Garrison Keillor, Please Leave Nonbelievers Alone
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Looks like someone woke up on the wrong side of the snow bank. Today Garrison Keillor published a caustic piece in the Baltimore Sun inspired (or…anti-inspired? What’s the inverse of inspiration? Retaliation?) by a semi-secular version of “Silent Night” he heard at a Unitarian church in Cambridge. You may want to turn down the brightness on your screen for this. It gets pretty intense. Behold:
If you don’t believe Jesus was God, OK, go write your own damn “Silent Night” and leave ours alone. This is spiritual piracy and cultural elitism, and we Christians have stood for it long enough. And all those lousy holiday songs by Jewish guys that trash up the malls every year, Rudolph and the chestnuts and the rest of that dreck. Did one of our guys write “Grab your loafers, come along if you wanna, and we’ll blow that shofar for Rosh Hashanah“? No, we didn’t.
Kinda catchy, but go on.
Christmas is a Christian holiday – if you’re not in the club, then buzz off. Celebrate Yule instead or dance around in druid robes for the solstice. Go light a big log, go wassailing and falalaing until you fall down, eat figgy pudding until you puke, but don’t mess with the Messiah.
Mister Keillor, are you enlisting with the rebel forces in the made-for-TV Fox War on Christmas?! Color me shocked and awed.
Christmas does not need any improvements. It is a common, ordinary experience that resists brilliant innovation. Just make some gingerbread persons and light three candles and sing softly in dim light about the poor man gathering winter fu-u-el and the radiant beams and the holly and the ivy, and you’ve got it. Too many people work too hard to make Christmas perfect, find the perfect gifts, get a turkey that reaches 100 percent of potential.
Nonbelievers, please leave Christmas alone — baltimoresun.com.
Well that ricocheted off in an unexpectedly Scroogey direction. Solidarity with the rebel army, but plucking some grouchiness from the (semi-secular?) forces against Christmas’ rampant materialism.
Look, I know, Jesus is the reason for the season, the boy with the birthday, etc. And I know, Christmas’ flashiness is epidemic. My delete-finger can scarcely keep up with the buy-buy-buy! spam I get from retailers I don’t remember ever provoking with a purchase. I’m looking at you, Steve Madden. But Christmas isn’t as simple as Keillor makes it out to be.
A close friend of mine once told me he usually opts out of Christmas because it’s phony. And I said, well of course it’s phony: we don’t believe in God!
For people like me (see all previous posts for identity overshare) Christmas can be, at best (and I always try to take it at best), lots of wonderful things anyway. It’s a time to shovel out the charms of winter; to warm up before the icy desolation of January and February; to have a good excuse to give things to people I love, which also means thinking fondly of them; to produce new running socks and body scrub from a stocking, along with, one year, pepper spray (thanks, Mom!); to bejewel a tree; to get together with family (one of the only times of year everybody has enough time off to do it); and to feast on and laugh at the cheerful, nostalgic buffet of the season’s low art.
And for people unlike me, who do believe in a Christian God, don’t they also enjoy the secular spin-offs of the holiday? On my mission trip to Alaska with Falwell’s church half of our group spent a day at the Santa Claus House in North Pole buying keepsake ornaments for friends, sitting on Santa’s lap, and petting reindeer (although one girl did buy a book for her nephew about Santa feeling guilty for stealing Jesus’ thunder). The only thing that struck anyone as odd was that it was July. I mean, even though evergreen trees and Snoopy ornaments and gingerbread men and “A Christmas Story” and Starburst-colored electric lights don’t have much to do with the birth of Jesus, do they necessarily diminish it? Wouldn’t Christmas feel kind of stark without all that?
Americans abide by a Christian calendar, dozens of shops in my neighborhood close on Sundays, we all chub out on Easter candy, and Christmas is a national holiday. Christian culture is grafted onto American culture in lots of ways, and vice versa, and that’s the way it is. You just can’t say the same for Jewish culture, which is why Keillor’s rant up there about Jewish guys and Rosh Hashanah rings like a dented bell. Pressure to engage in Christian culture is etched into the way we live, so Keillor, if we nonbelievers are going to be expected to sing “Silent Night,” please allow us our minor revisions.
