Making Christmas Great Again and America a Better Place to Live.
Dec 13, 2024
Culturally, it seems that “Merry Christmas” has given way to “Happy Holidays.” I finally understand why this devolution makes perfect sense to so many. I think knowing why that happened will help everyone better understand the fundamental change that has taken place in our country (and in the West). It will also help Christians understand not just how Christmas can be made great again, but why it should be great for everyone. And, in time, America will become a better place.
Christmas being “great again” does not simply mean a larger share of society starts saying, “Merry Christmas.” I believe the greeting is routinely and widely shared in a society that finds Christmas meaningful enough that people want to say it and that others receive it as a kind of blessing or statement of goodwill. Since that’s no longer true, something must have changed.
My Proposed Solution for Making Christmas Great Again
I have come to believe meaningfulness can return if the pulpits in our nation’s churches do more to declare the full import of the Incarnation. The Incarnation is the Son of God, as the second person of a one essential God, taking to himself human flesh and a human nature such as the first man, Adam, had. A simple statement but an infinitely profound proposition.
Another way to put it is that Jesus Christ is the revelation of the plan of the Triune God from before the creation of anything to reclaim, restore, and fully develop what He created in the first instance, before Adam’s transgression.
That’s a mouthful, so let me explain what I mean by contrasting it to what, in my experience, is most often preached about Jesus Christ:
Jesus saves human beings from their alienation (separation) from God as a result of not living in a morally upright way that is pleasing and acceptable to Him as our Creator; by saving us, He makes it possible for us to spend eternity in Heaven and not in Hell; and in the interim, Jesus shows us how to live and most add that the Holy Spirit is given to “top off” our ability to do that.
That is all true (except the Holy Spirit is the only power we have, not an assist to some power inherent in us). It is true when we consider the Incarnation from a subjective perspective, meaning a personal or applied-to-me perspective. It should be preached.
But what about the objective side? Who is Jesus quite apart from what you and I might subjectively (personally) want to think about Him?
For example, my thinking Jesus didn’t exist doesn’t mean he didn’t any more than my thinking the person at the local mall in a red Santa suit is a real, unique being named Santa who distributes toys to children every December 25th.
The Kind of Preaching I’m Talking About
The preaching I’m talking about would consistently and in some way present Jesus Christ as the revelation of the fundamental ground of everything. That includes all of “outer space,” the earth, human beings, matter, energy, power, and authority; everything. It’s called the cosmos. That may sound weird, but it is what the Bible says about Him.[i]
But if that’s true, it means thinking about everything in relation to Jesus Christ is the only way to think rightly about everything.[ii]
Put another way, Jesus objectively reveals God to us and His purposes for creation (the cosmos). That means we understand Him to be the “center point” for the harmonious integration of all the diversity presented to us in our lives.
And if this is who Jesus objectively is and if you have come to know Him (Galatians 4:9), His birth will be most merry to you. That’s precisely what was said of the shepherds who first heard of and saw the Christ child. They were “glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told unto them” (Luke 2:20).
So, what happened that our society went from a merry acknowledgment of the stupendous event Christmas marks to Happy Holidays? And why is that important to society, not just to some people? (If you don’t want the history behind the change, skip down to the “Summing Up” heading)
How “Away in a Manger” Went Away—The 18th Century
Beginning in the 18th century, thinkers associated with what we call the Enlightenment saw no value to Jesus as the Incarnate Son of a Triune God being fundamental to the existence of all things and their relationship to each other. In other words, an eternal mediator between the one essential God (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) and the cosmos wasn’t needed.
Several of them thought only an abstract, impersonal God was needed to provide a foundation for making sense of things. For many, though, no “God” of any kind was needed. The truth about things could be arrived at by applying reason to what we could observe.
But with that transition, the relation between God and everything else had to become tenuous. That’s because, to the Christian’s way of thinking, a generic conception of God is not objectively true to who God is, how things came into being, and what holds things together. Getting God wrong or flat-out denying Him would remove the foundation for everything and for understanding anything rightly.[iii]
How “Away in a Manger” Went Away—The 19th Century
Beginning in the late 18th century, critical thinkers put holes in the Enlightenment’s conception God and God’s relation to the world.
