Skip to content
Join our Newsletter

No room at the mall

In Luke 2:7, Jesus Christ is born in a stable because there is no room at the inn for Joseph and Mary. Some readers infer that the innkeeper took pity on the expecting mother and offered the only shelter he had available.
edit.20181121_11202018.jpg

In Luke 2:7, Jesus Christ is born in a stable because there is no room at the inn for Joseph and Mary.

Some readers infer that the innkeeper took pity on the expecting mother and offered the only shelter he had available. Others believe the innkeeper must have been cruel and heartless for not finding better accommodation for the couple.

Neither side is correct.

The innkeeper in Bethlehem makes no appearance in any of the Gospels. Anyone trying to pass judgment upon the innkeeper is doing so with no information to support their conclusion.

And so it is with the online outrage about the early end of a performance of Christmas carols at Pine Centre Mall on Friday night to kick off the Salvation Army's Christmas kettle campaign. Efforts to try to tar the mall as intolerant pagans trying to take the Christ out of Christmas don't match up to what Salvation Army representatives have said about what actually happened.

Nor does it reflect the reality that the Sally Ann kettles are still at the mall, just as they always have been during every holiday season.

Pine Centre Mall, like all shopping malls, is not a public place, despite the misplaced perception they are. It is private property and operates accordingly.

Pine Centre Mall has a long history of accommodating local community groups with fundraisers, not only with the Salvation Army but with a host of other worthy organizations selling cookies, raffle tickets and what not to support their cause. In exchange, the mall only asks in return that some simple ground rules are followed.

On the other side, the Salvation Army is a Christian church, despite the misplaced perception it is nothing more than a charity offering food and clothing to those in need.

Like all churches, the Salvation Army is serious about sharing the faith loud and proud.

That loud and proud part was probably the biggest source of Friday's problem.

The first singing group, the Bel Canto Choir, performed with no problems because they sang without amplification.

The second group, however, plugged in electric guitars and mics before starting their set.

"We are partly at fault," the Salvation Army's Neil Wilkinson told The Citizen on Saturday afternoon, acknowledging the performers were not supposed to have any kind of amplification during their performances. Wilkinson went on to say Pine Centre staff also informed him of complaints received about the choice of the music, specifically identifying two well-known traditional Christmas hymns Mary's Boy Child and Go Tell It On The Mountain.

"That's when I decided to shut it down," Wilkinson said. "The Salvation Army does not bare any ill will. We are very grateful for all our community partnerships. This is the first time we were asked not to sing religious music. The Salvation Army is a spiritual organization. We are Christian and being Christian is part of who we are."

Something doesn't add up here.

The mall plays Christmas music all through the holiday season, from the secular Santa songs like Jingle Bells and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer to the classic Christmas carols Silent Night and O Come All Ye Faithful. Furthermore, countless community choirs over the years, including the Salvation Army, have performed at the mall, all of them singing the Christmas standards.

If the mall has changed its policy on religious music - which it has every right to - it doesn't seem to be following its own policy. On the flip side, however, it begs the question of why the mall would allow some groups to sing holiday spirituals but not others.

The most likely culprit was actually volume, an issue Wilkinson himself identified.

In the end, however, to quote a different Luke, not the writer of one of the Gospels but Cool Hand Luke from the movies: "what we've got here is a failure to communicate."

When contacted by The Citizen, both the Salvation Army and Pine Centre Mall management stressed that the whole affair was a misunderstanding and neither wanted the incident to jeopardize their ongoing, positive collaboration.

In other words, just like all of our personal and professional relationships, one minor miscommunication hardly warrants dissolving a connection based on years of good will.

While the Salvation Army and the mall are maturely moving on, far too many other individuals are threatening boycotts and other ridiculous overreactions that would punish merchants and employees far more than mall administration. Instead of asking questions and being open to mistakes and misunderstandings, they leapt to self-righteous outrage.

So much for peace on Earth, good will towards all.

Or as the adult Christ himself reminds his disciples in the Book of John: "let he who is without sin cast the first stone."

This Christmas, let us all try to have some faith in the better angels of our nature, rather than defaulting to the cynical belief that everyone is out to get us and everything is a malicious attack.

Wishing all the best to our friends at the Salvation Army for another successful kettle campaign and our friends at Pine Centre Mall for another successful holiday retail season.

Merry Christmas, everyone.

-- Editor-in-chief Neil Godbout