And here’s a thought: if the dilution of Christianity rankles you so, maybe stay out of Unitarian churches? Or maybe just add another dobble of rum to your nog, and chill out a little?
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[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Gina Welch, The Bamba Baby. The Bamba Baby said: #ShanaTova Garrison Keillor, Please Leave Nonbelievers Alone – Gina Welch … http://tinyurl.com/yed9haz [...]
Christian Americans playing the victim of religious persecution always gives me a good laugh. Their heads would explode if they had to walk a mile in an atheist’s shoes.
Why? Do you wear tight shoes?
I’m not sure people explode from blood-flow restriction, though I’m not going to test it, either….
In response to another comment. See in context »Oh and of course as we all know christianity has never borrowed and modified anything from other religions. Like say Judaism…
Don’t forget the holly and evergreens. Pure pagan.
In response to another comment. See in context »Right, and they never stole the tree idea from the Druids or the date from the Egyptians and oh, don’t ever bring up that Jesus was more than likely born in the Fall. But yeah, hands off “Silent Night”!
Oh, exactly. Keillor’s seems mostly like an aesthetic complaint, right? Less emphatic about the religious violations than the ones that offend his taste?
In response to another comment. See in context »December 25 is/was the celebrated birthday of Mithros, a Roman sun god. Not sure what the Egyptians had to do with it, but maybe the Romans stole the date from the Egyptians, or vice versa. Whatever. It bears no relation to the birthdate of the historical Jesus.
In response to another comment. See in context »Uh…what “historical Jesus.” There’s plenty of evidence out there to suggest that Jesus never existed at all. Just another figment of the Christian imagination. Great story, though! The virgin birth, the miracles, the crucifixion! It sure has made churches a lot of money and given them a lot of power over the years.
No thanks. Christmas is a secular holiday as far as I’m concerned – pass the eggnog and make sure it’s well spiked!
In response to another comment. See in context »Hm. And that’s the currently fashionable view of Christmas. Just a coincidence that it’s your view also, right?
In response to another comment. See in context »Myths build upon myths. It’s how mythology evolves. Ditto for languages. Should we make fun of English because it’s based on earlier languages? And question its validity as a language, or even debate whether or not we should call it “English”?
How far do we want to take this? I know–toss out our democracy because it borrows from earlier models.
In response to another comment. See in context »Spiritual piracy? I can’t decide whether that’s an indictment of his own faith or of his understanding of intellectual property, but it’s at least one of those.
Besides, “White Christmas” remains the most perfect imagining of an old-fashioned American Christmas that there is (which, I might note, evolved significantly from other takes on Christmas).
And it was written by someone born with the name Israel Baline. Merriment 1, Keillor 0.
Ha! To your first point, I’d guess the former, since his article seems to suggest he’s got the copyright on spiritual authenticity.
To your second, I’m with you. And I suspect he steered clear of mentioning that number on purpose.
In response to another comment. See in context »Do Christians ever question why Jesus was born on December 25 (totally not true, but that’s not my point here) but the day of his death/resurrection changes every year? If they don’t like the commercialism, the Pope could just shift Christmas around to separate the retail and the religion, but keep them both to please everyone.
They moved St. Patrick’s day in 2007 [due to scheduling conflicts, I'm not making this up] and the tiny percentage of faithful that cared about the “actual” saint celebrated the papal holiday…and all the commercial westerners celebrated it March 17, same as always.
Couldn’t the same thing work for Christmas?
——————————————
I don’t celebrate Christmas, but one of the things I like about it is that, for many, it is a time for giving. Not just presents, but charity and good works, as well. It’s short-lived, but it’s the only time of year where Christians even marginally practice “WWJD”. If they were like that ALL the time and less interested in what other people were up to, it would be a great religion. As religions go.
@jameshupp
In response to another comment. See in context »Bing Crosby initially refused to do “White Christmas” because of his religious beliefs (Catholic). Perhaps his giving in was the turning point in American Christmas culture. He probably wasn’t thrilled that it stoked the holiday frenzy, but he almost certainly loved the royalties for the #1 selling song of all time.
Oops, I meant last year (2008) for the St. Pat’s thing.
In response to another comment. See in context »http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/irish_bishops_move_st._patricks_day_2008_over_conflict_with_holy_week/
Smart, essential point about the season for charity. Thanks for your comment!
