On line on December 19th, 20th and 21st, an experiment from SIR Daily News in English. The service will officially start on January 9th 2006
"In a world ruled by fear, the words spoken by the angel to the shepherds on Christmas eve can still be heard: Fear not". It is a message that invites people to have the hope of Christmas all year round, the one that the main Christian Churches of Belgium have jointly sent to the country. The wishes are sent for the Catholic Church by card. Godfried Danneels, for the United Protestant Church of Belgium by Guy Liagre, for the Orthodox Church by the metropolitan bishop Panteleimon and for the Anglican church by the archdeacon Dirk Van Leeuwen. "Christmas is around the corner in a world which is too often driven by fear", write the representatives of the Christian Churches. It is a "real fear before today’s challenges". The message speaks of the "fear of an escalation of violence, which might have unpredictable consequences in the Middle Eastern tensions, and of this violence spreading to the nearby regions". The Churches also recall "the galloping epidemic of the HIV virus, which has caused millions of deaths, especially in southern Africa". And again, the fear of natural catastrophes and "in our country, the fear of a colder and colder society, which leads to seclusion". The picture aptly depicts "a general feeling of fear, uncertainty and powerlessness". What the Churches fear most is a risk: "Sometimes they write fear can lead us to blindly follow those who offer and promise protection and safety", thereby falling in a "circle of Hell, which turns our wish for protection into a bigger and bigger fear". Hence the invitation to believe in "God’s love", which is offered to us at Christmas with the bith of Jesus, which is the "promise of a new world. We can sense its traces wherever men try to live according to love".