By the 19th century, this question became pressing: If there is no “mediator” from or through whom revelation about an uncreated God could come into the world, what could we even know about God?
The answer: Maybe nothing. And that raised the next question: If God is not knowable, then maybe there isn’t one. However, that question presented a problem. There was still the nagging question of how anything came into existence.
But in the 19th century they found their answer in Charles Darwin. Now they had a “scientific way” to get rid of any need for God in our thinking about things.
All that was left was an explanation for why the idea of God had persisted across the globe for millennia. The answer to that was provided by Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) and others. They told us we made up God, and they gave us reasons for why we would do so.
Their answers made sense to many, given they were increasingly unsure we could know anything objectively true about God anyway.
Summing Up the Modern Narrative Giving Rise to Happy Holidays.
In sum, Christianity says the Son of God is the “light of the world” that “enlightened every man” (John 1:4, 9). And it says that this Light came “into the world” in human flesh—the Son of God Incarnated (made flesh) in Jesus (John 1: 14).
The Enlightenment thinkers said, “No thanks. That Light is not needed to see things rightly.”
But as noted, the 20th century‘s celebrated atheistic historian Carl Becker admitted that Enlightenment thinkers lived off the light of Christianity’s influence and its effect on culture. See The Heavenly City of the 18th Century Philosophers. This explains why Elon Musk and Richard Dawkins recently said they were “cultural Christians.” They liked much of what Christianity had developed over time but just not Christ.
But when the true Light emitted into the cosmos by the Son of God was vanquished by Enlightenment thinkers, their light—only reflective, like that of the moon—had to go out too. Think of what would happen to the moon’s light if the sun went out, and you have the picture.
By the 20th century, the world—the whole cosmos actually—had become a very dark place.
In this century, many feel displaced in our society by remnants of a Christian culture pressing on them. For them, using the law and the U.S. Supreme Court to tear down those remnants feels like the only way to be safe, to fit in, to be accepted.
What Happened to the Church and Society When the World Went Dark
Many who still clung to the idea of God retreated into their own little (and presumably safe) corner of the cosmos, called churches.
Many went even further, retreating into an internal, subjective world of “me and my Jesus,” waiting to be raptured out of a now dark and increasingly hostile-to-them cosmos.
But many stopped believing in God altogether. Of course, no God means no Christ, and that means no merry Christmas. But “Hey,” they said, “we can still have a happy holiday season!”
What I Think Objective Preaching About the Incarnation Will Do
What might happen if preaching regularly (even weekly?) emphasized and reinforced the objective truth about Jesus Christ in relation to all things and then applied that to people subjectively and to the whole of their lives? I believe it will make the Incarnation of the Son of God increasingly great and glorious to them.
After all, what could be more glorious than coming to know for sure that one has been forever joined to the ever-living Jesus, who is also God, in a real personal relationship? That person is in a forever maturing relationship shaped by the unfathomable depth of perfect and infinite love that defines the eternal relationship between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit!
Who wouldn’t want to think that such a love relationship was offered to them? Very few, I suspect, if they are honest.
When that happens, I believe “Merry Christmas” will take on a verbal luminosity and weight of glory. It’s the meaningfulness I first spoke of. When that happens, the expression will increasingly become a Christian’s almost instinctual way of extending a word of blessing to others.
“Merry Christmas” will be kind of a shorthand way of saying, “Isn’t it great that God made everything, and He came to us so we could know Him and be a part of what He’s doing to put everything right again.”
That makes “Merry Christmas” a most felicitous greeting, like the angels who, at Jesus birth, brought to the shepherds “good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people” (Luke 2:10, KJV).
But it will require Christians, like me, to take the time to explain to others who they know Jesus Christ to be. As that happens, I believe more in our society will know why they should receive a Christian’s seasonal greeting as a form of blessing.
Why This Would Be Good for America
Solomon gives the answer, “Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD; and the people [of a nation] whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance” (Psalm 33:12, KJV, emphasis supplied). Living in a nation blessed by the God revealed in the birth of Jesus Christ is a good thing.
So, I say, “Merry Christmas, everyone!”
Christmas being “great again” does not simply mean a larger share of society starts saying, “Merry Christmas.” I believe the greeting is routinely and widely shared in a society that finds Christmas meaningful enough that people want to say it and that others receive it as a kind of blessing or statement of goodwill. Since that’s no longer true, something must have changed.