In response to another comment. See in context »Uhmm, I’m happily married but I may have just fallen hard for you. Thanks for smoothly exposing this dulcet-toned scold for what he really is.
aloha
cg
“…to produce new running socks and body scrub from a stocking, along with, one year, pepper spray (thanks, Mom!)”
that is hilarious. i get several different types of centrum, deodorant, tooth paste, dental floss and a shitload of candy (puzzling, yes, but thats why i love mom lol)
I wish Lake Woebegone was real so Garrison could drown in it after making his gingerbread persons and consuming way too much organic eggnog. Is it true that American tradition of the yule log is a product of slavery? (Slaves get to soak log and set on fire and they had as much time as the log took to burn to spend “celebrating?” I know the carolers would set the rich guy’s house on fire if they didn’t get some change. “We won’t go until we get some.”
Garrison lives in a fantasy world, very much like Lake woe be gone where honkaloids are unencumbered by the unwashed non-Christian masses. It makes perfect sense that he’s a little too into Christmas.
I’d be fascinated to hear some of those “lousy holiday songs by Jewish guys that trash up the malls,” though. What on Earth is this freakish looking man on about?
>Is it true that American tradition of the yule log is a product of slavery? (Slaves get to soak log and set on fire and they had as much time as the log took to burn to spend “celebrating?”
Not that I have heard. The log goes back to European traditions: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yule_log). If Americans got slaves to do the dirty work, i can’t find a ready source. There is a book called “Soaking the Yule Log” by Katie Brown, although I’ll have to read it the old fashioned way rather than online.
There is this, though:
>The burning of the Yule log marked the beginning of Christmas celebrations. In Appalachia, as long as the log, or “backstick” burned you could celebrate. Often a very large “backstick” was chosen and soaked in a stream to ensure a nice long celebration. In the early nineteenth century, American slaves didn’t have to work as long as the Yule log burned, so they would choose the biggest, greenest log they could find. If they did have to work while it burned their master had to pay them for the work.
from (http://www.noelnoelnoel.com/trad/yulelog.html)
In response to another comment. See in context »My, this is troublesome. Winter solstice is the natural time of year to celebrate the miracle of light–light actual and Light spiritual. Non-believers, Druids, Jews and Christians alike can easily agree on that. Festival of Lights, the Jewish term, would be a fine universalist term for our pluralistic nation for what the schools now call Winter Recess.
Perhaps we could also set aside a day, call it St. Garrison’s Day, to celebrate curmudgeonliness. Lord, would Hallmark have a field day with that! And, like Thanksgiving and perhaps Valentine’s Day, so little in the way of sectarian differences.
Happy Holidays!
Gina,
Thanks for writing about this. I always had the sense that Keillor was a grump, but this is way over the top. Why be so defensive about Christmas? If anything, I don’t think people are messing with Christmas at all. It’s just that it has become so ubiquitous that it’s been pushed out the other end into experimentation land. Nothing so in your face year after year can expect to stay the same forever. Also, the thing that comes to mind most reading this story is Senator Orin Hatch’s Hanukkah song. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/09/us/politics/09hanukkah.html. Wonder how Mr. Keillor would feel about that?
Grumpiness? Sounds more like Alzheimer’s.
I am an atheist who enjoys the fun of Christmas. I do not, however, appreciate Mister Keillor’s remarks. He and many others forget that most Christian holidays are based on pagan rituals. And Keillor should keep vivid in his muddled memory that lions find Christians very tasty.
Just for the record, Unitarian Universalists consider themselves to be “Christian.” Though very (add one more “very” at least) liberal. Those who belong to UU churches are a bit less so. Those who belong to UU Fellowships, more so. Like I said. Just for the record.
I have to admit that when I started reading Keillor’s tirade, I thought it had to be a sarcastic joke. Too bad it’s not. I get the feeling that he must have needed something to grab attention (because, really, does anyone pay attention to Garrison Keillor these days? If you asked me yesterday if he was still living I wouldn’t have been able to answer one way or another). All I can say is, I’m REALLY glad I don’t have to spend Christmas with Keillor. He’s probably the sort of person who criticizes the gifts people give him.
In any case, your post says it all, and well.
