Posted by Benjamin on: 12.25.2007 /
I went to a Christmas eve service tonight at an Evangelical Protestant church which shall remain unnamed (because I *really* like lots of people in this church, and I don’t want them to feel bad, and my comments are more about Christianity in general).
They sang lots of traditional Christmas songs, had a traditional Christmas play in which they read from the accounts in Luke and Matthew, and there were a couple playing Mary and Joseph, and a little baby playing Jesus, and children playing sheep and shepherds and angels and wizards from the east and … well, you know. If you live in America, you’ve no doubt seen this whole thing at least a couple times in your life.
It was astoundingly upbeat. God loves us. God gave us the most beautiful gift ever in Jesus, the precious little baby who would grow to become the god man and who can help us get our lives straitened out, and help us overcome our sins, and … someday he’s gonna fix all the problems and injustice and take the people who believe in him to heaven to be perfectly happy for all eternity. Ok see that? all that wasn’t in there tonight. somewhere between the beginning of this paragraph and the end, I stopped objectively describing the Christmas eve service, and started talking about what I see as the underlying implications. But where that happened is something I can’t quite nail down.
Some lyrics “He rules the world, with truth and grace.” and “In his name all oppression shall cease.”
I was mostly asking myself, “Self, are things *in general* worse or better than they were in … say … 1 C.E. (or A.D., as you wish)”
Now there is a question that is worthy of a doctoral dissertation. It’s pretty hard to get at. It’s just way too general and not defined nor operationalized.
Having said that, while the answer may not definitely be “worse”, neither is it by any stretch of the imagination definitely “better”
Let us consider…
Upper estimates of world population in 1 C.E. are about 300 million. Yep. 300 million people alive worldwide. Or about 1 for every 22 people alive today. Another way to look at that is it’s approximately the current population of the United States of America.
Alas–see that? I’m about to segue into an intellectual discussion of poverty, war, and human suffering. Note to self: “Stop that!”
How about a quote from Brian McClaren’s Everything Must Change
Why hasn’t the Christian religion made a difference commensurate with its message, size, and resources?
Brian McClarenWhen I got older, I realized that my entire life had been lived against the backdrop of genocide and violence, poverty and corruption. Over a million people died in my country (Burundi) in a series of genocides starting in 1959, and nearly a million in Rwanda, an din spite of huge amounts of foreign aid, our people remain poor, and many of them, hungry. So much death, so much hatred and distrust between tribes, so much poverty, suffering, corruption, and injustice, and nothing ever really changed. Eventually I realized something. I had never heard a sermon that addressed these realities. Did God only care about our souls going to heaven after we died? Were our hungry bellies unimportant to God? Was God unconcerned about our crying sons and frightened daughters, our mothers hiding under beds, our fathers crouching by windows, unable to sleep because of gunfire? Or did God send Jesus to teach us how to avoid genocide by learning to love each other, how to overcome tribalism and poverty by following his path, how to deal with injustice and corruption, how to make a better life here on earth–here in East Africa? … Over the years, I have come to understand that something is wrong with they way we understand Jesus and the good news. Something is missing in the version of the Christian religion we received from the missionaries, which is the message we now preach ourselves. They told us how to go to heaven. But they left out one important detail. They didn’t tell us how the will of God could be done on earth.
Claude, from Burundi
I guess what I’m saying is that the Christmas story is making some pretty freaking enormous claims, and it seems reasonable to me to say “Well, it’s been ~2000 years. What’s the evidence for and against the claims?” Maybe Christians need to reconsider the way they interact with the Christmas story in light of the implicit demands that it makes on them.
I mean what if the Christmas story implies a demand from God that you act like Jesus, and ratchet your pleasure and your consumption down to third world levels, kinda like Jesus ratcheted his pleasure and consumption down to 3rd world levels. According to the story, the distance he had to move to make that shift was a lot further than any of us would have to travel. Just a thought.
