Christmas Schizophrenia
I must admit that I am of a divided mind when it comes to Christmas. Mostly, I love the Christmas season. I like the food, the music, the food, the decorations, the food, the gifts, the food, the shopping… Well, okay, I don’t like the shopping. Did I mention the food? I enjoy most things about Christmas. However, when I reflect on it biblically, there are many things that bother me about Christmas. I almost feel guilty for liking it so much. Below are three reasons why and my own response to those reasons. 1. Christmas isn’t a Christian holiday. This may come as a surprise to some but it is not anti-Christian to be anti-Christmas. I attended a church some during my high school years where the pastor would remind the congregation that there is but one Holy Day in the Christian religion and that is the Sabbath (not Christmas or even Easter). He had a point. The Sabbath is in the Ten Commandments. So, it is a sin not to honor it. However, the Bible does not require Christians to observe any other holidays. [side note: Biblically speaking, which is worse, that Wal-Mart employees had to be open on Thanksgiving Day for Christmas shopping or that Wal-Mart is open for Christmas shopping on Sundays?) Nowhere in the Bible do we find a call to celebrate Christmas. In fact, no one knows exactly when Jesus was born. Most likely, it was in the spring. So, Christmas is not a holiday set apart by Scripture, but by tradition. Therefore, if a person chooses not to celebrate Christmas, that person is not in sin. Some of the Reformers and Puritans would have said that it is a sin to celebrate Christmas.
Response to #1 – While it is true that the Bible does not set aside Christmas as a holy day, and it is also true that no one has the right to impose such “holidays” on Christians and bind their consciences, I do not believe that Scripture forbids the church or the civil magistrate from calling festivals. After all, it seems that church leaders have the right to call for days of fasting. So, why not feasting? It seems quite appropriate to me. In the Old Testament, there were five major feasts. During these celebrations, the people would not merely celebrate God’s goodness in somber worship, but also in festive partying and feasting. It is good to get together with family and friends, dress up, decorate the house, pull out the fine china, and feast together. Remembering the Incarnation seems like an appropriate occasion for a party.
2. The secularization of Christmas. Dave Barry once wrote this about Christmas: “To avoid offending anybody, the school dropped religion altogether and started singing about the weather. At my son's school, they now hold the winter program in February and sing increasingly non-memorable songs such as "Winter Wonderland," "Frosty the Snowman" and--this is a real song--"Suzy Snowflake," all of which is pretty funny because we live in Miami. A visitor from another planet would assume that the children belonged to the
Response to #2 – The secularization of Christmas has its upside. Most of the year, people are afraid to even mention the name of Jesus in the workplace or the public square. Yet, during Christmas, manger scenes are put on display and even Macy’s plays such great gospel songs as “Joy to the World”, “O Come, All Ye Faithful”, and “Hark! The Herald Angel Sings”. The shopping malls are preaching the gospel for us through these songs.
The secularization of Christmas opens the door for more opportunities to talk about the Christ of Christmas. We live in a post-Christian culture, but during the Christmas season, we are given free reign to talk about Christ without seeming out of place. So, at Christmas, we can invite people to Christian Christmas concerts, outreach events, and worship services with the expectation that our unchurched friends will want to come. The culture actually helps us evangelize this time of year.
Also, if Christmas is not a Christian holiday (see point 1), then there is nothing wrong with celebrating Christmas as a secular celebration. So, if a person objects to Christmas on the basis of point 1, then it seems that there would be nothing wrong with embracing a secular Christmas. After all, there is nothing wrong with telling the fictional stories of Christmas like Santa, Rudolph, Frosty, and singing about the weather. These are merely aspects of our culture that we are free to enjoy. Plus, these feelings of nostalgia for things most of us have never enjoyed (sleigh rides, chestnuts roasting over an open fire, the family life of a Rockwell painting, etc…) are all indicators to us that the human heart longs for more than what our society provides. So, even the “secular” aspects of Christmas are openings for the gospel.
3. Excessive Consumerism. I think this point speaks for itself.
Response to #3 – I’m not sure I can say anything in defense of excessive consumerism, but there are some good aspects to the Christmas shopping season. First, it is a boost to our economy. Secondly, it allows us to show our appreciation to people whom we love. It is a good excuse to give presents to family members, friends, teachers, etc… Without Christmas, most of us probably would not do this. Thirdly, it also helps us keep up with old friends. Christmas cards keep us in contact with friends from days gone by. Fourthly, our family buys a lot of our clothes at Christmas. So, Christmas gives us an opportunity to turn something utilitarian, like clothing, into gifts.
posted by Mark Bates | 2:10 PM
2 Comments:
This continues to nag at me. I think a lot of irresponsible spending can be rationalized with the ethic that it's a boost for the economy, and that's a dangerous road to tread. (Buying stock in a good company might be a better way to help the economy, and investing in the third-world might be an even better way to help the long-term economy of the world, not to mention the poorest of the poor.)
