The Christmas Wars, or How to Use Christmas as an Excuse to be a Jerk

Nothing like a fine whine at Christmas. It seems to go with the season these days, along with the politicalization of everything.

So here is what got this one started. Rachel Held Evans posted this on her blog...

...and a friend of mine re-posted it on his or her Facebook page…

...and predictably, a commenter decided to disagree:

[Name withheld]: OK, I can agree that someone wishing me Happy Holidays is not persecuting me personally. But since the chart is a slap at anyone concerned about the removal of Christ from the "holidays" I guess I don't see it as such a great chart. Call me crazy, but secularism doesn't need anymore [sic] defenders, IMHO.

...and I chimed in with this link…

It went downhill from there.

[Name withheld]:  [T]hat wasn't my point. I was just ruminating on why Christians would be joining in the making sport of people who think secularism has gone too far, or in the case of the Patheos article, that don't believe the govt should be forcing them to enable people to trash their values. I mean, sure, a Christian joining in the ostracizing of "exttremist" [sic] Christians is likely to get a nice article in the NY Times ... but like I sad [sic], secularism doesn't need any help bashing the Truth.

...and later, after I pointed out that this kind of entitled attitude was exactly why articles like this were needed:

Thank you, Tim, for demonstrating WHY Christian views are headed for the minority…

…Your point sounds great when you twist the idea of simply not serving someone who wants to use your service to send a public message attacking your faith into expressing moral outrage about someone who doesn't "share" your values.

I will leave it to my readers to speculate about which specific instance in the Patheos link this commenter was referring. It doesn’t take a genius to figure it out. But the sentiment applies as well to the Christmas Wars™. Not familiar with the Christmas Wars™?

Somewhere along the line, a significant segment of Evangelical Christianity came to the conclusion that saying “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas” was a personal affront to their faith - a "slap" if you will, and an example of the supposed war on Christianity and God and all. “Happy Holidays” was an attack on the faith. This was serious. Terrible. How could we let this happen?

Now, I’ll be honest. Christmas these days is ridiculously commercialized. The marketing machine portrays Christmas as little more than a bacchanalia of overconsumption overlaid with a treacle of charitable feeling. And yes, I am sick of hearing Mariah Carey long before Thanksgiving.

So yes, I am sympathetic to the argument that Christmas has travelled far from its spiritual roots as a celebration of the Advent. Much of modern commercial Christmas makes me gag. On the other side, yes, I know Christmas also has borrowed from pagan and secular sources too. ALL holidays tend to do this. They reflect the past and the present in a weird, messy amalgam. It’s how humans work. There is no other way to logically explain fruitcake.

The complaints about the commercialism of Christmas aren’t exactly new, however. The Puritans (during the English Civil War) attempted to outlaw Christmas celebrations for this reason. This act was one of several that soured the populace on the whole Puritan experiment. The Puritans vastly underestimated the popularity of Christmas celebrations, and eventually paid the political price.

And what about one of the most famous Christmas stories of all time? Charles Dickens expressly fought against what he perceived as the corruption of Christmas in his ever popular tale, A Christmas Carol.

This is all nothing new. In fact, one might even say that diatribes against the commercialization of Christmas (often while participating in said commerce) is itself a Christmas tradition.

So anyway, a decade and a half or so ago, this became a "Thing." See that “x-mas”? That is the secularists taking the Christ out of Christmas.

(Actually, this is baloney. The use of “x-mas” dates to the 16th Century, and the use of “X” as an abbreviation for “Christ” dates back even further. The Greek letter “Chi” - our X - is the first letter in the Greek for Christ, and was used as an abbreviation in that language.)

Hear them saying, “Happy Holidays”? That’s because they want to eliminate Christ from the celebration.

Now, it is true that a number of corporations and businesses did consciously decide to use the more inclusive term. After all, the United States, while predominantly Christian, does contain Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Atheists, and others. Why not wish them all happy celebrations? More customers are a good thing, right? But no, this is a deliberate attack on Christians.

Now, I think one can interpret things a few different ways. Obviously, there is the “they’re trying to eliminate the Christian origin of the holiday” approach.

There is another one that comes to mind for me:

Perhaps “they” are trying to commercialize the other holidays just like Christmas.

A little irony perhaps? If Christmas can drive consumption, why not Hanukkah? Why not Ramadan? Why not the Winter Solstice?

