As the month of December draws closer, the inevitable arguments about ‘Merry Christmas’ versus ‘Happy Holidays’ are upon us. Agent Tim and Chloe (Catchword) have been doing a great job of chronicling and analyzing the issues in some of their recent posts, and they’ve certainly made me think. I am disgusted with the anti-Christian propaganda surrounding what is an explicitly Christian holiday, but I am also struck by the philosophical truth that this conflict illustrates: you really cannot separate worldview and culture. Culture is a reflection of worldview, and worldview is formed, in part, by culture. Even in the modern world, where humanists fall all over themselves in order to divorce religion from all other parts of life, the relationship is clear.
The moral of the story is that though the relation between worldview and culture becomes most clearly apparent during the holiday season, its existence is as real on April 1st as on December 25th. Worldviewish Christians need to keep this in mind. The way we can most effectively promote our worldview is through cultural means. The fight for a Christmas tree instead of a Holiday tree is of more than semantic significance.
2 comments:
This is from the Wikipedia article on Christmas:
The Romans honored Saturn, the ancient god of agriculture, each year beginning on 17 December in a festival called the Saturnalia. This festival lasted for seven days and included the winter solstice, which at that time fell on 25 December (today, following calendar reform, it falls on 21 December). During Saturnalia the Romans feasted, postponed all business and warfare, exchanged gifts, and temporarily freed their slaves. With the lengthening of daylight, these and other winter festivities continued through 1 January, the festival of Kalends, when Romans marked the day of the new moon and the first day of the month and religious year (the secular year began in March).
By the 4th century another factor was also at work. Many Romans also celebrated the solstice on 25 December with festivities in honor of the rebirth of Sol Invictus, the "Invincible Sun God," or with rituals to glorify Mithra, the ancient Persian god of light (see Mithraism). Sol Invictus was a religion to which both Constantine himself before his confession of Christianity, and his predecessor Diocletian, who had rebuilt the Roman Empire, were especially devoted, and to whom the latter had attributed his military successes (though Constantine saw Christ as having delivered him from the former Roman order's designs: Diocletian at one time had had Constantine living under his eye, against his will, separating him from his father). Constantine is therefore assumed to have found it convenient to find a common major festival for both Sol Invictus and Christianity.
The upshot is that Christmas was originally a pagan religious festival that was "Christianized" in the 4th century. Given this new information, how does this affect your stance?
In my post, I assumed that Christmas is essentially a Christian holiday. Based on this assumption, I developed the idea that 'the way we can most effectively promote our worldview is through cultural means.' If I am not mistaken, you are challenging my assumption and asking how that changes my claim.
I was aware of the information you presented, and I don't think I need to change my stance to accomodate it. However, I do need to explain it...and I'm glad to do so. You certainly brought up a good point.
I think the fact that Constantine chose to promote Christianity through cultural means supports my position. Constantine may or may not have been a sincere Christian, but regardless, his goal was to popularize Christianity. He was quite successful, and one of his greatest successes was combining the winter solstice with the birth of Christ. Over the years, Christian meaning and symbolism has almost totally usurped the pagan elements, and Christmas has long since become a Christian holiday. By relating Christianity to a popular element of culture, he helped make Christianity both accessible and influential.
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