Also, "Christ" is still in the name of the holiday, and since manger scenes and "reason for the season" reminders abound, I have trouble divorcing the secular and religious aspects of the holiday. Couple that with the difficulty we Americans have not engaging in irresponsible spending and not feeling entitled to xmas gifts (the deacons get plenty of calls every year asking for help with gifts or making up for what they should have spent on rent rather than their gifts).
My point is that we must be very careful not to use such a celebration as "a cloak for [our] lusts," as Calvin calls it. He continues my favorite passage from his writings with what I think is a most penetrating and damning analysis of my own heart and 21st Century American culture:
For there is scarcely any one whose means allow him to live sumptuously, who does not delight in feasting, and dress, and the luxurious grandeur of his house, who wishes not to surpass his neighbor in every kind of delicacy, and does not plume himself amazingly on his splendor. And all these things are defended under the pretext of Christian liberty. They say they are things indifferent: I admit it, provided they are used indifferently. But when they are too eagerly longed for, when they are proudly boasted of, when they are indulged in luxurious profusion, things which otherwise were in themselves lawful are certainly defiled by these vices (Institutes 3.19.9).
Amen and amen. Let us use God's good gifts appropriately in fasting, sacrifice, and celebration, and let us always be examining our own hearts with a holy self-suspicion for the deceptions that so easily overtake us.
For more on boosting the economy, see this interesting article by the Freakonomics guys. Here's a quote:
An economist might describe a gift as a signaling mechanism that allows one person to tell another person that she: a) is thinking about him; b) cares about him; and c) wants to give him something that he’ll value.
Of course there are many different types of recipients and relationships. It’s quite easy to give gifts to people who don’t have the money or the wherewithal to get things for themselves — children, for instance. Since a child can’t drive himself to Toys ‘R’ Us and probably doesn’t have much money of his own, by giving him a toy you are substantially expanding the set of things he has access to. Which makes nearly any gift meaningful.
With adults, it’s a bit trickier. An adult is free to buy whatever he wants, and presumably he knows what he likes. So ideally, you’d want to give him something he might like but doesn’t know about, or some kind of guilty pleasure that he wouldn’t buy for himself. In either case, you are creating value for the recipient by giving him something that is actually worth more to him than the money you spent on it.
But realistically, most of our gifts fall well short of that high standard. This creates a lot of inefficiency. In 1993, the economist Joel Waldfogel addressed this subject in a paper whose continuing fame in economics circles is due in part to its wonderfully Scrooge-ish title: “The Deadweight Loss of Christmas.” Since gifts “may be mismatched with the recipients’ preferences,” Waldfogel argued, it is likely that “the gift will leave the recipient worse off than if she had made her own consumption choice with an equal amount of cash.” He concluded that “holiday gift-giving destroys between 10 percent and a third of the value of gifts.”
If gift-giving destroys so much value, why not take the most efficient route and simply give cash? ... Plainly, there are a few relationships for which a cash gift is appropriate, but in most cases, the social taboo crushes the economist’s dream of such a beautifully efficient exchange.
Besides the arguments I gave above about boosting the economy, I'd add that the Christmas gifting binge (which is subtly and not-so-subtly encouraged by product marketers for obvious reasons) is too often inefficient and wasteful -- how many times have you been forced by social convention to buy a gift for someone you didn't know that well or for someone who really doesn't need much of anything (most adults) and at whose desiderata you're just taking a wild or mildly educated guess?
While I admit that gift-giving can be a good thing, too often in my experience it is simply wasteful, i.e., we could use our money better elsewhere. A few examples:
1. Necessary items like clothes are much cheaper after Christmas (I bought practically my whole work wardrobe at 50+% off some years ago).
2. Buying investments or contributing to educational/college funds not only takes advantage of compounding interest, but also encourages long-term, responsible thinking.
3. Options for giving gifts to the poor rather than the rich (cf. Prov. 22:16) abound. We have given and received gifts in so-and-so's name such as animals to families in third-world countries, wells for remote Chinese villages with no steady water supply, and hygiene kits for street children in India. Now that's a gift I don't mind "receiving."
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