Does anyone else find it a little inconsistent to rail against the commercialization of Christmas and yet complain that the commercialization isn’t exclusively Christian?

Shamelessly stolen from Slate.com’s delightfully apropos 2005 screed by the late Christopher Hitchens, who gets right to the heart of the insecurity underlying the Christmas Wars.

So, what does one do about these evil merchants, trying to destroy the faith? Boycott, of course!

The American Family Association has a handy guide for you.

Or, as I would describe it, “How to use Christmas and your faith to act like an asshole.”

(Just to be clear, this does not represent all of Evangelical Christianity. Conservative Christian weekly World Magazine’s Jeanie Cheaney called out the AFA for this.)

Because really, this looks like a toddler tantrum.

“It’s MY holiday. MINE! MINE! MINE! This is about ME! My religion! YOU can’t share the happiness of this season! Bad, bad secularists!”

If other people want to broaden the good will, or - horrors - fail to remind people that this is all about Jesus, then we must fight them. We must give grief to stressed retail clerks who are trying to do their jobs. We must use our economic power to force them to Jesusify (is that a word?) everything again. Because this is OUR holiday. Mine! Mine! Mine!

The entitlement is just appalling to me. I guess we Christians have been so used to being the dominant force in culture that we can’t really handle losing influence. The thought of our “values” being ignored is just too terrible to contemplate. So we end up doing silly things to try to regain our dominance.

And we do look rather silly. It’s embarrassing. It makes us seem insecure in the extreme.

One wonders if one could even function as a minority in a society with this attitude? We only do business with people who agree with us? That only works if your customer base is really big. I suspect that Christians in those places where they are a minority can’t really afford to to be officious assholes to their customers.

And really, would it change anything that matters if corporate clerks were to say “Merry Christmas” exclusively, or if advertisements were to hawk “Christmas” sales rather than “Holiday” sales? Is someone really going to say, “Gosh darn, I always thought December was just another holiday season, but now that I heard someone say Merry Christmas, I’m going to become a Christian!”?

Or maybe this is just about extending the middle finger to everyone else, and then complaining that we are being “persecuted.” Complaining that the malevolent forces of “secularism” have destroyed our nice little Christian nation. I guess it is easier than examining why a once ubiquitous faith has failed to capture the hearts and minds of succeeding generations. It’s easier to play the victim and blame those of us who aren’t out there fighting the Christmas Wars™ for causing the decline. To say that those of us who find this attitude to be whiny and entitled are somehow “compromising” with the secularists. As if things would have been better if more of us had been Assholes for Christ.

I suspect most people (if not all) know the Christian origin of Christmas. In fact, since a majority of the population in our country self-identify as Christians, they probably are celebrating it in part as a religious holiday.

Others may not believe in the religious component, but celebrate because it is a fun holiday. (Sort of like why my family wears green on Saint Patrick’s Day, despite being neither Irish nor Catholic.)

And there will be others who celebrate other holidays at this time. And a few poor souls who choose to celebrate nothing.

And you know what? I wish them all happiness as well.

“Happy Holidays” isn’t an insult to me or my faith. Some will repeat it by rote, but I suspect most people are trying to be nice. They may even sincerely wish that I have a happy holiday.

A few times, I have been wished a Happy Hanukkah. I have been wished a happy Winter Solstice once, I believe. (No Ramadan yet…)

I did not find it to be an insult. The Winter Solstice may or may not have been a statement, but I would rather hope that December 21st is a good day for me. In fact, I plan to mention the day to my kids. Not because I am a pagan, but because it fits with their current astronomy studies. And really, we flagrantly stole some pretty fun ideas from the Winter Solstice and made them Christmas traditions. Bwahaha!

I do not feel that this is a “compromise” with secularism. Rather, I feel that it is keeping with the true spirit of the original Christmas.

The people who walk in darkness

           Will see a great light;

           Those who live in a dark land,

           The light will shine on them.  

    You shall multiply the nation,

           You shall increase their gladness;

           They will be glad in Your presence

           As with the gladness of harvest,

           As men rejoice when they divide the spoil.

         For You shall break the yoke of their burden and the staff on their shoulders,

           The rod of their oppressor, as at the battle of Midian.

         For every boot of the booted warrior in the battle tumult,

           And cloak rolled in blood, will be for burning, fuel for the fire.

         For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us;

           And the government will rest on His shoulders;

           And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,

           Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.

