Look at what matters before waging war for Christmas
Melanie Mock, Faculty
November 28, 2007
My, we American Christians can be fragile sometimes. We see threats to our faith everywhere: in public school classrooms, in Hollywood, in Hillary Clinton's campaign, in the checkout line at Wal-Mart.
Perhaps without the threat of persecution experienced by our sisters and brothers in other times and, even now, in other places, we look for mostly benign opportunities to have our faith challenged and our Christian selves confirmed resilient. And, perhaps because practicing faith in the United States is so easy, so devoid of persecution, we feel we must construct contemporary mythologies about our Christian Faith in Peril.
This means, at Christmas time, resurrecting the legend that everyone, everywhere is out to destroy the most significant of Christian holidays: by taking Christ out of Christmas, by forgetting the Reason for the Season, by choosing to send greeting cards that say "Season's Greetings" rather than "Merry Christmas."
This Christmas-Christian hysteria seems to have reached a fevered pitch in the past few years. Conservative Christians have announced a "War on Christmas," certain that secularists have seiged their sacred holiday and attempted to purge it of all things holy. Presumably, the "war's" battle lines have been drawn in the nation's big box stores, where Wal-Mart and Target employees barrage shoppers with verbal assaults like "Have a Happy Holiday!" How, I wonder, can Christian consumers withstand such barbarism?
Two years ago, Christian activist groups called for a boycott of Wal-Mart during the Christmas season. Several media giants lent voice to the cause, Bill O'Reilly and Dr. Laura chief among them. Their on-air screeds about "Christmas under Siege" seemed disingenuous, even opportunistic. Why would Dr. Laura, an Orthodox Jew, be so terribly aggrieved by Wal-Mart's decision to say "Season's Greetings" rather than "Merry Christmas"?
At any rate, I can think of numerous reasons to avoid shopping at Wal-Mart: its exploitation of part-time workers, its misogynistic management policies, its refusal to provide decent wages or solid health insurance for its employees. That the company chooses not to use "Christmas" in its stores matters little: Why should people of faith care whether a capitalist institution acknowledge a Christian holiday? After all, Wal-Mart's ethos is informed by its bottom line, not its belief in a Savior. Do we really need to pretend otherwise?
To be honest, I am perplexed by how important this presumed war seems to some Christians. On the one hand, they will argue that Christmas has become too commercialized, and that our current-day focus on purchasing presents for Christmas takes away from the real meaning of Christmas; on the other hand, they want commercial institutions to acknowledge Christmas as a religious holiday.
It seems rather impossible to have it both ways.
Of course, some people will argue that the "War on Christmas" is merely symptomatic of a larger secular assault on Christian values: the eradication of prayer in school, for example, or the removal of religious displays from public spaces. Perhaps I don't understand the significant of a Christmas war because I believe so ardently in the separation of the state and the church, for the good of the state-and of the church.
And I believe ardently in the separation of Christmas into its various wonderful, beautiful, memorable parts. One part of Christmas I celebrate with family and friends, fattening cookies, a sweet-smelling Douglas Fir, my kids on Santa's lap, Rudolph on TV, and lots and lots of presents. And the other, far more significant part of Christmas, I celebrate at church during the Advent season, as we prepare for Christ's coming; and on Christmas Eve, as I light candles with my Christian family, singing "Silent Night" to acknowledge the arrival of a child-savior; and on Christmas Day with my children in my lap, reading Luke 2 together.
Christians don't need Bill O'Reilly or Wal-Mart to remind us of the significance of our faith's most sacred holiday. Surely the Nativity story provides reminder enough-for those not too hardened by "war" to hear it.