My Proposed Solution for Making Christmas Great Again
I have come to believe meaningfulness can return if the pulpits in our nation’s churches do more to declare the full import of the Incarnation. The Incarnation is the Son of God, as the second person of a one essential God, taking to himself human flesh and a human nature such as the first man, Adam, had. A simple statement but an infinitely profound proposition.
Another way to put it is that Jesus Christ is the revelation of the plan of the Triune God from before the creation of anything to reclaim, restore, and fully develop what He created in the first instance, before Adam’s transgression.
That’s a mouthful, so let me explain what I mean by contrasting it to what, in my experience, is most often preached about Jesus Christ:
Jesus saves human beings from their alienation (separation) from God as a result of not living in a morally upright way that is pleasing and acceptable to Him as our Creator; by saving us, He makes it possible for us to spend eternity in Heaven and not in Hell; and in the interim, Jesus shows us how to live and most add that the Holy Spirit is given to “top off” our ability to do that.
That is all true (except the Holy Spirit is the only power we have, not an assist to some power inherent in us). It is true when we consider the Incarnation from a subjective perspective, meaning a personal or applied-to-me perspective. It should be preached.
But what about the objective side? Who is Jesus quite apart from what you and I might subjectively (personally) want to think about Him?
For example, my thinking Jesus didn’t exist doesn’t mean he didn’t any more than my thinking the person at the local mall in a red Santa suit is a real, unique being named Santa who distributes toys to children every December 25th.
The Kind of Preaching I’m Talking About
The preaching I’m talking about would consistently and in some way present Jesus Christ as the revelation of the fundamental ground of everything. That includes all of “outer space,” the earth, human beings, matter, energy, power, and authority; everything. It’s called the cosmos. That may sound weird, but it is what the Bible says about Him.[i]
But if that’s true, it means thinking about everything in relation to Jesus Christ is the only way to think rightly about everything.[ii]
Put another way, Jesus objectively reveals God to us and His purposes for creation (the cosmos). That means we understand Him to be the “center point” for the harmonious integration of all the diversity presented to us in our lives.
And if this is who Jesus objectively is and if you have come to know Him (Galatians 4:9), His birth will be most merry to you. That’s precisely what was said of the shepherds who first heard of and saw the Christ child. They were “glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told unto them” (Luke 2:20).
So, what happened that our society went from a merry acknowledgment of the stupendous event Christmas marks to Happy Holidays? And why is that important to society, not just to some people? (If you don’t want the history behind the change, skip down to the “Summing Up” heading)
How “Away in a Manger” Went Away—The 18th Century
Beginning in the 18th century, thinkers associated with what we call the Enlightenment saw no value to Jesus as the Incarnate Son of a Triune God being fundamental to the existence of all things and their relationship to each other. In other words, an eternal mediator between the one essential God (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) and the cosmos wasn’t needed.
Several of them thought only an abstract, impersonal God was needed to provide a foundation for making sense of things. For many, though, no “God” of any kind was needed. The truth about things could be arrived at by applying reason to what we could observe.
But with that transition, the relation between God and everything else had to become tenuous. That’s because, to the Christian’s way of thinking, a generic conception of God is not objectively true to who God is, how things came into being, and what holds things together. Getting God wrong or flat-out denying Him would remove the foundation for everything and for understanding anything rightly.[iii]
How “Away in a Manger” Went Away—The 19th Century
Beginning in the late 18th century, critical thinkers put holes in the Enlightenment’s conception God and God’s relation to the world.
By the 19th century, this question became pressing: If there is no “mediator” from or through whom revelation about an uncreated God could come into the world, what could we even know about God?
The answer: Maybe nothing. And that raised the next question: If God is not knowable, then maybe there isn’t one. However, that question presented a problem. There was still the nagging question of how anything came into existence.
But in the 19th century they found their answer in Charles Darwin. Now they had a “scientific way” to get rid of any need for God in our thinking about things.
All that was left was an explanation for why the idea of God had persisted across the globe for millennia. The answer to that was provided by Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) and others. They told us we made up God, and they gave us reasons for why we would do so.
