Some thoughts on Christianity and Culture

I originally wrote the following post for an online forum I frequent; the thread was entitled "Faith, Fellowship, and this Forum." I launched that thread in response to comments from some of its members that the forum was becoming known as a conservative Christian forum, when that was not its intended purpose. The general tenor of the conversation that followed will be apparent from my post. I decided not to post this one on that thread, as I feared it would be too controversial, and throw gasoline on a fire which was beginning to die down... but because some of the points I raised are ones I think are important to raise, I wanted it to be posted somewhere. Well, gee! I have a blog. So here 'tis.

(Warning: this is a long post.)

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First off, I think that E___ and others have the right idea: we don't, or shouldn't, need to be walking on eggshells. I think we should all relax, practice -- as M___ said -- a bit of self-censorship (there were real advantages to the old "no talk about religion or politics in public" policy that used to be common in our society, but there are advantages to being more open about both, too), and most importantly, operate in a spirit of good-will, and assume that others are doing the same. We're all friends, here; there isn't any reason that I know to figure that anyone is acting out of anything but the best motives. Y'know?

That said, I have a couple of observations which I would like to share, also in the spirit of good will and friendliness. I hope that what I'm about to say won't offend anyone, but in case it does, please forget it, and forgive me.

First, I think that Christians in general, and conservative Christians in particular, do get the short end of the stick a lot of the time, in the public square, in the media, and in the news. The whole "Christmas - Holiday" thing is a particular sore point for me. I celebrate Christmas, and I get frustrated, not only at chirpy "Happy Holiday" greetings from cashiers (have you noticed that that's become the standard greeting, even for secular holidays like the Fourth of July? ... it's ridiculous, imho), but from trying to find a Christmas card that actually wishes somebody "Merry Christmas." Even ones featuring churches or other religious themes still often say "Season's Greetings" or "Happy Holidays" inside.

If someone wants to wish me a happy Diwali, or Eid, I'll gladly smile and say "thank you," if not "the same to you!" Since I have a fair number of Pagan friends, I do get wished "Blessed Solstice," or whatever the case may be, on a fairly regular basis. I appreciate and return the sentiments. I just don't find it that big a deal. So why is it so much of a problem to wish someone "Merry Christmas," without giving offense, or be wished it, without taking offense? Well, there may be some reasons (see below), but in general I think it's a great deal of ado about really very little.

And Christmas trees are Christmas trees, thank you very much. If you don't celebrate Christmas, and want to call it a "Hannukah Bush" or whatever, that's fine, but the custom of having an evergreen tree in your house toward the end of December was a German custom imported into England and from thence to the U.S. during the Victorian era to celebrate... wait for it... Christmas. It may have Pagan connotations, extending back into the Mists of History, and that's fine, too. But it's a Christmas tree, darn it, not a generic "holiday" one. Again, in my (ever so) humble opinion!

The Ten Commandments are a more complex issue. I can see both sides in that argument, and I'm not going to pass judgement here.

To return to the subject of Christmas, though, I wrote a column last Christmas (not this just past one, but 2005) on the subject of "be careful what you ask for, you may get it." When I was growing up in the 1960s, 70s, and even early 80s, Christmas was largely secularized (as famously lampooned and lamented in Charles Schultz's wonderful classic, "A Charlie Brown Christmas"), but it was celebrated as Christmas.

Over the last twenty years or so, Christians -- largely conservative, evangelical Christians -- have run a massive campaign to "put Christ back in Christmas." I suspect that it is precisely to their success in doing so -- re-linking Christmas with Christ, in the popular imagination -- that we owe the "Happy Holiday-ization" of what was formerly the Christmas season. "Okay, they want Christ back in Christmas? Fair enough, we'll just replace Christmas with something more generic and secular."

That's an over-simplification, of course; there were and are undoubtedly other forces at work. But it does point to the fact that popular opinion, particularly but not exclusively the so-called "intellectual elite" that are represented in/by the governing and "talking classes," are mistrustful of a too-open or too-enthusiastic display of public religiosity.

I can empathize with this, frankly. For one thing, while we are indeed guaranteed "freedom of religion, not freedom from religion," as the saying goes, even within Christianity there is so much variation in doctrine and practice that it's hard to say what a "Christian nation" would look like, even if it were attainable. As an Anglican Christian, I have to say that I would be decidedly uncomfortable with, say, a Baptist theocracy (no offense to any Baptists on-board), simply because some elements of their doctrine and practice are quite different from some of mine.

Thus the wisdom of our American Founders in refusing to establish a religion, still less a denomination, for this country. I do not happen to believe there needs to be a "wall of separation between Church and State" (a private opinion of one of the Founders which does not appear in any public document of the Founding), but I do think there needs to be at least a semi-permeable membrane, to control and limit what passes from one to the other.