We non-Christians and non-believers would love to keep our hands off Christmas, but oddly enough it keeps getting shoved down our throats. Everywhere we turn–the malls, our schools, even tree lighting ceremonies on the White House lawn–we cannot escape the ubiquity of Christmas from the minute those Halloween decorations are put away. So, Mr. Keillor, the next time you’re tempted to gripe about the purity of Christmas and its traditions, remember there are a lot of us who object to the not-so-subtle takeover of our public schools and local governments with Christian themes, despite the separation of church and state principles this country was founded upon. I’ll leave your “Silent Night” alone if you do your part to keep the Bible-thumpers from altering school curricula. Deal?
Nicely said, inmy.
In response to another comment. See in context »kudos to inmyhumbleopinion — I’ll get behind that as well!
Imho, My proudest Christian moment was when I got our school district to stop playing Christmas music in December as part of the Everyday Etudes, 5 minutes of music and silent reading at the start of every school day. I told them that it was not respectful of those students who don’t profess a Christian faith.
I spoke on the day before Thanksgiving break and I also told them that the Pilgrims came here fleeing state religion: Why insult their legacy by doing things that establish our own tyrannical state religion? Jesus opposed state religion at the cost of his life. Do you want to dishonor his legacy too?
Jesus’ teachings 1, Jesus-hijackers 0, at least on that day.
Even my Episcopalian friend has it right: In the US we have freedom of and from religion.
c’mon. dude had a stroke not three months ago. and, y’know, he was probably being that sort of northern minnesota sorta funny… what passes for funny in northern minnesota (which is similar to what passes for good food in northern minnesota).
he’s lucky to be able to pronounce words ‘n’ stuff.
Hey, if somebody wants to sing “Shit Night, Horny Night,” fine by me. “Stille Nacht” holds a special place in my heart because English and German soldiers sang that Austrian hymn in “No Man’s Land” during the Christmas truce of 1914. A lot of Europeans thought then that World War I would be over in a couple months, but instead, it continued for another four years. That said, I apologize on behalf of all Lutherans for Martin Luther carrying over that whole evergreen-tree-in-the-house trend during Christmas. That silly tradition really should have stopped where it started with the pagans. Although, I won’t apologize for that scene in the “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” movie where the squirrel flies out of the Christmas tree. That was pure cinematic genius! Please don’t change that, Unitarians! Please don’t!
>”On my mission trip to Alaska with Falwell’s church half of our group spent a day at the Santa Claus House in North Pole buying keepsake ornaments for friends, sitting on Santa’s lap, and petting reindeer (although one girl did buy a book for her nephew about Santa feeling guilty for stealing Jesus’ thunder). The only thing that struck anyone as odd was that it was July.”
Ah, but there’s plenty of scholarship that says that Jesus of nazareth was born in the summer. Not that there was snow in Bethlehem or anything – which is part of the point. The Christians probably found it much easier to co-opt pagans if they’d tap into other rites – solstice, Mithras, cult of Sol Invictus. Getting over that solstice or yuletide hangover? Come nurse it at a Christian mass! You even get to eat the body and drink the blood of our savior as part of your personal salvation!
I have to say I read Keillor’s words with his delivery in the back of my mind. He may really mean for the non Christians to back off, but I sense a little more tongue-in-cheek tone than everyone else here. Maybe that’s cause I live 5 hours south of the twin cities, but there you go.
And you know Odin will be visiting you by the month’s end for writing this blasphemy!!!!
I don’t know. I read Keillor’s piece looking for that ironic bent too, but I just don’t think it’s there. The added rant against Larry Summers is the first tip-off, and then there’s this illuminating piece he wrote for Salon a few years back:
Don’t Like Christmas? Get a Life. http://salon.com/opinion/feature/2006/11/29/keillor/
Here’s a relevant snippet: “There are people who feel “excluded” by Christian symbolism and are offended by the manger and the angels and the Child, but there have always been humorless, legalistic people. Complaint is an American art form, and in our time it has been raised to an operatic level. To which one can only say: Get a life. When you go to France, you don’t expect a stack of buckwheat pancakes for breakfast or Le Monde to print box scores. You’re in France. Now you’re in America. It’s a Christian culture. Work with it.”
He’s clearly gotten more extreme in his views (“Christmas MINE!”), but if you read the whole piece I think you’ll agree that Keillor is not kidding about this issue.
