The Religious Right's War on Christmas Began Centuries Ago

As journalist Frederick Clarkson observes, proclamations from Bill O'Reilly, claiming the existence of a leftist assault on Christmas, are "part of a transcendent politics of the Religious Right, and a variant of that old time McCarthism -- baiting everyone with whom they disagree as advocating a 'godless' agenda." Indeed, Billy James Hargis' Christian Crusade was making the same chargesm of a left-wing 'war on Christmas', back in 1960 and much earlier in the year -- in July in fact.

But how did the "War on Christmas", as a concept, originate ? As it happens, once upon a time there was a real "War on Christmas" and it was initiated by the theocratic Christian right of its day, Swiss Calvinists and Scottish Presbyterians. Here's a short overview:

The "war on Christmas" traces back, historically, to Calvinist bans on the celebration of Christmas which began in Geneva and then migrated, with the spread of Calvinist theological views, to Scotland, where Christmas was banned in 1583, a ban that remained in force for almost four hundred years and was only lifted in the 1950's. As Amy McNeese writes, in an article, first published in the Church of Scotland magazine Life & Work,that may be one of the best treatments of the War on Christmas.

"For almost 400 years, Christmas was banned in Scotland. At the height of the Reformation, in 1583, when anything smacking of Catholicism and idolatrous excess was thrown out with contempt, Christmas and all its trappings was wiped off the official calendar...

...Reinforced by the hard arm of the law, this was a ban that had bite...

This was an age when religious belief could mean the difference between life and a very nasty death....

Scottish Presbyterians, when called on for support by the Puritans of the English Parliament in 1644, did so on the understanding that their allies would in exchange impose the ban on Christmas. For over a decade traditional English Christmas festivities were prohibited

From Scotland, the ban on Christmas spread south as Oliver Cromwell's New Model Army brought the Cromwellian revolution to England. Cromwell's Puritans banned Christmas in England for about a decade but the measure was unpopular. Feelings among pro and anti Christmas advocates ran strong and, after a second enforcement act against Christmas was passed by the English Parliament in 1647 [writes McNeese],

Again the people rebelled, this time so forcefully that armed officers had to be sent to remove evergreens decorating St Margaret's Church, near the English Parliament itself. Rioting broke out in London, Kent, Oxford, Canterbury and Ipswich, in which several people were killed. A petition with more than 10,000 signatures demanded either the restoration of Christmas or else the king back on the throne...

Even after the bans were revoked in England in 1660, Puritans and other Non-Conformists "ranted against Anti-Christ's-masse and those Masse-mongers and Papists who observe it", and were commonly known to "inveigh against New Year gifts and evergreens, or to attack the Pope by refusing to eat plum-broth; or to condemn those who ate mince-pies as Papists and idolaters"....

These attitudes were carried to the New World by English Puritans, Quakers, Baptists and Scottish Presbyterians. In America, reprisals were as harsh here as back in Scotland. In Massachusetts a five-shilling penalty was imposed on anyone found feasting or shirking work on Christmas Day...

A hundred years later the Quakers were still ranting against the Christmas pie as "an invention of the scarlet whore of Babylon, an hodge podge of superstition, Popery, the Devil and all his works".

From England the War on Christmas then crossed the Atlantic to the New World migrating with the Puritans who were fleeing the persecution of their political and theological tendency that followed the overthrow of Cromwellian government. Under Puritan rule in the Bay State Colony, Christmas was at one point legally banned for two decades.

Christmas fared worse in Scotland though and was only brought back after four centuries, in part due to the culinary experiences of Scottish soldiers during World War Two. As McNeese describes,

Abroad and in the company of English soldiers, many Scots experienced their first proper Christmas dinner. Once tasted, it was never forgotten. On their return home, these servicemen began to celebrate the festival with some style, and gradually their ideas took root.

Early in the 20th Century in America, the notion of a "war on Christmas", which had long been on the wane, got a boost, as Talk To Action contributor Chip Berlet demonstrates, in 1921 with Henry Ford's notorious and highly influential anti-Jewish tract "The International Jew".

By the America of the early 1960's, American Christian right groups such as Billy James Hargis' Christian Crusade, which was at least heavily Christian nationalist if not overtly theocratic, had appropriated the notion of a "war ion Christmas" as a means of red-baiting the American left ( see section, below ). But the true, historical War on Christmas was a creation of the Protestant, theocratic right.

