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The articles on this site are the work of the authors only and do not necessarily reflect the views of any Green Party organization
Published by Roger Snyder
Roger's Rumblings

Jan

3

Taking the “Christ” out of Christmas

By codejack [Kuro5hin]

There is an interesting new twist in the age-old “We poor Christians are being attacked!” movement this year: The “keep Christ in Christmas” movement, attracting wannabe-martyrs from churches including Catholic to Methodist ; Baptists, strangely enough, seem divided on the issue. Some others are threatening to boycott Macy’s if they do not replace “Happy Holidays” signs with “Merry Christmas” ones. No information is available from Macy’s website about whether the Christmas, Kwanzaa, Hannukah, or Saturnalia signs will be replaced.

What exactly is Christmas, anyway? Definitions include Dance moves, a summer holiday, and Christ’s birthday, although this last one claims that it is not actually his birthday, but a pagan holiday (Saturnalia) that they moved Christ’s birthday to because everyone celebrated it anyway. Maybe we should take it one piece at a time. The 12 day festival with a burning log, the giving of gifts, feasts, and singers walking from house to house originated, as nearly as anyone can tell, with Zagmuk, a festival to help the Sumerian god Marduk in his struggle against Tiamat and the forces of chaos. This was also the earliest known version of the “corn king” ritual, where a criminal is made king, and all his commands obeyed, until he is gruesomely killed to assist the gods, or make the crops grow. Note the resemblance of this practice to the death and rebirth of Christ, dying to wash away sins, etc.

The Romans celebrated Saturnalia, a festival to Saturn, god of fertility and agriculture. It included the giving of gifts, decking halls with garlands, and decorating green trees with candles. It was because the Romans refused to stop celebrating Saturnalia that Bishop Julius I of Rome declared December 25 Christ’s birthday, and ordered the celebrations to be in his honor. He also ordered a church occasion, or “mass”, on that day, hence “Christmas.”

The Mithrans also had a holiday on December 25, the birth of Mithras. Mithras was supposedly created by Ahura-Mazda, the chief deity of Iranian polytheism, to save the world from it’s own excesses, born to a virgin, and died after a last supper with his adherents to ascend to heaven. Followers were baptized in the blood of a bull, ate bread and wine to represent Mithras’ body and blood, and held Sunday sacred. Suffice it to say that Mithraism was influential in the Roman Empire, and suborning it’s followers would have been a priority for the Christian church at the time.

Now we begin to see why “Happy Holidays” has gained such usage; The alternatives, such as “Chrisma-Hannu-Kwanzika”, are both cumbersome and bound to leave someone out. On the other hand, when former Texas governor Ann Richards was told that the state should consider removing the star on top of the capitol building, as it was a religious symbol, she replied, “I don’t know, I think it might be our only chance of getting three wise men in there.”

The truly disturbing aspect of this situation is the self-victimization involved: Stores no longer have “merry Christmas” signs, and that means that Christianity is under attack? Is Judaism under attack because there aren’t any “happy Hannukah” signs at Wal-Mart? And don’t even ask about Yom Kippur sales events or Ramadan parades. Of course, the same people who are up in arms over banning nativity scenes from public schools would most likely form a lynch mob if I were to put up a Saturnalia display in my front yard. These people are just wierd.