In response to another comment. See in context »You might be right. The closest I come (today) is a reader’s response of a “goofy and confusing rant” to characterize the piece. Along with you suggestions: “Or maybe just add another dobble of rum to your nog, and chill out a little?”, the scene is set. From my vantage point, Keillor was grasping at straws to make something funny/dry/witty in his curmudgeonly way, plus maybe one too many glasses of scotch. I didn’t notice that he writes a regular column for the Sun until today’s reviewing, so it’ll be interesting (somewhat) to see if he pens some sort of mea culpa. Then again, I’ve been a non-believer in a religious environment for most of my life, so maybe his words are just rolling off my back like so much other tripe tossed my direction.
In response to another comment. See in context »Give this week’s prairie home companion a listen. There’s a skit that involves Unitarian carolers. I think this is more what Keillor was going for – making fun of lyrics he considered silly. The “goofy” part about his diatribe is deeply rooted in goofing up.
Plus, Norah Jones sings throughout the show – that’s worth the time.
In response to another comment. See in context »I’ll hop off to listen to it now…still, accusing “Jewish guys” of “trashing up the malls” hardly seems goofy to me. Moreover, isn’t it just bizarre? Since when are we concerned with the degradations of mall culture?
In response to another comment. See in context »for the wanna/Hashana: bizarre, yes – certainly a gaffe. That’s why I posited an extra drink, though that’s not Keillor’s reputation. It could’ve just been really late and he was stuck for ideas (even though he apparently doesn’t believe in writers block).
As a musician, I will say I’ve played enough Christmas gigs to wonder at horrible arrangements, bad new lyrics – Christians, you’re included there – and just bad new music, that I can relate to cringing when hearing a bad rendition of any song or dance. (I don’t mind Rudolph or Chestnuts). This is why I hear his droll delivery accompanying the text. I kind of wonder why Unitarians don’t write their own stuff, too; I know plenty of UU musicians.
As for a writer screwing up, it happens once in awhile. I almost wonder if Keillor was somehow channeling this: (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/18/opinion/18feinstein.html?_r=2), written about an event that happened 10 years back.
In response to another comment. See in context »I am slow (possibly not; probably yes). It occurred to me that maybe Feinstein was responding to Keillor.
Hi ho. Off to get a life, or at least finish my Christmahunkwanzaastice cards.
In response to another comment. See in context »I am a little late joining in with this discussion but would like to point out to Mr Keillor that America cannot claim any originality or special ownership/copyright to Christmas, just about every single aspect of the American Christmas celebration has been imported from early European traditions, mostly filtered to the US from England but certainly not all British in origin.
In response to another comment. See in context »The Turkey, of course is a native American bird. before it’s introduction to Europe the celebratory bird would often have been goose.
Quite honestly, the only relevant issue is this man’s lack of ‘goodwill to all men’, necessary whatever your faith or beliefs, whatever the time of year!
Yes, Keillor has… issues. His off-putting mid-year Salon column gently discouraging investigation into US government torture in favor of letting bygones be bygones made me take a hard look.
I didn’t like what I saw.
I got to know Keillor via his writing, not his radio show. I enjoyed the first Lake Wobegon book, and some shrewd, sharp observational comedy and satire written in the early 90s.
But he’s not aging gracefully, alas!
_________________________
What’s the inverse of inspiration?
Desperation!
This guy has got to be the luckiest man alive. Garrison is not only the dufiest looking elf at the shop, his shows are about as boring as anything put in front of seats.
As for Christmas? I used to teach at a Catholic School. But I grew-up. It’s time this country realizes that idiots like this doufess have been dumbing down our nation for two hundred years. Anyone who still believes that a Jewish Carpenter rose-up to heaven, based on the words of a couple of women, or that he had an immaculate birth, when he was probably born out of wedlock and Mary didn’t want to get stoned, so she made up this stuff…anyone still believing that a 2000 year old myth makes this Jewish carpenter a lord is an idiot.
and that explains Garrison, in my opinion. Grow-up America, how old were you when you stopped believing in Santa, Garrison? It’s time to give-up the other myth, too.
[...] Gina Welch agrees: A close friend of mine once told me he usually opts out of Christmas because it’s phony. And I said, well of course it’s phony: we don’t believe in God! [...]