Their answers made sense to many, given they were increasingly unsure we could know anything objectively true about God anyway.
Summing Up the Modern Narrative Giving Rise to Happy Holidays.
In sum, Christianity says the Son of God is the “light of the world” that “enlightened every man” (John 1:4, 9). And it says that this Light came “into the world” in human flesh—the Son of God Incarnated (made flesh) in Jesus (John 1: 14).
The Enlightenment thinkers said, “No thanks. That Light is not needed to see things rightly.”
But as noted, the 20th century‘s celebrated atheistic historian Carl Becker admitted that Enlightenment thinkers lived off the light of Christianity’s influence and its effect on culture. See The Heavenly City of the 18th Century Philosophers. This explains why Elon Musk and Richard Dawkins recently said they were “cultural Christians.” They liked much of what Christianity had developed over time but just not Christ.
But when the true Light emitted into the cosmos by the Son of God was vanquished by Enlightenment thinkers, their light—only reflective, like that of the moon—had to go out too. Think of what would happen to the moon’s light if the sun went out, and you have the picture.
By the 20th century, the world—the whole cosmos actually—had become a very dark place.
In this century, many feel displaced in our society by remnants of a Christian culture pressing on them. For them, using the law and the U.S. Supreme Court to tear down those remnants feels like the only way to be safe, to fit in, to be accepted.
What Happened to the Church and Society When the World Went Dark
Many who still clung to the idea of God retreated into their own little (and presumably safe) corner of the cosmos, called churches.
Many went even further, retreating into an internal, subjective world of “me and my Jesus,” waiting to be raptured out of a now dark and increasingly hostile-to-them cosmos.
But many stopped believing in God altogether. Of course, no God means no Christ, and that means no merry Christmas. But “Hey,” they said, “we can still have a happy holiday season!”
What I Think Objective Preaching About the Incarnation Will Do
What might happen if preaching regularly (even weekly?) emphasized and reinforced the objective truth about Jesus Christ in relation to all things and then applied that to people subjectively and to the whole of their lives? I believe it will make the Incarnation of the Son of God increasingly great and glorious to them.
After all, what could be more glorious than coming to know for sure that one has been forever joined to the ever-living Jesus, who is also God, in a real personal relationship? That person is in a forever maturing relationship shaped by the unfathomable depth of perfect and infinite love that defines the eternal relationship between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit!
Who wouldn’t want to think that such a love relationship was offered to them? Very few, I suspect, if they are honest.
When that happens, I believe “Merry Christmas” will take on a verbal luminosity and weight of glory. It’s the meaningfulness I first spoke of. When that happens, the expression will increasingly become a Christian’s almost instinctual way of extending a word of blessing to others.
“Merry Christmas” will be kind of a shorthand way of saying, “Isn’t it great that God made everything, and He came to us so we could know Him and be a part of what He’s doing to put everything right again.”
That makes “Merry Christmas” a most felicitous greeting, like the angels who, at Jesus birth, brought to the shepherds “good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people” (Luke 2:10, KJV).
But it will require Christians, like me, to take the time to explain to others who they know Jesus Christ to be. As that happens, I believe more in our society will know why they should receive a Christian’s seasonal greeting as a form of blessing.
Why This Would Be Good for America
Solomon gives the answer, “Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD; and the people [of a nation] whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance” (Psalm 33:12, KJV, emphasis supplied). Living in a nation blessed by the God revealed in the birth of Jesus Christ is a good thing.
So, I say, “Merry Christmas, everyone!”
[i] 1 Corinthians 3:11, KJV (“For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.”); Colossian 1:17-18, KJV (“And he is before all things, and by him all things consist. And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence.”) (emphasis supplied).
[ii] Colossians 2:2-3, KJV (stating that in “the acknowledgment of the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ . . . all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” in this life are to be found).
[iii] “Anything” sounds extreme, but not if, as Christians believe, everything is intended by God to reveal the glory of God and be used and developed for the glory of God. For example, someone may understand certain things beyond the level of any other person on earth as to how to make amazing technological breakthroughs, but in not doing so for the glory of God or giving thanks to God for its development, he or she misses the fundamental mark of human existence as one made in the image of God, effectively exalting himself or herself above the Triune God. He or she has become an idol in relation to God.
