Podcast: Bishop of Bermuda Rt Rev Nicholas Dill
In the latest Bernews podcast, we talk to the Bishop of Bermuda, the Rt Rev Nicholas Dill, about his views on the commercialisation of Christmas, how debate in Bermuda can very quickly turn to anger, and how economic growth has failed to trickle down.
He says cultural changes and other pressures being faced by people are affecting the church, although the church is still the place people turn to for help.
The Bishop believes that people are losing the ability to communicate with each other, leading to increased isolation, and that there is a sense from people that no one is listening to them.
The Bishop says that the commercialisation of Christmas is getting earlier and earlier and some people no longer know what the day is about.
He also told Bernews that often now, Christmas puts huge pressure on businesses and people to provide what is expected for their families.
“We vacillate between the North Pole and Bethlehem quite regularly and some people do not know how Bethlehem fits into the picture,” he said.
20-minute podcast with Bishop Nicholas Dill:
“In Bermuda we are losing the ability to communicate with each other. The speed of technology does not help; we have virtual relationships with people. There is a lot of interconnectedness, but quite a lot of isolation with it.
“There is something about the tenor of debate and discussion. Now you are not allowed to have views, we get to anger very quickly.
“You see it on the roads, in the House of Assembly, in the boardrooms, sometimes when we start treating each other as economic pawns rather than real people.”
He added, “There are those that say there are signs of life and growth, but it has not trickled down. There is a great sense from a lot of people who I see who feel that no one is listening or taking their interests in.”
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Bishop Nicolas is holding a bible but has not precepted any of his comments with scripture.
How can you justify PAGAN traditions.
Exactly!! If anyone googles December 25th, it has NOTHING to do with gifts, food, dashing hither and thither. It has do with the JEWS! They were tortured, murdered…..on December 25th. That is the only thing that is associated to December 25th. So…. what is all the christmas hype about??
Guess who was responsible for the torture and murdering of the JEWS? ALSO, WHY WERE THEY MURDERED?
If persons around the planet become familiar with the meaning of December 25th, they would not spend a cent on unnecessary items.
@backbone–you don’t have to google, go to the bible and Jeremiah 10 lets us know that it is pagan worship. The mass killing of the so called Indians (indigenous) people if they did not willingly convert to the Christianity of catholisism. Who flies in dead trees to decorate and bow down to? lets think people it is a fire hazard and makes no sense whether our grandparents did it or not, they were afraid not to do it for fear of persecution but today we can open our eyes to honesty and admit what a foolish thing to import hundreds of a species of tree and it is DEAD, The MOSt High is aALIVE! In false piety another god is being worshipped outside of your own Creator..The Creator still gives us the BOW in the sky after a good rain and that is a reminder of the covenant , nothing dead of wood or stone can be worshipped it is pagan or of the heathen!
Who bows down to trees???? You just stick them up and decorate them. Looks nice. Just because something is nice and makes you feel warm inside, doesn’t mean you worship it.
Why did you buy that shirt, because you thought it would look nice on you, you are not going to worship the shirt !!!
What are your traditions?
I’m curious, do you support a particular football team?
You have to bow down to get your gifts.
Thanks Bishop Dill for reminding us about the true meaning of Christmas.
christmas and easter true origins come out of observances in major annual astronomical occurrences… plus many other religious holidays….. happy winter solstice
I wonder if the “non believers” celebrate Christmas with all its “trimmings”…I thought it would be a small amount of faith keepers gathering to celebrate their Messiah’s birth which they have a right to do and some probably do…so YOU tell me who has “commercialized” Christmas.
Christmas is the celebration of the time when the days start to lengthen, which in the Northern Hemisphere, is in the middle of winter. Many religions in history have claimed the winter solstice as a holy day. The “reason of the season” is a combination of different traditions. It includes sun worship and pagan nature religions who have venerated the natural cycle for many thousands of years. Many traditional elements of Christmas pre-date Christianity1. Nowadays it is laid upon by various Christian stories, and Christians even say, quite wrongly, that they invented Christmas. In combination with these religious sources is a heavy dose of commercialism – many “traditions” are in fact invented by commercial companies trying to find nifty ways of selling goods.
Christmas comes from the Old English words Cristes moesse, ‘the mass or festival of Christ’…so they did invent the word Christmas.
The cracker represents the gifts of the three kings, hence the crowns…the joke represents the Mhyr ….(the general response to the cracker jokes)
The Christmas Tree represents the collecting of wood for winter and is a symbolic thank you to nature.
Regardless of the above………Christmas represents the season of goodwill to your fellow person. A time to think of others, a time to share, a time to help. It’s not what you got for Christmas, it’s what you give in an effort to shine happiness through humanity.
@hmmm – methinks you are intentionally misconstruing the fact that “Christmas” is a concept that derives from a political gathering in Nicea to promote a control-driven religion that came to hijack a Pagan holiday, which in Northern Europe was, and still is called Yule, a celebration of the Winter Solstice. Even the Holly King has been co-opted into today’s St. Nick.
If you are going to follow an over-bearing religion like Christianity, please at least have the decency to respect the beliefs of others and recognise that your politically driven religion was only designed to control the masses by centralising the message and replacing other reality driven faiths with a new brand of mind-controlling religious media.
at hmm–where did you get that information from? This pagan worship is mentioned in the bible and it warns those chosen by the Most High not to engage in heathen(pagan) customs because their gods are dead..The only way we should have given back to nature was not to build too much and to bury our dead within the earth..Please enough of the fairy myths that are used to conceal the true identity of a people who are yet to meet their messiah Who will appear and ALL will know and some will see for themselves eventually..
Read Dawkins.
Reality is the truth. The magic of reality!
Belief systems are personal but there is science and proof that negate the fantasies, Fantasy isn’t real, but it makes a lot of folks happy.
Thank you Bishop Dill for acknowledging Christ at Christmas.