This was not my idea but it's something I think about every year at this time. By the 1970s, we had shifted several federal holidays to be observed whenever possible on Fridays or Mondays, for the convenience and pleasure of all the citizens.
Christmas was excluded. It had to be on December 25th. It had been observed on that date as early as the fourth century, and from long before the time that North America became a British colony. Independence Day had been observed on July 4th for only a few hundred years and its observation had to remain on that date. Both dates were too sacred to be messed with, I suppose you could say.
An early church father, Origen, denounced "as sinful the very idea of keeping the birthday of Jesus 'as if he were a king Pharaoh.' Thus it was important to the early Christians not to have indecorous parties on that day, but to keep it a time of devotion, reflection, and communion." (From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, author of the article unknown)
But Christmas became a Christian feast day in the early church, and it was convenient that the date fixed upon by church authorities coincided with the "pagan" winter solstice celebration, "Yule," in cold northern Europe.
Before any fundamentalists who might read this holler -- or cluck their tongues with sanctimonious scorn, which seems to be more in keeping with their erstwhile behavior -- let me state that nowhere in the Bible, Old or New Testament, is the date of the birth of Jesus explicitly given. So it would not be "unbiblical" for the government to choose another date.
For that matter, it would be in accord with separation of church and state if the government chose another date without consulting with Christians at all. It might hurt some feelings of some church people who like to call the shots. In fact, you might say that you can make book on their raising holy hell, saying to hell with separation of church and state, if the official date were changed for the convenience and pleasure of all the citizens.
But I think it would be worth it.
Which gets me to the proposal a writer made (in The New Yorker magazine) in circa 1970-something: change the date of "Christmas" to February 29th. That date (which the Current Occupant, Yale and Harvard alum that he is, has indicated he does not know) comes once only every four years.
Before you gasp at this modest proposal, let me quickly remind you that the First Amendment protects your right to worship the birth of Jesus the Messiah (translated: Christ) on December 25th. That holiday (holy day) would do what we have been lamenting for as long as I can remember: "Put Christ back in Christmas."
Which means we would have to go through this commercial catastrofreak only one-fourth as often as we now do!
4 comments:
Some Biblical scholars believe that the birth of Jesus actually occured in late April or early May.
It is simple enough to forgo the commercial part. Personally, I gave a nice donation to the SPCA in honor of friend's and family's dogs and cats.
Very well written as usual. I mostly agree with you, but that proposal will never fly because a certain segment of our system (retailers) would lobby the things until it died.
Amusing, "that proposal will never fly," for two reasons. The first is that it was literally flying at the time I read it, or so I seem to recall: I happened to be on a plane en route to Florida just before Xmas when I read that quip. The second is that it was in The New Yorker, most of which has traditionally been tongue-in-cheek. The likelihood of changing the date of celebration of Xmas to thwart its commercialization, of course, is about as great as the likelihood of annexing this Indiana county to Kentucky. (Even though the latter state's capitol and two principal cities are all closer to us than Indianapolis -- which, for all the attention Nap Town gives us, might as well be in Montana.)
Post a Comment