Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!sdd.hp.com!news.cs.indiana.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: John_Graves@cellbio.duke.edu (John Graves) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: PEACE ON EARTH was (Re: Christmas...) Message-ID: Date: 3 Jan 91 09:30:20 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Duke University Medical Center Lines: 134 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article kriz@skat.usc.edu (Dennis Kriz) writes: > Yesterday there was an article in the view section of the LA Times in which > a Jewish group was featured protesting a planned assembly at a public > school in which Santa Claus was supposed to hand out candy-canes to all > the school-children present. Good for them! > The thrust of their argument was that the assembly made it impossible for > non-Christian children to discreetly not participate. Apparently, Santa > Claus is still too closely associated with "Christian celebration." Especially in an area with spanish speaking children, the name Santa is indicative of a Roman Catholic saint. In this case the saint is Saint Nicolas, feast day December 6, who was first honored in the 6th century with a church of St. Nicholas at Constantinople. According to the Penguin Dictionary of Saints he has been one of the most popular saints from the 9th C in the East and the 11th in the West. Bishop of Myra in Lycia in the 4th C., a legend from a biography published in the 9th C. claims that Nicholas saved 3 young girls from prostitution by throwing 3 bags of gold as dowry into their window at night. He was also claimed to have been at the Council of Nicea in 325 and to have miraculously brought back to life murdered children. He is patron of courtries, provinces, cities; titular of churches numerable, the saint of sailors, children, merchants, pawnbrokers, and others. His representation is legion in religious art. "St. Nicholas as patron of children is the origin of "Father Christmas". Presents were - in some countries still are -- given on his feast day, and "Santa Claus" is derived, via America, from the Dutch dialect form of his name, Sinte Klaas." While the modern fat bellied Santa and the miraculous legends about him are not true, neither it appears are the older but RC and Orthodox church accepted legends. Nevertheless, for a great part of the world, St. Nick is associated with Christmas and gift giving. Clearly a religious association. > I sympathize with the Jewish group in that it didn't want its kids to > have to be forced to "come over to Santa" I really do. > > What I object to is the association that Santa has necessarily anything > to do anymore with "Christian celebration." The falsity of this statement is clear to anyone who knows the smallest whit about church history and the picking of the winter solstice for the Christ birth feast. There is really no basis for assigning this date to Jesus' birth except that there were already pagan birth festivals (Mithra in particular and the Winter Solstice rebirth of the Sun festival). The church picked this date to take advantange of the existing festivals. Until the coming of the Puritans, the Christmas feast was celebrated, as a coming of the new year, with great festivity. > > I don't want to defend Santa. Indeed, I'd like to "dump him". If after > a generation of court case after court case progressively stripping > Christmas of any religious root (that's why we have such a cult of Santa > to begin with), Santa Claus is *still* associated with "Christian > celebration", it's time to admit that this 'experiment' (more akin to > a kidnapping and rape) of "secularizing" Christmas has failed ... and > to do the honest thing: As above, Christmas is a coopting of the pagan festivals and was celebrated joyously by the Christian community. > > Remove Christmas from the list of official holidays. And simply > allow employees/school children to take a "personal day off" on > that day if they desire. In our pluralist society we can celebrate Christmas, Chanukah, Solstice, and other holidays of birth and rebirth together and at the same time. We may not need this holiday in the warm areas of Los Angeles, but believe me, we need it in those areas of the world that get frigid, even North Carolina. > Simply ban all "Holiday displays" on public property during this > time. Seeing the Santa Claus/Christmas tree on public property, > is as painful for many Christians as it is for many non-Christians. > [Indeed, whereas Monterey, CA was required to put up a minorah > and a Christmas tree next to a nativity scene this year, Beverly > Hills CA was simply required to put up a Christmas tree next to > its minorah display. Both displays were on public property ... > and the message at least to me is clear ... Whereas non-Christian > identity is protected, Christian sensibilities can be walked on]. Sorry, but the Christmas tree was coopted by Christians in Germany from the Wiccans and other nature pagans, just as many families in my NY Jewish neighborhood coopted it into a Chanukah bush. As a Unitarian I would mention that it was a Christian Unitarian minister who brought the Christmas tree to America from Germany c. 1840 and helped to replace the stamping out of the Christmas celebration by the Puritans. > Seeing displays of Santa Claus/Christmas trees on public land > in absence of any religious root can and should begin to be > looked at as representing a modern day persecution of Christians. As above, you simply don't have a clear understanding of the intermingling of Christmas and the other Winter festivals. This is not a modern day persecution of Christians. It is a continuation of the process of centuries, led by the Roman Catholic church in its effort to convert Pagans to Christianity. > The display on public property of a Santa Claus/Christmas tree > in absense of any religious root is as much an ideological > statement as the display on public property of a swastika or a > hammer and sickle. Sure it's sugar coated, but it still > slams (Christian) sensitivities. It only slams Holier-than-thou sensitivities. You are attempting, like the Puritans, to take the Joy and frivolity out of Christmas and the Winter season when it is most needed. Especially now as we approach war. Scrooge. > The honest thing to do, if a nativity scene is deemed painful > to non-Christians, is to ask that the Santa Clauses be taken > down too. The honest thing to do is to admit the way in which Christmas has developed. > > So this is a "Second annual letter" to President Bush, to ask for help > in "returning Christmas to us" And this is my first annual plea to President Bush, to ask him to remember the Christmas message of the angels, that there be "PEACE ON EARTH, GOOD WILL TOWARDS MEN (AND WOMEN). John Allan Graves Unitarian Universalism Duke University An inclusive religion! and all its components () including the Divinity School, \__/ disavow anything I say. II