Christmas as you’ve never seen it before

A Church of England priest introduces her artistic re-imaginings of the first Christmas

When Rev Hana Amner began training to become a priest, she found it “incredibly inaccessible”. From a working-class background, she didn’t fit the traditional mould, but found she loved theology, and could express it in a very particular way. 

“I found myself illustrating theological ideas because, although I didn’t always have the words to explain them, I could put them into pictures,” she says. 

With this collection of illustrations, Amner aims to: “reimagine the true elements of the Nativity story.” Mary and Joseph are depicted as refugees who walk down a high street, begging people to help them (above). Having experienced homelessness in her late teens, Amner knows what it’s like to be in desperate need, yet be ignored by society.