Some leaders of the Christian Right have decided to make an issue of the secularization of Christmas. Objecting to the move by Macy's and some other retailers to wish their shoppers "Happy Holidays" or "Season's Greetings," instead of the traditional Merry Christmas, they accuse secularists in general, and, on some of the right-wing talk shows, Jews in particular, of undermining Christmas.
The assault has been led by Bill O'Reilly, the most popular cable newscaster, who told millions of viewers that there was a systematic assault on Christmas by secularists. When challenged by a Jewish caller who said he felt uncomfortable being subject to frequent attempts to convert him by Christians at his college, O'Reilly responded: "All right. Well, what I'm tellin' you is, I think you're takin' it too seriously. You have a predominantly Christian nation. You have a federal holiday based on the philosopher Jesus. And you don't wanna hear about it? Come on -- if you are really offended, you gotta go to Israel then.''
I told O'Reilly that my grandfather didn't come here from Russia to be in a "Christian country," but rather in a country that welcomes many different faith traditions and officially privileges none.
Meanwhile, Richard Viguerie, the master of right-wing direct-mail campaigns, interviewed by Terry Gross on NPR's Fresh Air, repeated the charge that Christians were the victims of a systematic secularists assault against Christmas. On MSNBC, William Donahue of the Catholic League insisted, "Hollywood is controlled by secular Jews who hate Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular. It's not a secret, OK? They like to see the public square without nativity scenes."
Liberals and civil libertarians would be making a huge mistake to see this as merely the rantings of a few overt anti-Semites and anti-civil-liberties extremists. They articulate a legitimate concern that many Christians say privately: their children have learned that Christmas is about buying -- and the person with the most expensive gifts wins!
There is a beautiful spiritual message underlying Christmas that has universal appeal: the hope that gets reborn in moments of despair, the light that gets re-lit in the darkest moments of the year, is beautifully symbolized by the story of a child born of a teenage homeless mother who had to give birth in a manger because no one would give her shelter, and escaping the cruelty of Roman imperial rule and its local surrogate Herod, who already knew that such a child would grow up to challenge the entire imperialist system. To celebrate that vulnerable child as a symbol of hope that eventually the weak would triumph over the rule of the arrogant and powerful is a spiritual celebration with strong analogies to our Jewish Hannukah celebration, which also celebrates the victory of the weak over the powerful, and the triumph of hope (symbolized by the Hannukah candles) over fear and the darkness of oppression (both ancient and contemporary). Many other spiritual traditions around the world have similar celebrations at this time of year around the winter equinox. The loss of this message, its subversion into a frenetic orgy of consumption, rightly disturbs Christians, Jews and other people of faith.
Yet, this transformation is not a result of Jewish parents wanting to protect their children from being forced to sing Christmas carols in public school, or secularists sending Season's Greeting cards. It derives, instead, from the power of the capitalist marketplace, operating through television, movies and marketers, to drum into everyone's mind the notion that the only way to be a decent human being at this time of year is to buy and buy more. Thus, the altruistic instinct to give, which could take the form of giving of our time, our skills and our loving energies to people we care about, gets transformed and subverted into a competitive frenzy of consumption.
Not surprisingly, the Christian Right is unwilling to challenge the capitalist marketplace -- because their uncritical support for corporate power is precisely what they had to offer the Right to become part of the conservative coalition. Their loyalty to conservative capitalist economics trumps for them their commitment to serving God. But for those of us who want to prevent a new surge of anti-Semitism and assaults on the First Amendment, our most effective path is to acknowledge what is legitimate in the Christians' concern -- and lead it into a powerful spiritual critique of the ethos of selfishness and materialism fostered by our economic arrangements. It's time for our liberal and progressive Christian leaders and neighbors to stand up again on behalf of Jews and on behalf of their own highest spiritual vision -- and challenge the real Christmas and Hannukah thieves! Meanwhile, the rest of us can consciously resist by giving gifts of time rather than gifts of things. Give your friends a certificate saying "I'll give you five hours to do ... " and then fill in the blanks with something that they might need that you could offer. Teach their child a skill or help that child with homework? Paint part of their home or fix a leaky pipe or mow their lawns or shovel their snow or give child-care time or do food shopping? Sharing your time could be far more meaningful, allow for real contact, etc. For those with whom you don't want that contact, don't buy -- just send them a lovingly written personal note affirming the values you want this season to teach. Resist the pressure to join the orgy of consumption!
http://www.tikkun.org
Rabbi Michael Lerner is editor of Tikkun and national chair of the Tikkun Community/ Network of Spiritual Progressives.
People are invited to subscribe to Tikkun magazine or join the interfaith organization the Network of Spiritual Progressives-- "both of which can be done by going to www.tikkun.org
...this bullshit would stop. Christians stole the winter solstice and claimed it for their own. There is no war on christmas, there is only a war on the sensibility of people with more between their ears than pith.
Christmas is an inescapable reality that begins two weeks before Halloween, and gets worse as the days wear on. Now we are moving into fever pitch mode with it. I am so fucking over it I could scream.
What's the point anyway? Christmas is about retailers making their yearly profit margins, and nothing else. There is no "Peace on Earth". There is no "Good Will to Men". There is only rampant consumerism and an illegal war killing people half way around the world.
Frankly, I can't wait 'til it's all over. Maybe then I can stop being assaulted by half-wits who are willing to fight over a meaningless holiday, but couldn't be bothered to concern themselves with something that might have real meaning in the grand scheme of things.
In the words of that immoral Xmas Icon, "Bah, humbug!"
Blessed be!
Pappy
by
Pappy (61 articles, 0 quicklinks, 11 diaries, 863 comments)
on Monday, December 18, 2006 at 5:23:14 AM
I think you make a good point that the meaning of Christmas has been distorting by merchandizing. The Christian Right are panicking at present because their intolerant practices and beliefs are driving away members, so they are lashing out at anything to get membership up again. Each family, or person needs to decide what this reason means to them and celebrate it.
by
SwampWitch (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 38 comments)
on Monday, December 18, 2006 at 9:53:49 PM
I think you make a good point that the meaning of Christmas has been distorting by merchandizing. The Christian Right are panicking at present because their intolerant practices and beliefs are driving away members, so they are lashing out at anything to get membership up again. Each family, or person needs to decide what this reason means to them and celebrate it.
I have yet to see a christmas that was about the ideals that are vomited forth from the mouths of the idealists.
I was born in 1962. I grew up during the Vietnam War. There was no such thing as "Peace on Earth" at that time. Good will towards men wasn't there, either. The world has been in a state of conflict pretty much from that point onward. Therefore, I have yet to live through one christmas with either peace on earth, or goodwill towards men.
All I see is a rampant consumerist orgy that begins two to three weeks before Halloween, and continues to pitch upward in intensity until December 24. To say it's a bit disillusioning is to put it mildly.
Christmas has nothing to do with christianity anymore. It's all about money. Christmas is only concerned with Christ because that happens to be the first five letters of christmas. Other than that, it's about Macy's, WalMart, Lexus, and Mercedes Benz.
I can't afford to even buy a christmas card, so why should I give a shit about it? Besides, I celebrated the winter solstice tonight, something that has meaning even if the mysticism is removed from it. I know the actual solstice doesn't hit until Thursday, but the venue where the celebration was held has some other shindig happening that night.
The real meaning of chirstmas is making money. That's all I have ever seen in my forty-four years of existence. Any other meaning has long since been stripped away.
Blessed be...and happy solstice!
Pappy
by
Pappy (61 articles, 0 quicklinks, 11 diaries, 863 comments)
on Wednesday, December 20, 2006 at 3:51:04 AM
