Merry Christmas
I first ran this in 2005. From the looks of the culture wars, I may need to run it indefinitely.
Excerpted from The Judge Report (The Book):
Dear Editor:
I must say, I just don’t get it. Why do liberal intellectuals feel threatened by Christmas? Most of their core constituencies don’t. Certainly African-Americans, Hispanics and blue collar labor unionists are among the most Christmas-loving people around.
Sure, I appreciate that some of the overly-educated consider the whole Christmas tale a myth, but so what? As myths go, it’s a pretty good one. We’re not talking about monsters and vengeance and people eating their children and stuff like that. We’re talking about a story that has the Creator of the Universe looking down at this tiny spec of a planet that’s filled with worthless and ungrateful people unworthy of His attention, let alone affection, and deciding to become one of us. Not as conqueror or king, but as a helpless infant in a smelly old stable relying on mere humans for his help and support. Then He grows up and teaches us how to act with charity toward one another and if that isn’t enough offers Himself up as the supreme sacrifice for the sins of all mankind.
I happen to believe all that, but even if I didn’t it would still seem pretty wonderful to me. And I think I would understand why commemorating the moment when the Word became Flesh would be pretty important to most people, and I would hope I would have the good sense to know that when folks said “Merry Christmas” they would be saying something to me that is at once both terribly friendly and awesomely profound.
Robert N. Going