Or maybe I’m just way off base, and instead it’s totally kewl with Jesus that we 20%–the world’s richest–continue to consume 80% of the worlds resources while 30,000 children starve to death on Christmas day? But I just don’t see that in the story. Maybe I’m just missing it.
Here’s a 2005 photo of the little town of Bethlehem (population: ~29,000)
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Comment by: Helen
1 12/25/07 7:24 AM | Comment Link |Benjamin, I think there are lots of people who like Christmas Eve services and the Christmas Eve story because they draw hope and encouragement from them - and they care about global poverty and injustice.
It seems like you felt no-one there last night shared your concerns but that might not be true.
Anyway Merry Christmas - have fun with your family today :)
Comment by: Benjamin
2 12/25/07 11:48 AM | Comment Link |Helen,
thank you.
It’s not that they didn’t share my concerns. in fact, I *know* that lots of people in that particular church share my concerns.
It’s just that they paint a picture of then, and a picture of now, in their telling of the story, which don’t reflect the dark reality in either era. So the pictures are … fake. And fakeness grates at me.
Comment by: Helen
3 12/25/07 3:20 PM | Comment Link |Thanks for your response Benjamin. Why did you go to the service - did you expect something different?
Comment by: Paul Robotham
4 12/26/07 3:46 AM | Comment Link |Hi Helen
Good point. My minister would agree. Say we get our ticket to eternal life, what’s left of Christianity?
I suppose I’d sum it up as bringing God’s kingdom on Earth. In another sense, justice and mercy. It would be interesting to conduct a survey about the relative importance of inward-looking (personal salvation, personal morality, God’s comfort, etc. — faith issues) versus outward-looking (justice, mercy) aspects of a Christian’s life.
Comment by: Helen
5 12/26/07 6:38 AM | Comment Link |Thanks Paul.
Benjamin wrote:
I’m not sure what you mean by ‘fake’. You saw a story based on a belief system. The implicit and overt statements about Jesus are based on beliefs. Are you saying they are fake? I don’t think anyone is claiming that Jesus ruling means justice and peace have been achieved on earth.
If you tell someone you passed an exam - yay - do you have to always tell them about every exam you didn’t pass, right then, or your news is fake? Can’t you just celebrate that you passed, right then? Does ‘dark reality’ always have to be at the forefront? I wouldn’t say so. So why can’t people celebrate the Christmas story, once a year, without having to have it be a ‘dark reality’ story?
I’m not really following your objection to the service and like I mentioned, I’m wondering why you went because I think it’s fairly predictable that traditional Christmas services are as you described this one. They aren’t ‘dark reality’ occasions. So they aren’t good places to go if that’s what you’re looking for. They are likely to make you feel frustrated and alienated if you want to focus on the challenges still facing us but other people want to celebrate the event they believe has made change possible - even if we still have a ways to go in implementing that change.
I didn’t go to a Christmas eve service this year. Last year I went to a very traditional one and was pleasantly surprised by the language and themes of hope so bound up in Advent. If we read that as a passive “God will sort everything out - we don’t have to do anything” hope then I doubt that will change the world. But if we read it as “God has made it possible for the world to be fixed if we will engage ourselves in that task” - which is my take on Brian McLaren’s latest book - then I don’t think the Christmas story need necessarily stand in the way of people making the world a better place. Maybe it gives people hope that the dark reality they see all around can be changed. Maybe they need to hear about the hope more than they need to be reminded about the dark reality, on Christmas Eve.
I don’t think dark reality makes people get involved unless they also have hope they can actually make a difference. Dark reality can just make people feel overwhelmed. I don’t see it as ‘the’ answer.
Having said all that I do agree that it’s important for people not to be in denial about ‘dark reality’.
There’s a difference between being in denial and choosing what to focus on so people are given hope and encouragement.
