There is currently a great deal of discussion about the so-called “War On Christmas” from the secular humanist wing of the liberal movement (which comprises most of it actually). But I am here to say that such energy is greatly misplaced because of ironic reasons.
We all know the historic and religious origins of Christmas as it is related in the Bible. But as a pure factual practice it was co-opted ages ago by many cultures for many reasons. Many of those adaptations continue today in our contemporary practices of the holiday. These are many but I will indulge a few. Firstly, the omnipresent Christmas tree is only remotely related to the religious aspects on the basis that the early Catholic missionaries who were trying to Christianize the Huns and other pagans, saw that those cultures at that time of year held barbaric practices of animal and human sacrifices for their nature gods. St. Bonaface for one was horrified by this and as one of the Roman church’s means of trying to make the new religions more palatable to these savage tribes was to borrow the familiar aspects of their barbaric practices in exchange for making a bride to Christianity. In this case they were told to cut down a tree rather than kill an animal or human and don’t do it for pagan ritual but do it in remembrance of Jesus. Later on the branches were symbolically signified as representations of the members of the Christian community and the congregation.
It is unknown exactly which time of year Christ was born either. The best guess is that it was in springtime because of the various plants and herbs that were in season in the Biblical story. So how did we end up with December 25th? This also was due to the early missionaries in northern Europe because they wanted to find a way to redirect the pagan’s attention away from their ancient practice of worshipping the Winter Solstice so they simply assigned the official celebration to that time of year. So in this way again by the good intentions of Christian missionaries caused pagan tradition to borrow a comparatively new Christian tradition. True, we remember it as a Christian tradition but actually it is placed within the background of a pagan one.
Now again, let’s fast forward to today; the holiday is highlighted by western civilization spending itself into near bankruptcy annually, wearing itself out by mall hopping, and in short, the shopping mall has become the contemporary temple for the holiday. I dare say further that far more people spend time (I venture to call it worshipping) at the mall than they do in churches. And in so doing expend a great deal more energy and enthusiasm in shopping sprees over their church attendance.
Another growing tradition that I can point to that will further illustrate how the religious virtues and origins of the holiday have been watered down to the level of near meaninglessness, is that it is fairly common for Jews – and I don’t mean messianic Jews either – to who erect Christmas trees, send out Christmas cards, decorate their homes with ornaments, and even invite Christians in to celebrate Christmas with cake, coffee, liquor and fellowship. In fact, if pressed I could name about a dozen that I personally know who do this and even gave Christmas presents to their kids in preference over celebrating Hanukah. All this while not invoking the name of Christ and while continuing to refer to themselves as Jews.
So my point is that the holiday has been hopelessly diminished, diluted, co-opted from many and by many to the point that the real meaning takes a distant position in the hierarchy of importance for the most part. I will hazard a prediction (that none of us will be around to verify) that in some distant time in perhaps which the second half of this century will produce, the real foundation of Christmas will become as forgotten and insignificant to the theme of the season as does the origin of the Christmas tree in the holiday practice has become to us currently. I believe that only real historians will be able to cite the actual historical roots of it.
On the religious side, some recent surveys are showing that the eighteen to thirty year old age bracket (which I add voted for Obama in vast numbers thus becoming a demographic to be reckoned with) are now responding that at the rate of 90% they claim to either be atheists or hold no religious interests at all. If this pattern is true or if it continues to hold fast it is a striking change because until recently the segment which maintained themselves as atheist or agnostic were totally reversed as having been less than 10% of the population. This change is as sudden as it is drastic and ostensibly massive. And as such we can expect the religious aspect of this season as well as any other religious season will continue to lose interest and influence in our culture.
So I can project that the effort by secular humanists to eliminate Christmas from our culture on legislative and litigious means is a great misdirection of energies because their goals would be far better and sooner served if they just fed into the trend of further paganizing the season. And I will add that they can join in the fun at the same time and get presents and join the party and stop being so grim. After all, being an atheist can’t be much fun because they don’t have any holidays. But in my way of thinking they can do what I suggest and have fun and still maintain their non-theistic beliefs.