James Taranto may be right in his view that the tiny coterie that wants to rid the world of Christmas has benefitted from Christian overreaction to their efforts. We ought to laugh at the ACLU, Americans United, PFAW and like-minded fanatics. Or we might subversively observe that their preferred substitute, “holiday”, is scarcely a secular term. Sure, it has dwindled into a synonym for “day of rest”, but that, too, is a religious reference. It is, in fact, only man, made in the image of God, that enjoys “holy days” free from labor. For our kin in the animal kingdom, December 25th is just another diurnal routine.
I wrote down my own thoughts about the “Christmas Wars” several years ago and have found no reason to alter them. Quoting myself in part:
The rationale for breaking the public connection between December 25th and Christianity is that government “support” of Christmas amounts to sponsorship of a particular religion. Yet very few secularists press that rationale to its obvious conclusion: If it is unacceptable for city employees to say “Merry Christmas”, how can one justify giving those same workers a day off in recognition of the birth of Jesus? Why shouldn’t Christians have to draw on their vacation allotments to observe their holy days, just like Jews and Moslems and Hindus and Buddhists? Closing down the entire country is surely a far more emphatic endorsement of Christianity than allowing school skits based on the gospels of Matthew and Luke. (The great Talmudic scholar Jacob Neusner once noted that his sister’s Jewish faith had not been undermined by several years of portraying the Virgin Mary in Christmaspageants.) . . .
Christians often complain about attacks on Christmas. Rarely do we ask why the assault is so half-hearted, so much less relentless than, for instance, the villification of Christianity for opposing abortion, promiscuity and homosexuality. I do not have a confident explanation but should like to offer a hopeful theory.
No man who looks at the universe from a purely naturalistic and secular perspective can be wholly satisfied, either intellectually or morally, by what he sees. The universe begins and ends in incomprehensible riddles. Between lies the greater riddle of why any being should show justice, mercy or love toward another except as a selfish means of obtaining the necessities and pleasures of existence. Secular ethics invariably winds up as either an unexamined acquiescence in transcendant morality or an elaborate justification for using others as means to our own ends.
The Incarnation of Our Lord offers a different, less despairing picture of who we are, and where, and why. Moreover, it is less threatening than that presented by much of the rest of Christian (or other religious) doctrine. God comes not as an irresistible King but as a helpless Baby. He knows our weakness and infirmity, because He has lived like us. Divine justice, mercy and love are more real, less like condescension, when they issue from one Who is truly human.
The Orthodox Church’s epistle reading for Christmas Day teaches, “But when the fullness of time came, God sent His Son, born of a woman, born under the power of the Law, in order that he might redeem those held under the power of the Law, in order, that is, that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba, Father!’ So then, you are no longer a slave but a son; and if you are a son, you are also an heir by God’s act of adopton.” (Galatians 4:4-7)
God and His Church cannot always speak to us sweetly and comfortably, but on Christmas Day they do, with a message of undiluted hope. That message is for everyone, and not even its fiercest disbelievers can, it appears, wholly regret that once a year our secular state grants a forum for its proclamation.
And since this post is a day late, Happy Boxing Day! (No endorsement of violent sporting events intended.)
Comments