Celebrating the reason for the season

Michael Cook

December 17, 2024 9 Reactions

Sounds absurd, right? But read Jill Biden’s 2024 White House Holiday Theme and you will see that Christmas has been rinsed clean out of it :

“As we celebrate our final holiday season here in the White House, we are guided by the values we hold sacred: faith, family, service to our country, kindness towards our neighbors, and the power of community and connection … At the holidays, Americans come together every year in fellowship and faith, reminding us that we are stronger as a community than we are apart. The strength of our country, and the soul of our Nation, come from you.”

There’s nothing specifically Christian in that. It’s an invitation to make up your own meaning for Christmas. It’s not surprising, I suppose, coming from the White House of Joe Biden, but it is disappointing.

A popular British publication called Positive News endeavours to bring happiness and peace each week to its readers. In a world filled with famines, cyclones, wars and school shootings, I agree that people need good news. In an article entitled: “10 ways to make Christmas really meaningful to you”, Positive News lists “rituals that resonate” to “to imbue your festive season with meaning – on your own terms”. Christ isn’t mentioned at all. Presumably the really Good News would scare readers off.  

It is possible for a public figure to pay tribute to Christmas without sounding mawkish and without insulting non-Christians. Take, for instance, Queen Elizabeth’s Christmas message for 2011:

“Although we are capable of great acts of kindness, history teaches us that we sometimes need saving from ourselves – from our recklessness or our greed. God sent into the world a unique person – neither a philosopher nor a general (important though they are) – but a Saviour, with the power to forgive … It is in forgiveness that we feel the power of God’s love.”

I wonder if Jill & Co know what they have done by dechristianising Christmas.

In a rather dense book called Truth and Tolerance, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (later Benedict XVI) reflected on the figure of Gaius Aurelius Cotta (124–73 BC). He was the Pontifex Maximus, the high priest of Rome’s official religion, a man of immense importance whose immediate successor was Julius Caesar. Cotta was punctilious in observing all the prescribed rituals and in defending the prerogatives of the Roman gods. Yet at home, apparently, he was a sceptic who did not believe that the gods existed at all. This schizophrenia, Ratzinger suggests, explains why the Roman Empire faded away. Its intellectuals had been defending mere rituals which were hollow and eaten by termites. They did not reflect truth.

This happens over and over again. Whe elites no longer have a personal commitment to the culture, the culture decays. The same thing happened with Communism. The entire administrative and intellectual apparatus of the state was employed in propping up rituals in which no one believed any more. In 1989, after 70 years of lies (including banning Christmas), it disintegrated. A few days ago it happened in Syria and Bashar al-Assad and his Ba’athist Party crumbled into dust.

What lessons does this potted history teach?

Everyone loves Christmas. The point is how to preserve it. Jill Biden’s definition of Christmas as niceness and eggnog won’t last, can’t last. Celebrating Christmas has a clear and unequivocal meaning. It is a bold statement that the same God who created the universe became man and walked the roads of Palestine 2000 years ago. The silent night of his birth divides history into BC, before Christ, and AD, anno Domini, the year of the Lord.

Christmas is the foundation of our civilisation. It is the guarantor of human dignity, because God stooped down to become a man. It is the cornerstone of our democracy because it shows that social status and power are not the measure of our real worth.

So, Jill, take note. Celebrating Christmas without acknowledging the role of Christ is just as schizophrenic as the Roman Pontifex Maximus celebrating the gods without believing in them. It puts Christmas at risk.

What should readers of Mercator do? Something very, very simple. Sing Christmas Carols. Sing them lustily. Teach them to your children and your children’s children. And read the words. There’s more theology in them than in most textbooks.  

O little town of Bethlehem,
How still we see thee lie!
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep
The silent stars go by;
Yet in thy dark streets shineth
The everlasting Light;
The hopes and fears of all the years
Are met in thee to-night.

Sing real Christmas carols. “Ding Dong Merrily on High”, “Hark! The herald angels sing”, “The Little Drummer Boy” – the English treasury of real Christmas carols is almost inexhaustible. Sing real Christmas carols celebrating the reason for the season, not “Frosty the Snowman” and “I’m dreaming of a White Christmas”. American schmaltz is fine, but it’s just tuning the violins before the great symphonic chorus of God’s love for man breaks out in “Silent Night”. 

Forward this to your friends.

Michael Cook is editor of Mercator.

Image credits: Bigstock