Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire.—Gustav Mahler

Sunday, December 26, 2004

Commenter Luke on Christmas

I thought this bit from commenter Luke was perceptive:

It is not just the faith of a lot of the American people that makes Christmas an important national holiday: it is that Christianity was the faith that enabled our cultural ancestors -- at a terrible price -- to build and bequeath to us the civilization we live in, like none other ever seen. This History -- these Facts -- are what justify the celebration, quite apart from the present state of the faith. We have an obligation to remember, just as we have an obligation to remember Lincoln, and the Civil War, and the Battle Hymn of the Republic. As a culture and a civilization, they are all parts of who we are and where we came from. If nothing else we owe it to our children to celebrate and remember these things, lest they take it all for granted -- the and let it slip away.

1 comment:

S. T. Karnick said...

It is important to note that the early American opposition to Christmas came not from secular deists or unbelievers but from Purtitans. The ultimate embrace of Christmas by the evangelical descendants of the Puritans is what made it possible for the nation as a whole to agree on it as a common holiday.—STK