According To Billy James Hargis' 1960 "Crusader" article [below], published during dark days leading up to the Cuban Missile Crisis, during which communism was held to be stealthily advancing via liberal Protestant churches and the machinations of Hallmark Greeting Cards and UNICEF, Christmas was also then under siege from the left. But in 1960, the religious right's war on the alleged war on Christmas got started much earlier in the season than is now customary.

In 1960, the war on the war on Christmas started in July.

Below: December 9, 1960 article from "The Crusader"

Comments

[sonoffestus]

Listen folks , I have had it with all this war stuff. Lets try, " Eat, Drink & Be Merry Day." Oh, and if you want to buy someone a gift, fine. If you want to go to church, fine. Lets just drop the war thing. We don't seem to do war well.

Have a Merry Day!

[Strepsi]

Well I for one will continue to don gay apparel!

[SonofLiberty1]

Yes, that was a time when gay meant happy not homsexual....

[McJeff]

Folks, many of you state that Christmas is a Christian holiday. Well...kinda. Certainly in the context of modern Western culture it currently is a Christian holiday, but many of the trappings of Christmas: the tree, gift giving, feasting, emphasis on hearth, home and family, those things were in place in Europe long before Christianity took hold.
In addition, Santa, reindeer, and even Nativity scenes are relatively new. Our modern holiday of Christmas is a hodge-podge of numerous solstice holiday traditions.
In the last 1700 odd years, Christianity has been the prevailing spiritual mode. Much of what we now consider Christian (correctly) is laid on much much older traditions and beliefs.
The Christmas holiday is sure to evolve into something different as sure as the earth revolves around the sun.
Happy Holidays!

[Kiba]

Christmas is thoroughly pagan with some Christian trappings added. And that's the way I like it.

[24hourrifle]

im pretty sure i agree with you.except for the fact that "christmas",in and of itself IS a christian holiday.the original point was to celebrate the birth of our lord and savior,this is what christians believe and we wanted a day to honor/celebrate it.however,you are right in the sense that all the festivities that have become a part of it have little to do with christianity,ie:reindeer,santa etc...this is why saying "happy holidays" and allowing businesses to decorate how they please and give out "holiday bonuses" is the correct way to go.but more importantly,jewish people celebrate hannukah during the same period.i think this is what bubbleheads like bill oraly overlook."holidays" is not just a way to avoid saying "merry christmas".its a way to be inclusive.where i work,i had a few times said "merry christmas" to customers only to find out later they were jewish.the point to remember here is that,in the world of far right wingnuts like oreilly,christians are the only "real americans",and therefore everything we do in our country should be tailored to suit their needs while looking out for everyone else only when it coincides with their agenda.

[SonofLiberty1]

Reindeer yes...but Santa is St. Nicholoas...I see you didn't read my previous post:)

[ProgressivePartisan]

True, Scotland banned Christmas celebrations for centuries but ... the land of the saltire DID give us Hogmany!
C'mon ... what is sitting around a decorated dead evergreen tree watching shreiking kids open waaay to many presents compared to getting sh**faced in Aberdeen and dancing around in the streets with a bunch of sassy lassies while watching huge flaming balls roll off of cliffs into the North Sea!
It's no even close, mate!

[HyperInfluential]

Christmas is not just a Christian holiday anymore, it is a United States Federal Holiday that just happens to have the same name as the Christian holiday that is celebrated on the same day of the year. Therefore, you don't have to be Christian to love Christmas! Feel free to cover things in glitter and bows! Any American can enjoy this holiday inspired by the Christian holiday with the same name, without having to feel like they're doing it wrong, or that some fundamentalist preacher is the authority on how it should be celebrated. Christmas is supposed to be about JOY and PEACE, and SHINY THINGS! As long as you've got that, you're doing it right.

[24hourrifle]

look,i dont think its fair to simply say-christmas has nothing to do with christianity.im a christian and my faith is what makes christmas special to me.however.that doesnt mean that christians "own" the holiday season.being inclusive,being kind and sharing and santa claus and reindeer and shiny stuff,AS WELL AS the birth of jesus christ,do not have to be mutually exclusive.angry,racist,homophobic,knuckledragging,bubblehead know nothings have hijacked my faith and it pisses me off to no end.however,i have no problem with being an open minded radically far left progressive AND a christian.recently,especially after the whole prop 8 fiasco,a lot of people on the left have been taking out their rage on christianity.i understand that prop 8 was funded by evangelicals,and especially by mormons.however,its important to remember that the vast majority of christians in this country are not represented by the vile,greasy hypocrites who run those awful,offensive mega churches.we must always remember that being close minded and judging an entire group of people based on the disgraceful actions of a small few,is how CONSERVATIVES act.

