[christmas carols] when it is a subversive activity

Via Martin Kelly and Mark Shea:

A post-Christian culture like ours can make tips of the hat to Christ while laboring to escape him with might and main.

Meanwhile, in China under the Commies, a television broadcast of somebody singing "White Christmas" can be a deliberately subversive act feared by the State that fully intends to defy the State and give homage to Christmas and the Christ at the center of it.

In such a case, give me the latter over the former every time. God loves the widow's mite more than all the riches of the godless.

This motif of a church persecuted is possibly the truest place for Christianity - certainly, it is being true to its roots in a such a situation. Take the Copts, for example:

After having survived the persecution of the Roman Pagans, they were once again besieged, now by other Christians. Hence, when the Arabs invaded Egypt in the mid-seventh century AD, they met little resistance from the native Christian population.

Puts it in perspective really.