Christmas in a Post-Christian World

I took a trip with my wife over the Thanksgiving week to see family. Six hours in the car across the desert one way. But, it's okay. We have satellite radio and my wife likes Christmas music, so she was delighted to find not one, but two Christmas stations--one traditional and one contemporary. Six hours of Christmas music across the desert. Sigh.

It was interesting. In those hours and hours of traditional and contemporary Christmas music I heard three ... count 'em, three songs that included Jesus. Imagine that! One was a Christmas medley of standards like Joy to the World and Silent Night. Good. Then there was the Pentatonix Little Drummer Boy which was nice (at least it mentions "Baby Jesu", right?). And finally there was a rap version of Silent Night. (You know, rapping "Silent Night" with a back beat and all just spoils the entire notion of "Silent Night".) That's three. In 6 hours. And I realized I was getting the feel of Christmas in a post-Christian world.

Santa came up a lot, of course. I always thought it was ironic when Burl Ives sang "Let's give thanks to the Lord above, 'Cause Santa Claus is coming tonight." Kind of a mixed message there, isn't it? There were a lot of tunes about family and home. Nice things, really, I suppose, if you value family and home. I do, but not everyone does. There were the mandatory "snow" tunes which have been mostly meaningless to me for most of my life having lived in southern California and Arizona for the vast majority of the time ... and nothing like snow in any of those decades, but, okay, that's fine if you value snow. There were the obligatory "what I want for Christmas" tunes. There was the Santa Baby types that appeal to the materialists and the My Christmas Wish types that appeal to the spiritualists, but it was "what I want", not anything about why or who.

So once again the world has stolen from Christianity to make something their own without actually making it make sense. Atheism steals from Christian ethics to make a moral code because they have none of their own. And that's just one example of the theft I have in mind. The primary ethic of Christian living is gratitude--we give because of all we have been given. The primary ethic of worldly living is self--whatever I feel is fine. So they've borrowed the gratitude ethic for Thanksgiving but removed the One to whom you might give thanks because they feel like it's nice to say "Thank you" even if we don't acknowledge the Giver when we do (Rom 1:21). And certainly the whole "Peace on Earth; Goodwill toward Man" concept is a warm one, so they've borrowed that without any offering of how to obtain such peace or goodwill. So we should all be nice and enjoy family and get what we want because, after all, we want it. What other reason would we require?

Now, to be clear, I'm not intending to complain about the loss of Christ in Christmas. That's been done before. And, after all, what would we expect (John 15:18)? No, I'm not pointing fingers at them. I'm offering, instead, a cautionary tale. Christians, don't do that! Don't do "Christmas" without Christ. Don't get caught up in the materialism and spiritualism and family and friends and "peace on earth" and all without starting with the reason for the season. I'm reminding you because we live in a post-Christian America and you won't often get this reminder. We have good cause to value family, to give gifts, to celebrate, and to hope for peace and goodwill. They've forgotten. Don't you do it. Christmas is so much better with Christ as the origin and motivation and primary object. I don't expect the world to manage that, but perhaps we Christians can give it a try.