[LunaNik]

Very generous of you. We pagans will be glad to share our lighted trees, mistletoe, yule logs, and gift giving with you Christians.

[SonofLiberty1]

Sure, you are right on..it's a Holiday so most folks get it off.

Now, for the rest of you filled with Bah Humbug...heck you get a day off work.

Don't want Christmas...fine with me...we will just give you one less holiday!

[GuyRC]

It was a holiday before Christ was born, and before David ruled Israel. It was celebration of the midpoint of winter, when the days start lengthening again. We can have a secular holiday if we want and you can go to church if you want.

[Gifts]

Christmas is beautiful, if you have an open mind and heart, it is for everyone. God loves everyone, and if you don't believe that is cool. One thing we can all agree on is that no one knows how we all arrived on earth, but we all have our thoughts on it. When you shut down those who believe in creation and God, then what do you have. Religion is not the root of evil, man's failure to communicate is. Merry Christmas and God Bless you all, from a believer.

[nolabels]

And fairies rule my back yard and unicorns are running around the central park at night. Good luck with your fairy tales. Just make sure they don't make it into children's classrooms.

[Kiba]

Indeed.

Science is swiftly closing in on understanding the beginning of life on this planet. Organizational behavior at the molecular level is simply a result of the laws of physics. It's very interesting research.

We already know a great deal about the processes that led to the evolution of humanity.

[Deaninphilly]

I just find that inappropriate. I was raised Roman Catholic and left the church many many years ago. Being gay you just don't fit in. You're confusing the church or many churches with belief, they are different things. I don't believe in many of the dogmas but true or not what Jesus says in the Bible should not be discounted out of hand because if more people practiced what he had to say IMO the world would be a much nicer place. Comments like yours are just as bad as those on the far right. You don't believe as I do so therefore you are irrelevant.

[SonofLiberty1]

AMEN TO THAT)

Of course it's for everyone, but not everyone wants it apparently!

[tiradintim]

It's just sad that Christmas in the US has become a political concept, and not the joyous season it was when I was growing up....sorry if I sound like a sentimental old coot....but nowadays it looks like if you celebrate ''the holidays'', or perhaps nothing at all, then you're cool; if you celebrate Christmas, you must be part of the religious right or a Republican or some other kind of undesirable person like that. Is this really a sign of a healthy and tolerant society?

[tiradintim]

I find all of this "war on Christmas" pretty silly and extremely depressing. I think both sides should cool it. It seems to get worse every year--it's either "put Christ back in Christmas" or the idiocy of calling a Christmas tree a "holiday" tree. Christmas is an ingrained part of Western and American culture for a long time, and it needn't violate one's humanist or progressive principles to recognize that fact. It doesn't mean you are attempting to establish Christianity as the state religion every time you mention the word Christmas; and yet that's how neurotic the situation seems to have become. We Americans seem to go to extremes with everything, and political correctness is just another example. I think a little common sense and maturity here would go a long way to soothe people's emotions on an issue that really shouldn't be one.

[Lolly]

There are no "both sides" to cool anything.

The whole "war on Christmas" is a figment of the imagination, invented (or re-invented) as a fund-raising tool. Gin up the paranoia and persecution complex, and get them to open up their wallets to "save" Christmas from--who? Who is banning Christmas? How is saying "Happy Holidays" in any way, shape, or form a "war on Christmas?"

Is anybody suggesting we stop taking Christmas off? Is anybody trying to make it illegal to put a Christmas tree in one's home?

Forget the false equivalence--it's not "fair and balanced" to attribute something to "both sides" when it only exists in the feverish imagination of one side.

[tiradintim]

To say that both sides don't exist is Stalinist and a seeming attempt to stifle any debate. There are extremes from each side--the religious right on one hand who would like to put Merry Christmas on dollar bills and the PC fanatics who think Christmas trees are religious and should be relegated to one's private home on the other. It all seems very puerile when compared to the issues that really threaten us such as global warming. But saying there haven't been rhetorical excesses from both right and left here sounds like not really listening or reading.

[LMPE]

Is it just me, or is organized religion one of the main sources of intolerance (and, by extension, genocide)?

These Bible-thumping thugs don't want people thinking about anything. FYI, part of the reason that we know the earth to be round is because people THOUGHT and didn't base everything on superstition. BTW, one of the earliest people who theorized that the earth is a sphere was one of the famous Greek philosophers. The round shadow cast by our planet on the moon implied to him that the earth has to be a sphere. Washington Irving completely fabricated the story in which Christopher Columbus single-handedly proves that the earth is round.