         There will be no end to the increase of His government or of peace,

           On the throne of David and over his kingdom,

           To establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness

           From then on and forevermore.

           The zeal of the LORD of hosts will accomplish this.

A light to the darkness. The yoke and the rod of the oppressor broken. The implements of war burned for fuel. Justice and righteousness - and above all peace.

“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, and good will toward men.”

This spirit is reflected in the greatest stories we tell of Christmas time.

Saint Nicholas, one of the signatories of the Nicene Creed, who gave gifts to the poor and fought against oppression.

Ebeneezer Scrooge, who hoped the poor would die quickly and decrease the surplus population; but was transformed by his encounter with his past, present, and future and the spirits of Christmas, so that he thereafter “kept Christmas well.”

The Grinch, a modern take on Scrooge, who finds that taking away the trappings of Christmas is ineffective at taking its heart.

And the greatest story of them all, of the God who gave up all the trappings of His glory, came to earth as a human, to a world that rejected and murdered Him, and gave the greatest gift to those who didn’t appreciate it: eternal life.

And thus, I find the Christmas Wars™ to be so contrary to the spirit of Christmas - and indeed to the spirit of my faith.

I don’t see a celebration of the greatest gift and the greatest love as a reason to complain about a lack of cultural dominance. I don’t see it as an opportunity to marginalize the celebrations of other faiths - even if I don’t agree with those creeds. I don’t see holiday greetings as an opening for a verbal war.

And I certainly don’t take “Happy Holidays” as a hostile act.

If you wish me “Happy Holidays,” I will say “Thank you,” and express my wish that your holidays be happy as well. I may just wish you a Merry Christmas as well, because I hope that your Christmas may be merry, whether you celebrate it or not.

I’ll steal from the Irish, again, because I love this one:

The light of the Christmas star to you

The warmth of home and hearth to you

The cheer and good will of friends to you

The hope of a childlike heart to you

The joy of a thousand angels to you

The love of the Son and God's peace to you

And also, since I am no fan of the materialism and commercialism that accompanies Christmas, I will be subversive in my own way, by linking to an article by a man who has been a great influence on my life since my youth through his writing. Ladies and gentlemen, I present:

Dave Barry’s 2013 Christmas Gift Guide

And finally, a bit of music from Handel on the text above, one of my favorite bits of music ever written. 

Quick note:

The commenter I have quoted above demonstrated his philosophy in his comments rather clearly (including in some additional comments I have omitted). There are multiple “buzz words” that reference Dominionist and Reconstructionist ideas. This might be an interesting future post - how the rise of Reconstructionism colors, and in some cases drives, the culture wars.

Quick note on the late Christopher Hitchens:

I disagree with Hitchens on many things, the most central of which is the existence of God, obviously. On the other hand, I have always appreciated the way he stood up for freedom of speech in the face of threats from radical Islam. I also appreciate the way he can cut through religious hypocrisy. I wish more Christians would get their heads out of their own echo chambers and actually listen to how we sound to others.  Reading Hitchens once in a while would be a good start.

The Haunted Man by Charles Dickens

Source of Book: I own this.

Date originally posted on Facebook: December 20, 2010

In addition to one of the best Spock lines, (“Perhaps ‘because it is there’ is not sufficient reason for climbing a mountain.”); Star Trek V: The Final Frontier contains an interesting scene.

Sybok, the prophet, if you will, for the personage alleged to be “God” in the movie, has been gaining control of various characters by revealing to each their most secret pain, and then offering to take that pain away. Dr. McCoy tries to convince Kirk to give in to Sybok, saying, “This man took away my pain.”

Kirk responds, “[Pain and Guilt] are the things we carry with us, the things that make us who we are. We lose them, we lose ourselves. I don’t want my pain taken away! I need my pain!”

But Charles Dickens was there first.

Dickens wrote five Christmas novels in addition to twenty-some Christmas themed short stories. The first was A Christmas Carol, perhaps the best known story in our modern times. My (admittedly incomplete) research seems to indicate that no other story has been made into as many movies as this one. I would even be willing to wager that a random sample of persons would reveal more familiarity with this story than the nativity itself. Oddly enough, I have found that few have read the original. No excuses! Read it this season!

For the last five years, I have read one Dickens Christmas novel each December between the craziness of Nutcracker week and the frenzy of food, family, and fun that is the holiday itself. This year, I reached the last one, The Haunted Man. Starting next year, [2011] I intend to include the kids in this tradition, starting back at the beginning.

