Humanists UK fail to acknowledge that every organisation has its reasons for what it does and every organisation operates in line with its core convictions. What they seem to believe is that such is fine when those core convictions are secular humanist ones, but not if they happen to be Christian. Even, it seems worth noting, at the specifically Christian-adjacent festival of Christmas where Christians celebrate the implications of the birth of Christ which their Bible (where they got the idea of the story from) insists is good news for all the world.

Humanists UK have released their annual missive whinging on about Operation Christmas Child. You can read their concerns here. Notably, one of their Vice Presidents – Polly Toynbee – took up the case in the national press a few years ago.

You can usually find someone in the Guardian willing to argue about how awful it is that Christians might send presents to children at Christmas. It is deemed pernicious and covert evangelism because they include some Christian literature in the shoe boxes and so Humanists UK are adamant schools ought to have nothing to do with it. I answered these objections several years ago and little has happened, or changed in the Humanist UK argument, to make it any less valid six years later. So, rather than re-invent the wheel, I thought I would re-share the link below and read what still essentially holds today.

If you read it, you will hear about how Samaritan’s Purse covertly and perniciously evangelise through OCC by telling everybody quite clearly on their website that is what they do. You can also read about how Humanists UK are mad that Christians might use Christmas as an opportunity to talk about their faith – which is hideous evangelism – whilst they may talk about humanism to their heart’s content and seek to convince people of its core tenets and absolute rightness, which definitely, absolutely, without question isn’t evangelism at all. Indeed, they are angry that Christians might seek to convert Muslims to their faith, and seem terribly worried for the Muslims and how upset they might be to receive Christian literature, but seem of the view that public comments from a humanist perspective, that would similarly seek to convert them away from Islam is, well, perfectly reasonable.

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