[...] whom I usually admire, goes a bit off the rails in this rant about Christmas (which prompted this response from Gina Welch, among others). Here’s where I think Keillor goes off the rails: “If you don’t [...]
The usual secular strawmen: “Pressure to engage in Christian culture is etched into the way we live, so Keillor, if we nonbelievers are going to be expected to sing ‘Silent Night,’ please allow us our minor revisions.”
Actually, Garrison has invited you to opt out. Don’t like “Silent Night”? Write your own hymn to whatever. To the non-manger. Or to the Don’t-Believe-in-Christ. Just don’t revise (censor) our songs. A very reasonable request. Fair, too.
Ah, but not when we put it in the religion-being-shoved-down-my-throat context. Then, suddenly, the gutting of religious details from a religious observance becomes an act of self-defense. And anyone who requests an end to the gutting becomes a friend of Faux News.
Nothing caustic about Garrison’s piece. Droll, yes. I realize that humor is not a literary device that registers with everyone, but, trust me–it’s there in abundance. Basically, his plea comes down to this: If you object to the religious version of the popular holiday in question, then celebrate that holiday as you choose. Avoid the religion, but don’t ask the religious to give up their traditions. Far from demanding that you conform, Keillor is ASKING that you do things your way.
“Christian culture is grafted onto American culture in lots of ways, and vice versa, and that’s the way it is.”
Grafted onto?? Culture is collective–i.e., made up of many sub-cultures. It’s an abstract and infinitely diverse construct. There’s no reason, beyond your obvious prejudice, to speak of American vs. Christian culture. And since the coexistence of secular and sacred is part of the basic design of our democracy, your Christian-infestation rhetoric is about as enlightened as “If those (name of group) keep moving in, we’ll have to find a new house.” Keillor’s take has nothing to do with Faux News. Yours, on the other hand….
From your point of view I’m chopping up and repurposing Keillor’s piece to suit my agenda, and from my point of view you’re doing the same to mine (with a heavy dose of condescension–I do see the humor in Keillor’s piece, but to my mind it’s nothing but whimsical window dressing on a fundamentally exclusionary message).
So I enter conversation with you very carefully, and ask that before you label me as someone who has a problem with Christians–let alone someone who believes in a “Christian infestation”–you read what I wrote more carefully: this is one nonbeliever who is in fact very comfortable around Christianity (by dint of years I spent dismantling my own prejudices), and who supports the right of Christians to celebrate Christmas as the birth of Christ. I didn’t suggest that religious people “give up their traditions,” and to be honest, I think that point is Keillor’s strawman. I don’t think anyone’s suggesting it, and it’s precisely that unprovoked outrage that calls to mind Fox News.
The question at hand is, I think, who has license to all this Christmas stuff? It’s a national holiday. Who gets to say how we celebrate it? Because Christians associate the holiday with something sacred, is Christmas theirs alone?
I don’t believe that Keillor is asking nonbelievers to conform — not at all — even though I do think he ignores the totally real pressures to engage in the holiday. I believe he’s arguing that nonbelievers (lumped together with Jews and Unitarians) should back off from a holiday that lots and lots of Americans who don’t believe Jesus was the son of God enjoy celebrating. I love Christmas. And I think there’s room enough for lots of different interpretations of it.
I do see the ethical tangles in editing the lyrics to a song about the birth of Christ. Still, I feel that Christmas music is blended into the oeuvre of American standards (I, for one, remember croaking “Silent Night” in school recitals as a little girl), and so many non-Christians feel a sentimental sense of ownership over these songs too.
Put simply: I’d argue I have just as valid a claim to this stuff as anyone else.
In response to another comment. See in context »Thanks for your reply.
“The question at hand is, I think, who has license to all this Christmas stuff? It’s a national holiday. Who gets to say how we celebrate it? Because Christians associate the holiday with something sacred, is Christmas theirs alone?”
No one has a license to the holiday. Keillor is simply asking that the religious aspects of the holiday be respected. Revision is always an act of censorship when applied to art (in this case, to texts and/or music), because there’s no way to revise art without defacing it. And please note that his rant is mostly about the behavior of believers–I suspect he’s annoyed, as I am, at those religious folks who delight in purging traditional texts of their masculine pronouns, military metaphors, etc., which amounts to holding people of the past to our modern (and, presumably, superior) values. Disrespect for tradition is everywhere, especially in the bureaucracies of mainline denominations.
