Christians, take back Christmas. Don’t abandon it
CHRISTMAS is absolutely a Christian festival, writes Michael Mann. Yes it’s been hijacked but those of faith calling to change its name have lost their damn minds.
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IT’S not even December and everyone’s losing their damn minds, some Christians included.
Father Desmond O’Donnell, an Irish Catholic priest and author, thinks Christians should stop using the word “Christmas” because it’s been “hijacked by Santa and reindeer”.
Let’s hope Santa doesn’t fly that hijacked festivity into a department store.
Apparently we, as Christians, have “lost Christmas”, in addition to losing Easter.
“The word ‘Christmas’ no longer conveys the significance of the God who joined the human caravan and walked in our shoes.”
As a Christian, I’m offended that he’s so offended. And I’m even more offended about the fact that I feel offended by him being offended.
There is, of course, a small degree to which Father O’Donnell is right — Christmas has been commercialised to within an inch of its life.
But to abandon the actual name of one of the two central dates in the Christian calendar — and the one that actually bears the word “Christ”, no less... come on, Des. That’s not very Christmassy.
Christmas is absolutely a Christian festival. And it has absolutely been hijacked and commercialised. But that’s no cause to abandon it.
It’s a cause to redeem it.
When it comes down to it, I don’t think the average Aussie who celebrates Christmas is really straying that far from the ideas of generosity, charity and hospitality that are key themes of the very first Christmas, whether there’s a nativity scene in their front yard or not.
In fact, the original Christmas story is one fairly drenched in themes that still resonate more than 2000 years later.
Jesus’ parents were put up in someone’s back room while they were visiting from out of town.
They also weren’t married at the time of his birth.
People came bearing all sorts of weird and wonderful gifts in a (post-baby) baby shower.
They fled to another country as refugees from a genocide inflicted by a maniacal and narcissistic king.
That brief list off the top of my head is not that different to things we see in the world around us.
Christmas is a complex season of the year with many different meanings for people.
For Christians, it’s the birth of Jesus; the Son of God miraculously born into utter obscurity to redeem the world. For non-Christians it’s either an excuse to eat/drink/shop/give/volunteer/surf/holiday/etc.
And belief or not, it can be equal parts joyous and painful for a lot of people. It can simultaneously be a gathering of people we love and a reminder of those we’ve lost. A cause for giving generously and a reminder of what we lack. A celebration of all that’s good in our lives, and a reminder of all the things we’ve royally stuffed up.
Whether they even realise it, people partaking in what some would call “the spirit of Christmas”, through their generosity, charity and hospitality, is in some small way their participation in their original story of Christmas, however imperfectly.
Not to mention the fact that we Christians don’t actually have sole custody of the Christmas story. We’re not the owners of it and we’re not meant to be bodyguards for baby Jesus. We’re grateful recipients and participants like everyone else, getting bits of it wrong but doing our best.
The thing that’s disappointing about Father O’Donnell’s idea of abandoning the word Christmas is the lack of fight. Surrendering Christmas to corporate retail interest feels very unlike the robust faith I would have expected.
If anything, surrendering the word “Christmas” goes against the very idea of Christmas and Christianity itself.
The coming of Jesus as a vulnerable baby is God’s giant two-fingered salute to the prevailing powers of the day.
The fact that vulnerable baby could grow into a young rabbi in an ancient backwater, under the occupation of a military superpower no less, to lead a dozen deadbeats, renegades and boofheads in a nonviolent revolution of love that we’re still talking about 2000 years later is borderline crazy. It’s so weird and unlikely as to be fabulously true. At the very least it’s a hell of an underdog story.
Whatever Christmas means to you, remember that it originally meant one thing — God incarnated as one of us, into the middle of the complexity and uncertainty of all that life can bring, offering hope.
Cheer up, Des. And merry Christmas.