Yeah, there's a few of us around here.
31:59
SPEAKER_02: Uh yeah, so I was a Christian from six, and then late primary school, I sort of started to slip away.
32:07
SPEAKER_02: Uh sort of splitting personality.
32:10
SPEAKER_02: I think everyone sort of does that at some stage.
32:13
SPEAKER_02: But they sort of split and become one person at uh one place, like school, and then another person at church.
32:19
SPEAKER_02: Um, and then one night at church there was a video of Billy Graham.
32:24
SPEAKER_02: Uh best preacher ever.
32:27
SPEAKER_01: Well, yeah.
32:28
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I heard a rumour recently.
32:30
SPEAKER_01: Well, I don't think it was a rumour, I think it's just substantiated that Billy Graham is the single human being who has spoken to the most other humans in person of all time.
32:40
SPEAKER_01: I think it's I think Taylor Swift might be rivaling.
32:43
SPEAKER_01: She's she's on her way.
32:44
SPEAKER_01: Now, but just the amount of open air talks he gave, yeah.
32:47
SPEAKER_01: The amount of people he came into contact with.
32:49
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you still meet people today who come came to faith by Billy Graham.
32:53
SPEAKER_01: Sounds like you're one of them, but in a sense, by or or rekindles by listening to Graham.
33:00
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, sort of pointed back.
33:01
SPEAKER_02: And he um in the video he said which path are you on?
33:04
SPEAKER_02: And I didn't know, and then that night I sort of hit me and I realised that I needed to choose, and I I chose.
33:11
SPEAKER_01: Wow.
33:12
SPEAKER_01: Oh, praise God.
33:13
SPEAKER_01: And what are you hoping to get out of this year?
33:16
SPEAKER_01: Because it's been really cool that you've moved down here.
33:19
SPEAKER_01: It's quite a big deal to take a year out and uh come to Eastbourne and join us in in the studio.
33:25
SPEAKER_01: And yeah, what are you what are you hoping for this year?
33:29
SPEAKER_02: Um well I'm hoping to know what to do for the next year, uh, which I think will will come out of the the media side of things and the the Bible course side of things.
33:40
SPEAKER_02: Uh so hopefully by the end of the year I'll I'll have a clearer vision of where I want to go next and what I want to do for life.
33:49
SPEAKER_01: Sure.
33:49
SPEAKER_01: And one final really important question.
33:52
SPEAKER_01: What's your favourite ice cream flavour?
33:54
SPEAKER_02: The most important of all.
33:57
SPEAKER_02: Um my favourite, and this will sound very bland, but I know that I am right and everyone else is wrong.
34:03
SPEAKER_02: My favourite is vanilla.
34:07
SPEAKER_02: The plainest ice cream flavor.
34:09
SPEAKER_02: Well, the plainest, but there's a place in Swansea, which does if you ever visit that area, um, there's a place in Swansea called Joe's ice cream, and the ice cream there is is unbelievable.
34:21
SPEAKER_02: The the taste is indescribable, but it's vanilla, and it's just incredible.
34:26
SPEAKER_02: I've been to Italy and Italy was was nowhere near as good.
34:29
SPEAKER_01: Wow.
34:30
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, bold.
34:31
SPEAKER_01: Big claims here.
34:33
SPEAKER_01: Wow.
34:33
SPEAKER_01: I like that.
34:34
SPEAKER_01: You've you've qu you've qualified it with it's not just any vanilla, it's the swanse vanilla.
34:39
SPEAKER_01: It is the vanilla.
34:40
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, the pod of the pods.
34:42
SPEAKER_02: The pod of the pods, the creme of the creme.
34:45
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
34:46
SPEAKER_01: Well, great to meet you, Joe.
34:49
SPEAKER_02: Great to meet you as well.
34:52
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for doing this, and we look forward to working with you for the coming year.
34:57
SPEAKER_01: So thank you, John.
34:59
SPEAKER_01: All the best.
34:59
SPEAKER_01: Well, there we go.
35:00
SPEAKER_01: It was great to be able to introduce Joe, and you might see him appearing in some of our YouTube videos soon.
35:07
SPEAKER_01: So uh stay tuned for that.
35:09
SPEAKER_01: Well, do subscribe to the Speak Life Podcast to stay in the loop if you haven't done so already.
35:15
SPEAKER_01: We're glad you're here, and we will be back next week.
35:18
SPEAKER_01: God bless.