Dec
5
Help! Help! I’m not being oppressed.
Category: Christianity |
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Royal Mail has traditionally alternated between sacred and secular designs for their Christmas stamps and this year it is the turn for a religious image. Royal Mail has issued two sets of designs this year. The main set of designs, available in all the main denominations is of angels, which is vaguely Christian but not explicitly so and certainly not specifically Christmassy. They have also issued a ‘Madonna and Child’ design for first and second class only. Post Office staff have been instructed to only sell this design if people specifically request it, but obviously people can’t request it if they don’t know it exists! If people don’t buy these stamps, Royal Mail will claim there is no demand for religious Christmas stamps and not produce them in future.
This year’s Christmas stamps commemorate the tercentenary of the birth of Charles Wesley, writer of the hymn, Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
. 
They could certainly be more blatantly Christian in theme, however I was interested as to whether the Royal Mail have traditionally
alternated between sacred and secular stamps for this season so I had a look at what was being sold on eBay and assembled the following:
|
Year
|
Secular theme
|
Sacred theme
|
|---|---|---|
|
1979
|
Angels and Nativity
|
|
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1980
|
Christmas decorations
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1981
|
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1982
|
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1983 |
Winter scenes
|
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1984
|
The Nativity
|
|
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1985
|
||
|
1986
|
Mediaeval Winter scenes
|
|
|
1987
|
Magic of Christmas
|
|
|
1988
|
The Nativity
|
|
|
1989
|
||
|
1990
|
Victorian Christmas scenes
|
|
|
1991
|
Illuminations
|
|
|
1992
|
Stained glass windows (one Christmas image)
|
|
|
1993
|
‘A Christmas Carol’
|
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1994
|
Nativity plays
|
|
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1995
|
Robins
|
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1996
|
The Nativity
|
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1997
|
Father Christmas
|
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1998
|
Christmas angels
|
|
|
1999
|
||
|
2000
|
Spirit and faith
|
|
|
2001
|
Christmas robins
|
|
|
2002
|
Winter flowers
|
|
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2003
|
Ice sculptures
|
|
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2004
|
Father Christmas
|
|
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2005
|
Madonna and Child
|
|
|
2006
|
Snowmen
|
|
|
2007
|
Tercentenary of birth of Charles Wesley
|
|
It is clear then that the Royal Mail has not turned its back on Christianity, indeed it seems to have responded to recent public pressure by releasing more stamps relating to the feast of Christ’s birth than it has in the past. I sometimes wonder whether some Christians in this country, frustrated at not being imprisoned in Guantanamo, at not being allowed to imprison foreign teachers for naming a teddy bear Jesus, at not being the victims of ill-conceived reporting in the Daily Mail and at not being under-represented in the Houses of Parliament, are imagining some sort of persecution.
If righteous rage is what floats your boat, then I can recommend many injustices in this world against which you might wish to fight. Some of them are attacks on Christians. Most of those are not in this country.
Peace be with you.
[...] I don’t know. I, like this blogger, think the e-mail is all a lot of nonsense. If you are a Royal Mail employee who has been [...]
Royal Mail has been pleased to clarify the situation which is that no such instruction has been made, but that with 14,000 post offices around the country practice might vary as to what customers are offered. They have made the following statement:
“There is absolutely no intention on our part to suppress sales of the Madonna and Child stamps in order to be able to claim there is low demand for religious stamps in future years. Indeed, we have produced tens of millions of them, and we want to sell them!! We have given publicity to both types of Christmas stamps, and the availability of both has been widely covered in the national and local press. Furthermore we plan to have the Madonna and Child stamps available every Christmas in future, alongside each year’s “special” set, which will continue to alternate between religious and secular themes.”
Thanks for this – has that statement been posted anywhere or was it an e-mailed response?
I found the above statement on the Facebook group to which you had left a link in your blog post.