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Thursday, December 15, 2005

The real agenda of the war on the mythical war on Christmas
Posted by Jill | 6:37 PM
On this day of the penultimate Morning Sedition, when Marc Maron melted down on the air in what I dare not even hope was the best punking of an audience in radio history, former show producer Jonathan Larsen has a terrific blog entry on the REAL agenda of those who have decided that American Christians are being persecuted this Christmas:

It's the one thing they can't stand -- the notion that their religion and their holidays and their slogans are just another constellation in the pantheon. That's why a Wal-Mart employee was fired for his e-mail about the origins of Christmas; not because he denied its religious message, but because he exposed the fact that it was a hodge-podge of elements from other religions. They don't care whether Christmas is commercialized. They don't care whether Christmas loses the original religious (or spiritual, if you must) message.

Because modern-day, American, conservative Christianity is not about active pursuit of the principles and social radicalism attributed to a guy named Jesus in a book of questionable authorship. Modern-day, American, conservative Christianity is all about claiming a personal relationship with a god that just happens to endorse all the stuff you believe.

That's why Fox News commentators want Christmas acknowledged by name, but not in principle. I originally thought they and the Christian right were losing the alleged Christmas war by fighting for commercialization of Christmas, and for its osmosis into a generic, essentially secular event, devoid of challenging Jesus stuff. But that's not a loss for them. That's a victory. They want something they can use, not something they have to serve. Because the Christianity they want to see prevail isn't a text-based Christianity; it's the Christianity of President Bush, a Christianity that makes no demands, that requires no introspection, that elevates one's alleged "heart" to the status of divine interlocutor.

The Christianity they want to see triumph is just as valid an interpretation of the Bible as any other (that's the beauty of a vague, self-contradicting, maybe-it's-literal-maybe-it's-metaphorical, committee-edited mess). But its validity isn't the point. The point is that they want their version of Christmas, and Christianity, to triumph not in order to serve some beneficial ethic underlying it, but because their version serves them.



Adam Cohen in the New York Times has had just about enough as well, and says much the same thing:

It is a manufactured crisis. Christmas is a holiday that is primarily celebrated in churches and in the home, and by all accounts it is thriving. The reason conservative media outlets have to keep pounding away at the theme, clearly, is that most Americans who are busy celebrating Christmas with family and friends are probably under the impression that the holiday is doing just fine.

Religious conservatives are using Christmas for a political purpose: as a cudgel to push the prayers and displays of their own form of Christianity into public spaces, including public schools, and to make America more like a theocracy.

The Christmas defenders' real enemy is not secularism, but inclusiveness. Department stores have been using phrases like "Happy Holidays" and "Season's Greetings" because they want to make themselves appealing to as many customers as possible — including the nearly one-quarter of Americans who do not call themselves Christians — not because they hate Christmas. Governments walk a careful line regarding holidays because they don't want to fall afoul of the First Amendment, and because they want to make all of their constituents feel included in holiday celebrations.

Despite all of the attention the conservative media have given the "War on Christmas," it does not appear to be catching on with the general public. The reason Christmas defenders are unlikely to win in the long run is not because they are up against a liberal plot, but because they are on the side of intolerance.


There is no war on Christmas. But whether Bill O'Reilly and his ilk like it or not, this is a diverse country, in which people hold diverse beliefs. This is of course very threatening to people who want this country to be One Nation under the Assemblies of God, or whatever subset of evangelical Protestantism should win this particular pissing contest. Because if we're going to allow for ANY other faiths to have ANY validity at all, it means that the Bible is NOT literal truth, and from that the rest of their entire belief system falls apart.

Of course, Bill O'Reilly doesn't give a rat's ass about Biblical truth. What he DOES care about is delivering eyeballs to the advertisers selling crappy imported gifty gewgaws under the guise of some kind of Christian holiday.
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