This is the context of his piece, I think.
Yes, Christmas belongs to everyone. To observe as they see fit. And Keillor clearly regards many of the “secular” details as an essential part of Christmas, Tin Pan Alley ditties notwithstanding. (Personally, I like everything from Samuel Scheidt’s “Vom Himmel Hoch” settings to “Here Comes Fatty Claus.” But I’m way less NPR than Garrsion.)
Re who gets to say how we celebrate it, I assume you’re referring to the traditional religious observance, at least in the U.S. And the answer is, no one does. But we do have what amounts to a primary tradition, at least on the religious end. But tradition is not a plot or a call to conformity–it’s a codification of historical customs. The holiday’s present Christian format is the consequence of many hundreds of years of development (a fact which comically contrasts with the nothing-Christian-about-Christmas byte we’re always hearing). And, despite all suggestions to the contrary, the changing face of Christmas is not evidence of secular takeover–religion evolves as fast (or maybe faster) than any other cultural detail. And religion, by its nature, is a variation on worldly themes and ideas, with the material world serving as a metaphor for something more essential and (considerably) less temporal. That’s why stories in the Bible often read like true accounts shaped to fit various ancient literary conventions–because they are.
Yes, you have just as valid a claim to this stuff as anyone else. But “just as” means just that–no more or less than anyone else’s. When we ask for anything approaching official revision (such as the trend of removing the great European art carols from public school Christmas concerts), we’re telling everyone what to do. Shared cultural conventions lose their shared status at about that point, no?
What we do on our own pianos or in our own recording studios is a different matter, of course.
The bottom line is that there’s room for any and all takes on Christmas. Which of those versions become the “official” one is a function of time and evolution. Christmas 3050 may be completely secular. And called something else. Who knows?
I see no basis for treating dominant popular conventions as inherently sinister or repressive.
In response to another comment. See in context »Thanks for this lucid, sophisticated take. It seems like we agree on the central issue here–that there’s room enough for everyone.
In response to another comment. See in context »It may not be my place to say this, but doesn’t it make sense that Christians lay claim to Christmas given the fact that both are about Christ? Christ-ians…Christ-mas? You can’t really separate the two. Otherwise you might as well call it “December-mas”…
In response to another comment. See in context »Since Christmas is a popular holiday, no one can lay exclusive claim to it. Labeling it either sacred or secular amounts to telling people how to observe it. Which a good number of secularists are doing when they insist the day has nothing to do with Christ, religion, etc. And what the Pat Robertson types are doing when they declare it for Christians only. I find both sides equally wrong.
As a Christian (liberal, in case you didn’t guess), I point out that I observe the religious version of the holiday. The issue is complicated, of course, because it’s not simply a matter of popular vs. Christian, since religions of all types are fully part of our pop culture. It’s not contemporary vs. traditional, either, since traditions are always evolving.
The bottom line, I guess, is that we have every right to lay claim to things that happen to be exclusive to us or our particular group, but Christmas is not one of them–it belongs to everyone. Yes, there’s a fairly standard version practiced by the majority, but that version isn’t more correct or more valuable than a version practiced by someone else.
My one and only problem is with anyone–believer or nonbeliever–telling someone what to do with his or her holiday. We need to focus on how WE observe it, not how someone else keeps it. That’s my take….
In response to another comment. See in context »It’s interesting that one week prior to Keillor’s rant the Christians wrote a song for the Jews (with more to come), but he neglected to mention it. Even if Mr. Keillor was ignorant of it, you’d think his editor at the Baltimore Sun might have pointed it out.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/09/us/politics/09hanukkah.html
“… Mr. Hatch, 75, said this was his first venture into Jewish music. It will not be his last.”
Ah, yes – heard this on NPR, and had already relegated the information to the dustbin.
On the one hand, who cares who writes the music, as long as it’s good? On the other hand, most people are sure their own stuff is good.
In response to another comment. See in context »I think Keillor should listen to Silent Night in the original German. I know I’d like to read his editorial in the original German.
Goodness people, it was a satire, get it? Apparantly not:
http://www.politicsdaily.com/2009/12/24/an-xmas-eve-defense-of-garrison-keillor-and-satire/