Comment by: benjamin ady
6 12/26/07 2:15 PM | Comment Link |Helen,
You ask good questions. It’s because they *leave out* the dark bits.
So your question is two fold. For the first–I went because my lovely wife entreated me to go, and so I did it to please her. Prolly shouldn’t have, I guess.
And for the other. It’s more like … If I took 3 finals at the end of the quarter, and got a couple 4.0’s, and actually flunked one of the finals (which is actually fairly unlikely), and then I went and told everybody how delighted I was about my two 4.0’s, and never mentioned the one I flunked–that would be fake. It’s true that when I mention my 3.92 GPA at UW, I don’t necessarily have to also mention my 2.something GPA at Everett Community college 10 years ago. But to leave out the bad stuff that’s very present in the context is fake.
Is this making sense?
The problem is like that with the christmas story. The wise men and herod come into it, but left out is the fact that herod killed a whole bunch of little toddlers/babies in an attempt to kill Jesus. Some people say 14,000. Others say 64,000. Other’s claim these numbers are inflated. Be that as it may–they were reading from the story which includes this episode, but they skipped it.
To my way of thinking, leaving the bad bits out of a story steals all the power from a story. It feels *fake*.
You know what I mean? It feels untrue not in the *factual* sense, but rather related to that sense of “true” that you get when you read really evocative, grabbing, heartwrenching, deeply satisfying story and even if it’s “fiction” it *feels* “true”. You know what I mean?
It’s an American Christianity thing.
I saw or read a piece once about the difference in how drugs are advertised in the UK and in America. I think it was Bill Bryson. He was saying how in the U.S., drugs are advertised as cure alls. “Take this drug, and it will fix your problem. You’ll feel all better. Instantly. Period. Hooray!!” Whereas in UK, (so he said) drugs are advetised as “Well, take this, and it might relieve your symptoms a tiny bit. Mabye. If you’re lucky.” I mean that might be a bit … hyperbolated. But along those lines.
I think that spills over into all things american, including american christianity. You know. “The Iraqui’s will welcome us as liberators” and “Major combat operations have ended–we’ve won!” and “Happy happy joy joy Jesus is born, Peace on earth, Oppression ceases, etc. (and we won’t mention the massacre of the innocents, or the difficulty of being a pregnant unwed virgin in Palestine in 1 A.D., or even admit that the shepherds were terrified because of the massive presence of the supernatural, etc. etc.)
Comment by: benjamin ady
7 12/26/07 2:16 PM | Comment Link |I mean how meaningful would it be if Frodo and co. just … had a lovely, sunny little trip down to mordor, popped over to mount doom, and dropped in the ring?
Comment by: benjamin ady
8 12/26/07 2:24 PM | Comment Link |Paul,
thank you for dropping by.
Your survey would be interesting.
I think it would be interesting to see the results along denominational lines. I’m thinking the Mennonites, for instance, would be found to have a much higher focus on justice than most Christian denominations.
My lovely wife said to me this morning something like “Jesus is a bit of an enigma. How come he never answers people’s questions with “the gospel”?” It’s a great question. Instead, as Joe points out in this post, “he offered the confusing story, the extra mile and the impossible challenge”
Comment by: Helen
9 12/26/07 2:36 PM | Comment Link |Benjamin, maybe the issue is that for me the Christmas story seems dubiously historical even if every bit in the Bible had been included so I’ve given up expecting reality in that context.
I often agree with you about (some of the problems with some) American Christianity. I’m not sure whether I entirely agree with you on this one or not. I think my disengagement with the story of Christmas confuses the issue and makes it hard for me to tell.
I like Meg’s question - I’ve wondered about that too!
Comment by: benjamin ady
10 12/26/07 2:54 PM | Comment Link |Helen
I like your parenthetical bit.
Maybe I should try out your disengagement thing. Sounds a lot less stressful =)
When you say “I’ve given up expecting reality in that context”, are you referring specifically and only to “the christmas story”?
