Blandford, UK - A Church of England clergyman has banned the popular hymn O Little Town of Bethlehem from his Christmas services because he claims it does not reflect the true state of the town believed by Christians to be the place of Jesus' birth.
The Rev Stephen Coulter, Rector of Pimperne in Blandford Forum, Dorset said he can no longer bring himself to sing the lyrics of the hymn as he believes they are too far removed from the reality of one of Christianity's holiest sites.
He took the controversial decision after making a recent pilgrimage to Bethlehem and seeing the conflict there at first hand.
Mr Coulter, 54, informed his parishioners at a carol service where O Little Town was due to have been sung. He has now re-written the orders of service for the rest of his December services so that he and his congregation don’t have to sing it. He said he can no longer bring himself to sing the 150-year-old hymn because it feels wrong and he would be a hypocrite.
He said: “At the service I took the opportunity to bring the congregation’s attention to what life is actually like there today. I can’t bring myself to physically sing the words, especially the opening line ’how still we see thee lie'.”
“That just isn’t what it is like there at the moment. It isn’t still and peaceful, it is full of tension and anger and fearful people. The line ’the hopes and fears of all the years' are much more appropriate.
“I love that hymn, it was the first hymn I learnt when I was five but I can’t in good faith go on singing it. I have taken it out of all the services in the build up to Christmas and have changed the order of services and have removed it.”
Mr Coulter visited the Middle East last month along with a group of 30 parishioners and said he was shocked by the security wall.
He described how the people of Bethlehem had to queue for three hours to pass check points at the wall to go about their business.
While he was there he was given a wooden Nativity scene which had been carved by a Bethlehem carpenter.with a fence separating Jesus’ crib and the three wise men.
Mr Coulter, the rector of four parishes near Blandford, Dorset, showed his congregation the carving at the recent service at St Peter’s Church in Pimperne.
He said: “I went to Bethlehem in 1995 and so much has changed since then, mainly the Israeli security wall which prevents Palestinians, Christian or Muslim, from accessing east Jerusalem.
“Palestinians have to wait three hours before they are allowed through. Our tour guide would sometimes queue for up to three hours to get out, but his wife and toddler daughters could not because they are considered a security risk. To see that is quite horrific.”
At the service he highlighted reports that the Israeli government was prohibiting the movement of Communion wine from Bethlehem this Christmas because that too was deemed a security risk.
He said: “Bethlehem today is indeed a place of dark streets and of hopes and fears. Despite this, the Christians we stayed with consider themselves descendents of the very shepherds who were keeping watch over flocks by night 2,000 years ago.
Can you imagine how they feel being stopped by security guards, Jews from Russia who have been in the country for only five years and who have all the freedoms denied those who have been there for centuries?
“They ask how the Jews who were treated so badly in World War Two now inflict the same treatment on others.”
Members of the congregation at the carol service largely supported the vicar’s stance. One said: “He made a very powerful sermon about Bethlehem and said afterwards that he was not singing the words this year and would not have it at his services this Christmas.“The rest of us sang it and I think there was a lot of sympathy for his stance because he had been to Bethlehem some years ago and went recently and saw how it had changed.”
Mr Coulter has also written to the Foreign Secretary David Milliband to lobby for peace in Bethlehem and to North Dorset MP Bob Walter, who was at the service.