With less than a week before Christmas, some people wonder about the need for this religious holiday.  It doesn’t take much reflection to agree with our very basic necessity: HELP.  We cannot pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps; we’ve tried it—and failed.

“Carlyle said that men were mostly fools. Christianity, with a surer realism, says that they are all fools. Sometimes called the doctrine of original sin, it may also be described as the doctrine of the equality of men. [For] whatever primary & far-reaching moral dangers affect any man, affect all men. All men can be criminals, if tempted; all men can be heroes, if inspired.”

• GK Chesterton