I mean … I think even historically dubious accounts (i.e., fiction), can and often do reflect reality in a powerful way. So … can you elaborate? Do you agree with me, and if so, why does this particular account, historically dubious or not, lead you to an expectation of unreality?
Maybe Joe got it more like “true”
Comment by: joe
11 12/26/07 4:36 PM | Comment Link |I hate all things to do with Christmas, so I was surprised to find so many things this advent worth thinking and talking about.
I feel a little like Chesterton, who set out to create his own wild heresy and only succeeded in proving christian orthodoxy to himself.
I set out to rebel against Christmas, which I saw as wet, floppy, undemanding, childish and ultimately fairly pointless and found it to be hopeful, containing snatches of realism, demanding and shocking - to the extent that I’m not sure I can believe in something that demands so much and promises to mess so much with my life.
Incidentally that checkpoint now looks like this this. I don’t think that one has been opened for civilian traffic for some years.
The obscene notice from the Israel Tourist board reads ‘Peace Be With You’ which is very conforting as you walk through the rotating iron bars, past the soldiers and the meters of concrete.
Comment by: Helen
12 12/26/07 5:05 PM | Comment Link |Benjamin - disengagement is definitely less stressful!
I wondered if you went because someone asked you to. It was kind of you to go with Meg.
I’d rather not discuss me and the Christmas story/the Bible - I don’t feel like I have anything new or different to say from what I’ve already said on CatE in various places.
Joe when I feel free to think my own thoughts I find most things are worth thinking and talking about. But if other people insist on telling me what meaning I’m supposed to find then I get annoyed and it’s hard for me to get past that to letting my own thoughts happen.
Comment by: Benjamin
13 12/26/07 8:42 PM | Comment Link |Joe,
maybe that’s why I found your posts so … connective for me. Cause I hate all things christmas too. more so every year.
Comment by: joe
14 12/27/07 10:31 AM | Comment Link |Fair enough Helen. I’m sorry if you thought I was trying to tell you the meaning you are supposed to find in the nativity story.
My own struggles with the text are based only on the gut feeling that most of what we are told to think about it (in church and elsewhere) is total cobblers.
Comment by: Helen
15 12/27/07 1:14 PM | Comment Link |Hi Joe, I didn’t mean you were telling me what meaning I should find. I was thinking of other situations in which I have felt people were doing that to me.
I’m quite happy for you to share your own meaning you found. I’m actually quite curious to see what meaning you found. I was planning to go look when I have time.
Comment by: Rachel
16 12/28/07 12:31 PM | Comment Link |That certainly describes how I feel, Helen. It is because we acknowledge the darkness that we rejoice over the light. The theme of light coming into the darkness is repeated throughout the Advent/Christmas season. In the Episcopal Church, Advent is considered a penitential season. The atmosphere is somber as we reflect on the darkness in our own hearts and in our communities and in our world. We kneel and sing “Kyrie eleison” (Lord have mercy) and we ask for God’s forgiveness for our failure to love our neighbor as ourselves. But the mood is also hopeful as each Sunday we light another Advent candle and sing “The hope of Christ has come into the world.” The next Sunday we sing about the peace of Christ and then the love of Christ, the joy of Christ, and finally the light of Christ. Advent is designed to build a sense of need and anticipation, culminating with the joyful celebration of Christmas.
Observing the church calendar has added so much to my experience of the Christmas season and of Easter as well. In my evangelical Baptist upbringing, we commemorated the feasts of the church but not the fasts. We had the celebration of Christmas without the solemnity of Advent. We experienced the rejoicing of Easter without experiencing the reflection and repentance of Lent. I have discovered great wisdom in the ancient practices of the church, which acknowledge sorrow, suffering, and need, as well as hope, redemption, and joy. I think this is why the Episcopal Church appeals to me so much. I was burnt out on the superficial, fake happy thing that you are talking about, Benjamin.