In chronological order, the novels are, A Christmas Carol, The Chimes, The Cricket on the Hearth, The Battle of Life, and The Haunted Man.

None of the others quite rises to the level of the original – perhaps an impossible task. Each is charming in its own way, however, and worth reading.

The central premise of this story is the role of pain in making us human. Mr. Redlaw, a successful, if eccentric, chemist, is described as appearing haunted. As the story unfolds, it becomes clear that he is haunted both by his memories of his tragic past and by a phantom that he alone sees. This phantom resembles him, being perhaps a metaphysical embodiment of his darkest self. Mr. Redlaw grew up under circumstances nearly identical to that of David Copperfield, himself semi-autobiographical. Later, Mr. Redlaw’s best friend jilts Redlaw’s sister, instead marrying Redlaw’s sweetheart. Redlaw’s devoted sister later dies, leaving Redlaw embittered at fate.

The phantom offers Redlaw a gift: the phantom will erase Redlaw’s memory of all sorrow, wrong, and trouble. This sounds good to Redlaw, despite some misgivings, after he is promised that none of his other mental faculties or memories will be disturbed. There is a catch, however. Not only will Redlaw receive this gift, but all he comes in contact will receive the gift from him as well.

I do not wish to spoil the story, so I will not reveal any more about the plot.

It is worth noting that Dickens’ Christmas novels are remarkably dark. We tend to think of Christmas as unfailingly optimistic, bright, cheerful. Dickens instinctively grasped the need for a contrast of light and dark, deep unhappiness that will reveal joy in its splendor. Besides, the shiver of reading a good ghost story by the glimmer from the lights on the Christmas tree is unmistakable.

If you have not read A Christmas Carol, you simply must. Read it to your kids. As to the others, kids would enjoy The Cricket on the Hearth. The Battle of Life, despite its underwhelming title, and The Haunted Man would be suitable for older children, who might not get the point. The Chimes goes to a very dark place. Consider that one in the same class as Edgar Allen Poe – kids prone to nightmares might want to grow up a little.

A note on my copy of this book:

My copy of the five Christmas novels is a Heritage Books boxed hardback. I have nearly a dozen of these by Dickens that match, several of which I have collected used at library sales and used book stores. This book, along with a few others that started my collection, were given to me by Dale Brooks. (The now retired Music Theory professor from Bakersfield College, and the husband of my former violin teacher) In addition to this generous gift, he also introduced me to and gave me my first books by P. G. Wodehouse, Anthony Trollope, and Wilkie Collins. For this, I am truly grateful.

The Sunday Philosophy Club by Alexander McCall Smith

Source of book: My wife owns this and introduced me to the author

In general, I am not a big fan of genre fiction. However, I do have a weakness for mysteries - particularly those in the British tradition. (I devoured Agatha Christie as a child - following in my mother’s footsteps.) Just this year, I read and reviewed the fourth installment in Alan Bradley’s Flavia series, and A Duty to the Dead by Charles Todd. McCall Smith (that is his actual surname - the McCall is not a middle name) is one of those truly eccentric characters that seem to be too odd even for fiction.

He was born in Rhodesia (in an area that is now Zimbabwe), came to Scotland to study law, taught law for a few years while writing short stories and children’s books, returned to Africa to co-found the University of Botswana, returned to Scotland to teach - and become a recognized expert in - medical law, and finally found his present career as a novelist at nearly age 60.

He served for a time on the British Medical Journal Ethics Committee and the Human Genetics Commission for the United Kingdom. During the 1980s and 1990s, he wrote or co-wrote a whole bunch of scholarly books on bioethics and related issues.

Oh, and he plays bassoon and contrabassoo in The Really Terrible Orchestra, a group he helped found. For some reason, his photograph on the book shows him with a tuba. I suspect he may fill in on that if necessary…

Alexander McCall Smith with his more proper instrument, the contrabassoon

The Sunday Philosophy Club is the first in the series of the same name, featuring the middle aged Isabel Dalhousie, independently wealthy editor of the Review of Applied Ethics, which is pretty much what it sounds like. From what my wife has told me, Isabel’s maid, Grace; her niece, Cat; and Cat’s ex-boyfriend Jamie are all recurring characters in the series. Cat has terrible taste in men (having rejected Jamie, of course). Jamie is still in love with Cat, while Isabel is in love with Jamie, but doesn’t realize it.

