Christmas, Christianity and America

Tom Gilson recently drew from David Limbaugh in a blog discussion about the shutting of the Nativity scene in Chicago. I commented on Gilson's blog and wish to follow up here.

Much hand wringing goes on over the place of Christmas in America. Over the past few years, the notion of a 'war on Christmas' has been raised by various commentators. There is a war, they suggest, aimed at the holiday and even the religion itself. It is waged around the country by 'secular humanists,' 'liberals,' and the usual lot of contemporary enemies of Christ. Usually, the story goes, Christians are the underdogs being shouted down by whatever counter-Christian force they happen to face.

Another way of seeing the situation is that the ruckus raised by many Christians over the status of Christmas in America, arises from the demise of the presupposition that Christmas, Christianity and America go hand in hand. They no longer do. The presupposition is no longer an unproblematic way of life today, as there are any number of different religious, ethical and metaphysical persuasions animating people in America.

Historically, one might see today as akin to the period of time after Jesus' death when Christianity was just forming as a movement. It was not hegemonic then and in America that hegemony is rapidly being challenged today.

Talking about a 'war on Christmas' is more than an empirical observation that reflects reality. It is a way of framing the situation, a metaphor that works to inscribe meaning to unfolding events and give them shape and order. A 'war on Christmas' functions to mobilize the troops, so to speak, as it neatly ties into the notion of 'spiritual warfare,' whereby Good and Evil are ultimately animating events on earth and the 'war on Christmas' is simply part of this broader battle. The articulation of a 'war on Christmas' is a way of effecting a divide between those that belong to the community (friends of Christ) and those that do not (enemies of Christ).

In other words, in a period of time when the dominance of the presumption of Christianity is waning in America, the 'war on Christmas' is a way of hardening symbolically important sites that anchor the Christian storyline to the sociopolitical context in the United States.