A few weeks ago, I was asked to sing with a local college chorus on their end-of-term concert because they were low on tenors. The school in question is a state-supported, nominally secular community college on the outskirts of a city of more than 200,000 residents. On my way in to the last rehearsal before the performance, I was startled to realize that fully 90% of the selections on the program were Christmas carols. We would be singing a dozen or more songs whose texts repeated all the Christian nativity fables about shepherds, angels, wise men, and young women becoming pregnant without engaging in sexual intercourse. How could such a blatant violation of the constitutional separation of church and state happen without triggering protests from the city's secular community? Where are the petitions, the lawsuits, the demonstrations of outrage? Where is my outrage?
Fox News would have us believe that we are in the middle of a determined, coordinated campaign by secular forces against any and all Christian traditions associated with Christmas - "The War On Christmas". In the Fox narrative, any attempt, however innocent, to publicly celebrate Christmas elicits an immediate angry response from hate-filled liberal hordes. No manger scene or Christmas concert is safe from their aggression, so right-thinking people everywhere must be on constant alert against the forces of evil who seek to destroy all religious observations.
Maybe, maybe not.
I think that most of us, religious or secular, don't really feel very strongly about how our neighbors choose to express their beliefs, as long as that expression doesn't compel us to participate against our will. That turns out to be a pretty significant condition, however. The fact that those who profess to be Christians constitute a numerical majority in the United States seems to encourage aggression in some adherents. They are emboldened to insist on manger scenes on courthouse lawns, prayers to open town council meetings, and other similar acts that commandeer civic property and civic functions for the exercise of a particular religion. This seems to me to be in direct contradiction to the letter and the spirit of the First Amendment, and good citizenship demands that we resist such unlawful behavior.
So, you ask, what is different about the choral concert at the local college? For one thing, I just can't feel threatened by songs or singing. I spend a significant part of my life singing and listening to singing, much of it associated with church services. Almost without exception, I largely ignore the meaning of the texts. As a singer, I give a lot of energy and attention to the pronunciation and articulation of the text, but the emotional content of the performance always, for me, comes from the music. When I listen to an alto soloist sing "Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son" from Handel's Messiah, I can enjoy the harmonies and melody and the artistry of the singer without ever giving any thought to the unlikely premise of the text. I don't think that I am unique in this. Singing, especially choral part-singing, is a wonderfully natural means of expression, but for most of us it would be just as enjoyable if we used "scooby-doo" syllables, or just hummed. Singing or listening to songs about angels singing to shepherds won't convince us to believe that there really are angels, or that they give choral concerts for sheep herders.
The other reason that I can't get overly distressed by the choral concert program is that, although Fox News hasn't acknowledged it yet, the War on Christmas is over - has been over for several thousand years. Since the Stone Age, human societies have celebrated the Winter Solstice with candles, gift-giving, evergreens, feasting, and singing. Christian leaders in the 4th Century CE had no idea what time of year Jesus of Nazareth was born, but they did know that there was a wonderful mid-winter party every year, so why not graft a celebration of the birth of Jesus on top of it? That's what they did, but it has never been a comfortable fit.
This mid-winter season, look around any city or town in 21st Century America, the most devoutly "Christian" society on the globe. Almost without exception, the activities and sights that you see owe their origins to the ancient pagan celebrations, pushed to extremes by the modern quest for corporate profits. Even some of the nominally "religious" observations (angels in store windows, carolers in the mall) are there mainly for revenue enhancement. The truth is that the birth of Jesus is not "the reason for the season", as preachers would have us believe. What we refer to as the Christ Mass is in fact a time-honored secular celebration with a thin layer of religion grafted on top of it, and we all seem to like it that way.
Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukah, and a Jolly Winter Solstice to us all!
Thomas R. Borden Waugh, Alabama December 23, 2013