by Akim Reinhardt
I have never been Christian. Christianity then is at once very familiar and rather foreign to me, rather distant yet omnipresent. Although I’m now atheistic, I was raised Jewish and have a reasonable understanding of Christianity ‘s founding document: the Hebrew Bible. As a Historian who has periodically had to grapple with the role of religion, especially Christianity, in the European, colonial, U.S., and Indigenous pasts, I have a sense of how the religion has changed and been used over time. But mostly, as someone who has lived his whole life in a large nation thoroughly dominated by Christians, who has some Christian family, and who has been in relationships with women who were raised Christian even if they no longer practiced it, I am very used to the annual rhythms and rituals of Christianity, as well as the public stances and goals of various Christians.
This time of year tends to bring out the best, and occasionally the worst, in American Christians. While the materialistic orgy is a bit dismaying, it does not generally concern me. However, the emphasis on good will and generosity can genuinely warm American society. Indeed, even a lot of the ass holes start behaving a little better. Yet at the same time, there is always a small quotient of people, for whom genuine happiness seems to be forever elusive, and they will invariably begin whining about a supposed War on Christmas. Even during this festive season, in this very Christian country, that old Christian persecution complex never really goes away.
They’re not entirely wrong, you know. But boy are they not right. Christ has, to a large degree, been taken out of Christmas in the United States. But what some are apt to see as a sinister Liberal plot to de-Christianize Christmas is actually the largely passive secularization of Christmas that has been ongoing for at least a century in the U.S. The whole Santa Claus schtick and even Christmas sales at stores, date all the way back to the mid-19th century. The New York City department stores Macy’s and Gimbel’s came up with the odious Black Friday in the 1920s. It’s not a sinister conspiracy, and certainly not the doing of non-Christians. It’s just millions of people, most of them Christian, actually, embracing aspects of the Christmas holiday they enjoy (getting and giving gifts, putting up and decorating a tree, eating big family meals, watching football, not going to work, etc.) and forsaking overtly religious aspects of the holiday by not going to church and generally not giving too much thought to the birth of Jesus.
Yes, Christmas has secularized to an amazing degree, first here in the United States, and increasingly, because of America’s vast pop culture influence, around the world. Simlar to how the American-style wedding has also become a prominent part of many cultures around the globe. When you’re the wealthiest empire in the history of the world, and invent blue jeans, Hollywood movies, and modern pop music, you end up with a lot of copycats.
However, the idea that non-Christians have been driving this is entirely backwards. To the contrary, as Christians themselves began to substantially secularize Christmas during the mid-20th, non-Christians began to follow their lead. Instead of non-Christians and non-believers watering down Christian Christmas, many of them have embraced Christmas and have done so the way American Christians told them to. And it’s not just soul rotting atheists such as myself, but Jews, Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, and others in the United States (and to a lesser extent around the world) who have bought into the Christian holiday of Christmas as presented to them by mainstream American culture.
Why? Because Christians always have and still do thoroughly dominate the United States, and as Christians themselves transformed Christmas from a distinctly religious holiday into a secular American holiday, non-Christians felt enormous pressure to fit in. No, of course they didn’t start going to midnight mass. But eventually, as Christmas grew into the nation’s dominant holiday, rejecting the Christmas Holiday season was akin to rejecting the Fourth of July or Thanksgiving: it marked you as anti-social, stubbornly recalcitrant, and less American.
They even have words for it: Scrooge, Grinch, etc.
While all of this can lead to non-believers and non-Christians feeling put-upon, it’s not all bad. Finding ways to bring the nation together in a spirit of generosity and goodwill is, in itself, a very good thing. And many non-believers and non-Christians have found ways to genuinely enjoy Christmas even though it’s ostensibly a holiday from a religion they do not practice or believe in.
As far back as thirty years ago, I spent several Christmases hanging out with an immigrant Indian family in Maryland. They are Hindus, not even of the Abrahamic tradition. The birth of Jesus means as much to them as the marriage of Lord Shiva and the Goddess Parvati does to you. Yet they gathered as an extended family, decorated a real pine tree, exchanged prettily wrapped presents, and even sang carols. Fa la la la.
That’s not a War on Christmas. That’s immigrants and their children trying as best they can to be more American, and doing it the way most American Christians have told them how to do it.
I was in my late twenties and knew next to nothing about Hinduism as a religion, and only a little bit about Gujarati Indian culture. But I knew exactly what the family was doing at Christmas and why, and I was happy to be part of it.
Another example is Chanukah: a very minor holiday in the Jewish lunar calendar. But its eight days happen to roll out during the holiday season, almost always beginning after Thanksgiving, and actually overlapping with Christmas about once every three years. After WWII, American Jews strove to put their foreign immigrant label behind them; making Chanukah more like Christmas was (is) a way for Jews to signal to Christian America that that they were Americanizing, and also made their Jewish children to feel less left out.
It comes easily to Americans: pressuring others to be like them, and being very confounded when people are not like them. Because Americans can be very arrogant. People around the world will tell you this. We’re not arrogant exactly like the English or French are, thankfully. We’re more oblivious and notably jollier. But we Americans do have a way of assuming our way is the right way and the only legitimate way, to the point of not even bothering to learn how other people understand or do it. We’re doing Christmas, and we’re doing it this way; why aren’t you?
Americans in no way have a monopoly on this kind of arrogance. But when you’re the wealthiest and most powerful empire in world history, the arrogance comes naturally, and the self-awareness not so much. You might not even notice that other people don’t find it so charming.
But Christianity is also likely part of it. All three Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) are exclusivist, meaning each one teaches that it is the only true religion and every other religion is false. This is monotheism’s true innovation: not a matter of counting, but of insisting that every other divinity is an evil fraud.
Judaism takes a somewhat different approach to non-believers than do Christianity and Islam. Jews don’t view non-Jews as inherent sinners doomed to eternal damnation. Jews don’t even have a concept of Hell. Rather, they see gentiles has having not been picked by God to join his club of chosen humans. In Jewish theology, gentiles can still be good in the eyes of God if they just follow some very simple rules. For example, don’t eat animals before killing them. Seriously. It’s that basic.
But Christianity and Islam, as we all know because certain Christians and Muslims will not stop telling us, each proclaims to be the only path to the one true God. Reject their God outright, or even try embrace him but do it the wrong way, and boy are you fucked.
Furthermore, as the self-proclaimed only righteous paths to Heaven and away from Hell, Christianity and Islam are not only exclusivist, but also imperial. They will not rest until they’ve captured every soul. Christianity prioritizes spreading the Good News (Gospel) of Jesus’ sacrifice and rebirth; Islam prioritizes spreading God’s word as received by the Prophet Mohammad. Each fundamentally insists that such is the only road to salvation. God will not take you any other way, and condemn you otherwise.
You will not be accepted unless you do this. You will be pitied or derided or given the cold shoulder or preached at incessantly or forced to convert upon pain of death or enslaved or killed depending upon the time, place, and circumstances.
But I don’t want to join your religion. Can I just decorate a tree and wrap gifts instead? You’re in such a good mood this time of year. Let’s toast to the New Year, and I won’t mention that I don’t believe in a Heaven or Hell, or a God, much less one who spawned Jesus and spoke to Mohammad.
Here, I got you something. I hope you like it.
Akim Reinhardt’s website is ThePublicProfessor.com