But, back to the subject. I'll never subscribe to any organized religion. I have too many pleasures in life.

[lenski]

No, organized religion is not one of the main _sources_ of intolerance and by extension, genocide. Organized religion as a concept is essentially morally neutral. Organized religion typically could not care less for deterring the basest human instincts of tribalism and fear of "the other".

Which is why organized religion, while believed by its adherents to be the monopoly owner of all things moral, is nothing of the kind.

Jesus taught tolerance, gentleness and giving. Christian Nationalism teaches exactly the opposite, and misuses the word of God in the most vain attempt to give their parochial views undeserved power.

[Davwbaird]

tis the monotheistic religions that are the real rub, all concern with eternal life and thus built on a basic foundation of fear. Having been there I know of which i speak. Its of course the priest hoods connected with these one gods that is the real rub.

[Nardwilly]

Organized religion is also the leading civilizing force in the world. WWII was fought for absolutely no religious reasons. WWI had no religious component at its core.The colonization of Africa and the Americas was not driven by religion. Both colonizations led to significant destruction of societies driven by the need for economic power.

[SonofLiberty1]

Not all Christians are "Bible thumping fundamentalists", most are mainstream.

[daffey]

It's just you. Intolerance is a human trait, not a religious one. Just go to a secular liberal group and say the right to an abortion is wrong or that homosexual marriage shouldn't be allowed and you'll find a whole new definition of intolerance. The fact is, folks think their ways are the right ways, and over time, become increasingly impatient with those who fail to see the writing on the wall.

And no, genocide, with the possible exception of the slaughter of the Arminian Christians - and even that is laid at the feet of the secular Turkish government - is typically a racial factor brought about by a host of beliefs that may or may not include any combination of religious beliefs, secular or scientific theories, or just plain meanness and ages old grudges. The attempts to lay the world’s problems solely at the feet of religion is, ironically, following the same formula of sweeping generalizations and stereotypes that actually led to so much of the misery and suffering that everyone is quick to decry.

[DeeLight]

Hi PurplePhase!

It seems to me that other religions that celebrate their holidays at the same time are becoming less and less free to use their phrases and monikers.

The conduct of some warriors for enforced Christmas greetings is becoming downright hostile and threatening and the use of other phrases or monikers in the presence of some could be downright dangerous.

Last year I was buying groceries and some total stranger said "Merry Christmas" and I said "To you also". He moved closer to me invading my comfort zone with strangers and said "No. Say it. Say Merry Christmas to me." I moved away down the aisle keeping a watchful eye on him as this wacko followed me for a short distance but finally went away.

I should not have to be accosted and threatened by some Christmas greeting enforcer while minding my own business.

[Jane]

Christmas wasn't much celebrated in England until Dickens published "A Christmas Carol". And those Darbyites, who originated "the Rapture", didn't celebrate Christmas, either--see Peter Carey's novel, Oscar and Lucinda, which opens with a scene of a child eating a bit of plum pudding, and nearly being choked by his father until he vomits up the sinful morsel. What religious people care about is not Christ or scripture, but conformity and holy terror. Just tyrants dressed up in robes is all they are.

[SonofLiberty1]

Yes and around that time and before it, there was a heck of a lot of baloney going around on that day..looting and drinking etc. Which is why Christmas was banned.

[MJinCanada]

Reform in those days generally consisted of swatting down anyone having fun. And accusing any woman with brains of being a witch.

Christmas was celebrated in the later Middle Ages as a day for church, followed by several days of fun (12 days of Christmas; gifts exchanged on Twelfth Night).

But the whole tree with candles, holly, mistletoe, gifts, etc., thing was adopted from Pagan celebrations of the winter solstice. The early Christian missionaries, you see, built shrines and churches on Pagan holy sites and incorporated local traditions to make the transition to Christianity easier for folks. That's how the eggs got into Easter (still don't know where the bunnies came from).

[LunaNik]

Etymologically speaking, the word "Easter" stems from the Germanic fertility goddess "Oestre." Hence the eggs and bunnies. ;-)

[SilviaMaria]

Good article! Let's send a copy to Bill O'Reilly.

[THORGODOFTHUNDER]

The religious right is certainly an ignorant bunch, and proud of it. They have no concept of history. See "The God Who Wasn't There."

[Kiba]

A very good documentary.

[DeSwiss]

Well, they can't blame the "Left" this time. Because Wall Street killed Christmas this year.

Nice job they did too....

[roksob]

Where did anyone get the idea that Christ was a capitalist? Be nice to your neighbor? Sell your stuff and give to the poor? etc. etc.