Christmas has always been about contrasts

By William McKenzie
Dallas Morning News
Let's just get this out of the way at the top: Christmas has pagan roots.
All those Christmas trees we bring home have no connection to Matthew or Luke. Same with Yule logs and old Saint Nick, which trace to Old World pagan traditions. The Puritans were so appalled at the season's rites they didn't even celebrate Christmas.
You may have heard this before, so excuse me for bringing it up again. But this fact keeps eluding those in contemporary America who see secularism's attack on Christmas as something akin to a broadside on the very doctrines of the faith.
I'm talking here about the likes of the Rev. Jerry Falwell and Fox News Channel talkers Bill O'Reilly and John Gibson. They're wrought up about liberals and other fellow travelers taking the "Christ out of Christmas." They even went after President Bush for his Christ-less "holiday card."
Christian living metaphor
I understand their point. We shouldn't ignore the spiritual reason for the season. But they seem to forget the season is not all about purity on earth. Instead, it offers a wonderful metaphor for Christian living. If you look closely, Christmas is about the sacred and the secular living alongside each other.
Go back to the original stories. We have the babe whom the world so rejects that his parents can't even find a place to sleep. What more do we need to conk us over the head? Can't we realize that Christmas has always been about the contrast between the Christ child and the world around him?
When I was a teenager, my brother had a Simon and Garfunkel 8-track tape that wonderfully summed up this duality. I loved to listen to its quiet rendition of "Silent Night," foiled against accounts about Vietnam, racial strife and the rest of the day's bad news. Talk about a contrast between sacred and secular.
It's remains with us today. Some of us are ready again to kneel at the altar, sing wonderful hymns and weep once more at the mystery of the season. All the while, the sins of the day won't leave us alone. We have man killing man in the streets, neighbors lusting after each other's goods, and husbands and wives betraying each other.
How can it be?
I bet that's what drives the crusaders for Christmas wacky. And it will keep making them crazy until they realize that Christmas' duality is no accident. It is an informative part of the Christian struggle, which is all about living out one's faith amid a sinful world.
To be fair to the Falwells, O'Reillys and Gibsons, many Christians have missed this point over time, and not just about Christmas. They have wanted their faith to triumph over the larger culture.
The triumphalists, as they are known theologically, want to save society so they, in turn, can save individuals from destruction. The problem is, no amount of society-saving will radically change humans because, well, sin stains us all. And it will until Christ comes again.
At least that's what Christian theology teaches. So it beats me how today's triumphalists think they can save us from ruin if they just put Christ back in Christmas or get rid of abortion clinics or get everyone praying in schools.
They're repeating the mistake liberal church folk made back in the 1930s. Some thought they could pass this New Deal program and that one and, presto, mankind would emerge into a new state of being.
Sin
Unfortunately, there's this little thing called sin.
I've always liked those believers who simply want to engage the culture. They're every bit as worried as the triumphalists about, say, filth on television. But they don't possess the same instinct to create some new kingdom on earth.
They live instead with the sense of doing right in a sinful world. Their mission may be simply loving their neighbor as they love God and themselves. It may be acting as a steward of our planet. Or it may be showing compassion for the least among us.
They have a healthier appreciation of our fallen world and seek to change it, not triumph over it.
X William McKenzie is an editorial columnist for The Dallas Morning News. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.