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. Read more »