I think I have an idea that in a few generations would get rid of our whole “Christmas dilemma”. The problem as it stands is this: liberal groups such as the ACLU like to target Christmas because Christianity has become the “king of the hill” in American culture. I say this in reference to the game where a person has to control a small space for a certain amount of time to win, and others try to wrestle him off to take over.
Christianity sits at the top of the hill for now, permeating an overwhelming amount of our social culture. Anecdotal evidence says 80% of Americans claim to be Christian. I’m not stating it as truth, because (a)I don’t like to count people who say their Christian but don’t go to church and live like they never have…I also don’t like to count Easter/Christmas Christians…and (b) I just don’t believe it. Anyway, it’s there. Then you have these holidays, Easter and Christmas, which everyone associates with Christianity, and most of America celebrate. Jesus has owned Western culture so long that people are ready to rebel.
The problem with this battle is that Christmas is just barely a religious holiday. I mean, 90% of what happens between Black Friday and December 25 in the name of Christmas is about toys and family getting together. Christmas trees have nothing to do with Jesus…neither do holly, mistletoe, caroling, feasting, or any of the other things that Christmas is known for. The only Jesus centered things that commonly happen are Handel’s Messiah, which was meant for the Lenten season, nativity scenes, and Christmas pageants. And the pageants are basically the same as any other stage show for most people. Many nonbelievers participate in and patronize these productions.
What this means is, if we moved Messiah back to Lent, and dedicated some real effort to determining which month (and maybe week) Jesus was born, we could put up the nativities and do the pageants then. What we’d be left with is a completely secular holiday: the Yuletide.
This would be good for both non-religious people who enjoy the magic of the season, and Christians who constantly argue about whether or not it’s right for a Christian to celebrate Christmas. There would be no pressure for the former to take on any beliefs, and none for the latter to actually participate in the celebrations. The only people it would not be good for are those who enjoy bringing attention to themselves by speaking out against Christmas, or talking about the war on Christmas.
Understand that I am in no way advocating any type of pagan celebration or worship. What I’m suggesting is that we divorce Christ’s birth from the solstice celebration. We can be fairly sure he wasn’t born then, so let’s stop pretending. If we’re going to celebrate his birth, we should at least attempt to do so accurately.
My wife brought up a good point about this idea. If it took hold and actually became the practice, 100 years from now or so, people would look back and say, “I can’t believe they used to celebrate Jesus’ birth at the end of December.” And school children would learn about the winter solstice and how it used to be celebrated as the birth of Jesus. It would be kind of like learning that Veterans Day is the anniversary of the treaty that ended World War II, and used to be called Armistice Day…I like that word: “armistice”. Maybe we need one for this. A treaty that would be an agreement that the American Yuletide celebration would not be officially associated with any religion. Do you think this could happen before the Fair Tax? I wonder…
Technorati Tags: aclu, black_friday, celebrate_jesus, christian, christianity, christmas, christmas_pageants, christmas_trees, Church, easter, jesus_was_born, king_of_the_hill, liberal_groups, messiah, nativity_scenes, pagan, religious_holiday, social_culture, solstice, Theology, war_on_christmas, western_culture, yuletide
Blogs4God