The intentions of our Founders aside, there are plenty of reasons why someone might mistrust or even dislike Christianity. One that I have wrestled with, at various times in my life, is the sometimes excessive zeal with which some Christians attempt to fulfill the Great Commission. Pushy anyone -- salesman or evangelist -- turns me off, personally. And if you link that to the frequent implication (if not flat-out statement) that if you are not "saved," by the would-be evangelist's definition (often including membership in his or her particular denomination or sect), you are thereby damned, you have a recipe for breeding a dislike not only of that proselytizer and his/her church, but Christianity as a whole. Guilt by association, as it were.

Then there is the question of what I like to call an honest agnosticism, which many of us have to a greater or lesser degree. I am no atheist, by any stretch of the imagination, but I do tend to agree with the words of one atheistic author, who recently wrote something to the effect that "religion is the only sphere of human discourse in which it's considered noble to be certain about things no human being could possibly be certain about." Insistence on belief -- particularly intellectual assent in a literalist way, rather than a more metaphorical or metaphysical understanding -- in things about which no human being could possibly be certain is a good way to turn off many folks with an intellectual frame of mind.

There is also another issue which has probably become more of an issue since 9/11, and that is the stated desire by some Christian conservatives to "restore" or "return" America to its identify as a Christian nation. That's the sort of thing that sounds good when you're saying it within your own faith community, or even when you look at it in historical terms... but whether it's a good idea, in practice, now, is an entirely different kettle of fish.

We are a vastly more heterogenous -- diverse -- people, religiously, culturally, and ethnically, now in 2007 than we were in 1907, and moreso then than in 1807. And the question I raised above returns: to what sort of Christianity are we to "return"? Anglican? Presbyterian? Methodist? Baptist? And which branch of those denominations, at that? Or maybe non-denominational? That would be an a-historical novelty, not a return.

So even if all were agreed that it was a good idea (as, in fact, all are not), there are a plethora of practical and theological difficulties in attaining that goal. I am not, personally, a blind supporter of multi-culturalism as an automatic and absolute good, but I am also cognizant of the fact that, even if we wanted to, a return to a (mostly) WASP culture and religion in the US is out of the question, practically speaking.

And even the idea of America as a "Christian nation" has resonances that seem sinister, for many people, in the age of radical Islamofascism. We are fighting the likes of the Taliban and al-Qaeda; we do not, by and large, want to become them, or a Christian mirror-image of them. But talk of returning to being a Christian nation, with traditional Christian morality, Christian values and ethics, and so on -- particularly when couched in terms like "God-fearing" or "godly living" -- sets many folks' teeth on edge. Translated into Arabic, those kinds of terms and expressions sound a lot like what comes out of Islamist websites.

I am not saying that conservative Christians are Taliban-like, or that a "Christian America" would look like Afghanistan, only without the burkhas. But the danger is there, and more importantly, the perception is there. I think if more conservative Christians could step back and look at how things like praying for mass conversions, or talking about restoring America to Christianity, look to people outside their own faith community, they would see that it can appear quite threatening, even if that is not their intention.

I guess in wrapping up I mean to say that while I believe it is an unfortunate truth, and not just a perception, that Christians (especially of the conservative variety) are often unfairly put upon, censored, etc., this situation does not arise in a vacuum, or simply out of a desire to be mean. I hate to say it, but sometimes conservative Christians' actions and attitudes, words and deeds, can provide ammunition to their foes... or even not necessarily foes, just people who have a broader view when it comes to issues of spirituality, morality, etc., than do those conservative Christians themselves.

And in saying all this, I am certainly not intending to be mean, or judgemental, or anything of the sort, myself! Just trying to provide some context for a situation which often seems to leave folks wondering "why?"

I love all my friends on this board, whatever their spiritual path, and I (along with my mother, while she was alive) have been the grateful recipient of prayers and positive thoughts from folks of a wide variety of faith traditions. I am deeply grateful for the prayers of my Christian friends who have been praying for Ma and me, but I am not less grateful for the prayers, thoughts, energy, etc., of my friends of other faiths. Many threads go into making a strong-but-beautiful tapestry.

And I suppose that, finally, is my message and my hope in writing this: that we will all come to understand each other better, and appreciate each other more. I think we on this board are further along that path than many folks, and I hope we can continue the journey together, all of us. If I have a hope and a dream and a wish for us here, it would be that we could not only talk and share together and with each other openly but non-judgementally, but that we could also pray with and for each other in ways that maintain the integrity of our own faith traditions, but also respect those of others.

In that way we could be even more what we are already: a microcosm and an example of the way the world could, and ought, to be.