The book is filled with references to art - particularly Scottish art, music, and philosophy. The good news is the McCall Smith has enough background in these areas to get the details right. (It’s best that those who never listen to classical music refrain from saying anything about Stockhausen, for example.) The author also gets bonus points for introducing me to a (relatively) obscure Scottish composer, Hamish MacCunn. (Mostly unknown in the United States, as far as I can tell.) However, thanks to the magic of the internet, I was able to find clips and information.

I’m not enough of an art expert to be quite as picky as I am about music, but those details I did know, he got right. Philosophy is the big theme in this series, for obvious reasons. I enjoyed Isabel’s mental games as she analysed her options through the lens of philosophy. (And totally sympathized when all her careful ethical plans went out the window in the heat of the moment. Never done that before…)

The plot itself isn’t anything particularly striking, but it works. The characters are the interesting part, and their personalities drive the plot.

The best lines are the little observations in the mind of Isabel, as the story is told from her point of view (third person subjective, for those who care). Here is a good one regarding a particular article submitted to the journal:

It appeared to be written in English, but it was a variety of English which Isabel felt occurred only in certain corners of academia, where faux-weightiness was a virtue.

I also found her musing on the connection between manners - those deeper than the surface - and virtue to be interesting, although not universally true.

Good manners depended on paying moral attention to others; it required one to treat them with complete moral seriousness, to understand their feelings and their needs. Some people, the selfish, showed no inclination to do this, and it always showed. They were impatient with those whom they thought did not count: the old, the inarticulate, the disadvantaged. The person with good manners, however, would always listen to such people and treat them with respect.

Definitely food for thought. When compassion becomes condescending, it is usually because of this failing.

On a related note, this line:

The world, it seemed, was based on lies and half-truths of one sort or another, and one of the tasks of morality was to help us negotiate our way round these.

I’ve mentioned in the past that we tend to want to impose narratives on history to give us a sense that everything makes sense, and can be fully explained and understood. Often these narratives contain a good deal of falsehood - and all contain incomplete truth. When we let those falsehoods and half truths become more important than our basic morality, when we let our necessarily imperfect understanding of the world lead us to cause harm to others, we have done wrong, even when we have a political or religious philosophy to back us up. (The theological justification for the institution of slavery comes to mind, but there are plenty of modern examples too. One could turn on C-SPAN and listen to either party and come up with a hundred examples.)

I wasn’t really expecting to get off into that in a review of a relatively light book, but I did find myself thinking in that direction. Isabel has to negotiate some tricky dilemmas - such as how much she should involve herself in what may have been a murder - and the author intentionally avoids the easy cases. In that respect, I see some commonalities with G. K. Chesterton’s Father Brown stories. (I don’t think anyone has bested Chesterton, though. His are still the best for their psychological penetration, in my opinion.)

Note on The Really Terrible Orchestra:

The Orchestra makes an appearance in this book, and it was a pleasant surprise to find that it actually had that name in real life too.

McCall Smith wanted to play in a group that was like a school orchestra, where everyone played for fun, not as a career, and marginal musicians were welcome. Since such an orchestra did not exist in Scotland, he founded one. The orchestra has a website, which is worth a visit.  There are some fun clips and interviews and such. McCall Smith is featured prominently, of course. Always leverage celebrity power. The orchestra is truly terrible, and fulfills its goal marvelously.

One thing that was pretty clear to me after reading McCall Smith’s account of its founding was that Scotland is vastly different from the United States. We have a longstanding community orchestra tradition, and such groups exist in most reasonably large communities throughout the country. Some of these are in the spirit of the Really Terrible Orchestra, while others are of higher musical quality, but all have the goal of allowing those who do not wish to pursue music as a profession to make music anyway. In addition, our junior college system encourages older and “enrichment” students to participate in their music programs. I know a number of players who lack the chops to go the professional route who nonetheless have great enthusiasm who have found places to play.

Even the Bakersfield Symphony Orchestra, while it is a professional organization, employs primarily those who have other “day jobs,” as it is a very part-time gig.

So, I certainly appreciate the thought behind the Really Terrible Orchestra, and am thankful that the tradition of community music remains in my own country.

Note on Hamish MacCunn:

Here is his best known work. Pleasant enough, but not in the class of the very best, which is probably why it is primarily played in the United Kingdom.