I've been struck by the ads and billboards atheists have purchased again this year suggesting that Christmas is, to put it kindly, a myth. Struck. Not offended or angered. Just struck.
The gist of the advertisements is essentially that there is little to no proof that Christmas -- either as we imagine it or as narrated in the New Testament -- ever happened and that, further, belief in God in general, let alone God incarnate in a baby born in Bethlehem, is foolish at best and more likely downright absurd. And here's the thing that strikes me: They may be right.
I know that many Christians find this possibility to be nearly unthinkable, but there it is: Only two of the four canonical gospels describe Jesus' birth, and they are markedly different. Whereas Matthew's story focuses on Joseph and the political machinations around Jesus' birth, Luke concentrates instead on Mary and the appearance of angels to lowly shepherds. Mark, by contrast, starts his story with an adult Jesus and mentions his family only in passing, while John takes a decidedly theological turn by penning what would become the key verses behind Christian reflection on the Incarnation: "In the beginning the Word was with God, and the Word was God" and "the Word became flesh and dwelt among us" (John 1:1, 14).
Today's atheists are not the first to doubt such sentiments. In the centuries before the Enlightenment, when atheism was less common (most people believed in some kind of God or gods), skepticism centered on the unseemliness of a deity become human. The second-century Gnostic Christian Marcion, for instance, preferred to imagine Jesus as a kind of super-angel rather than stomach the idea that the holy God would deign to be joined to frail and fickle human flesh. His views, wildly popular at the time, drew an unlikely opponent in the monk Tertullian of Carthage. "Come, then, start with the birth itself," Tertullian wrote,
the object of aversion, and run through your catalogue: the filth of the generative seeds within the womb, of the bodily fluid and blood; the loathsome, curdled lump of flesh which has to be fed for nine months off this same muck. ... Undoubtedly you are also horrified at the infant, the infant which has been brought into the world together with its after birth.
Pretty strong language for an ascetic monk! And, truth be told, as Tertullian goes on, it's hard not to sympathize with Marcion, as all this does seem a bit beneath the dignity of any self-respecting God. But then Tertullian gets down to business: "You repudiate such veneration of nature, do you," he asks, "but how were you born?" And there is Tertullian's point all along. If human birth is too messy or mucky for God, then so are we. Yet the God Tertullian worships is joined to God's beloved creation in the Incarnation precisely to share our lot and our life. A thousand years later, John Calvin will call this scandal God's "condescension." Unseemly? No question. But as Tertullian, Calvin and others have pointed out across the centuries, those in love will often condescend to crazy acts to gain the attention and affection of the beloved.
Today, of course, the concern isn't that the Incarnation is unseemly but rather that it -- and, indeed, any belief in God -- seems so incredibly unlikely, even phenomenally improbable. Again, I'm sympathetic. There is little to no evidence that can stand rational scrutiny that God exists, let alone that this same God not only knows that you and I exist but actually gives a damn, caring passionately about our ups and downs, successes and failures, hopes and fears. More than that, there would seem to be so much evidence in our war-torn and strife-ridden world to the contrary that belief in such a God seems not just extraordinary but downright absurd.
And that, for some, is just the point. Looking around, some of us see a world and humanity soaked in equal measures of beauty and brokenness, hope and disappointment, glory and shame. This is a world, we confess, that cannot save itself yet deserves a savior. Or as W. H. Auden once wrote, giving desperate voice to the simultaneously hopeful and hopeless shepherds trudging their way toward Bethlehem:
We who must die demand a miracle.
How could the Eternal do a temporal act,
The Infinite become a finite fact?
Nothing can save us that is possible:
We who must die demand a miracle.
Faced with cancer, or hunger, or loneliness, or disappointment, or depression, or any of the host of other things that on any given day threaten to overwhelm us, some have perceived, or at least dared to hope, that there is a reality beyond this one, that there is a God who created, cares for, and promises to redeem us and the whole creation. While some look upon this kind of desperate faith as part wishful thinking and part emotional crutch, others perceive, with Auden, that "nothing can save us that is possible" and so look with longing and hope to what Karl Barth once named "the impossible possibility."
Which is why, I think, the billboards opposing Christmas don't really offend me. For Christians like me, you see, atheism isn't so much an offense as an understandable and occasionally tempting alternative in light of our circumstances. In an age when absolute certainty seems to be the goal, many Christians (and some atheists as well, I suspect) will likely dismiss this kind of tentative faith as weak or tepid. Yet a more temperate approach to questions of faith and doubt seems somehow to accord better with the story of a helpless babe born to a teenage mother and placed in a feeding trough. This is a story not of strength but weakness, not of certainty but of courage, not of power but of utter vulnerability.
So is the Christmas story unlikely, improbable, even absurd? Perhaps. But some of us think that the world needs such a story and is, indeed, a better place for its telling. And so we believe. We do not know for certain, but we believe, in the words of 19th century poet Christina Rosetti, that, unlikely as it may seem,
Love came down at Christmas,
Love all lovely, love divine,
Love was born at Christmas,
Star and angels gave the sign.
Stuart Whatley: 'War on Christmas' Comes to the Fore
Atheist billboard: Christmas is a myth – CNN Belief Blog - CNN.com ...
The 'snotty' atheist billboard: Christmas is a 'myth' - The Week
American Atheists Holiday 'Myth' Billboards To Go Up In New Jersey ...
Dueling Christmas billboards at Lincoln Tunnel by Atheists and ...
Another sign of Christmas: billboards from atheists « The Deacon's ...
Definition of absurd: utterly or obviously senseless, illogical, or untrue; contrary to all reason or common sense; laughably foolish or false:
So you call Christmas absurd? Personally I think the title is insulting.
Definition of insulting: 1. to treat or speak to insolently or with contemptuous rudeness; affront.
2. to affect as an affront; offend or demean.
We do suffer times of great doubt. We put theology and dogma above the resurrected Christ; but there are also those times - more than not, when our faith is strong, when we confess that we've been hiding a secret certitude to be accepted into the postmodern argument, when we unabashedly love our Lord Jesus Christ, because we know His love and great mercy, and the mystery of our fellowship with Him, and strive to walk in His ways.
For without these things, if our faith is but philosophical exercise, then what's the point? When you get to where I am, with life-threatening illnesses - if you haven't been full of faith before now, how will you find it when you need it? So this part of my life is more unashamedly Christian (Uh...but still not one of those...) than ever, and not for my laboring, but for God's grace giving me new inner strength every day. And by the way, Merry Christmas.
I pray that He, the great Healer, touches you and makes you whole.
It's odd that many Christians believe that the more we look like the world, the more the world will find our faith appealing. Instead, the world laughs at us, and rightly so, for our TV shows, our embrace of capitalist consumerism, gaudy theme parks, cool-isms, and bumper stickers show a lack of reverence for God and for His Son. In seeking to look like the world, we end up looking like fools. If we don't take our own faith seriously, why should anyone else?
On the more liberal side, of which I consider myself a part, we have sought to reach out to the postmodern generation by adopting its tenet that certainty of God is impossible - that the faith in which we walk is blind faith.
Spiritual regeneration, the new birth, comes by divine, personal revelation of the identity of Jesus Christ as the resurrected Son of God. Although we cannot see Him, we love Him, and we love Him because we know Him, for He has made Himself known to us by the Holy Spirit. This is our joy: our fellowship with Him.
The world is already full of uncertainty. But God, through His grace, grants us certainty of our relationship with Him, freeing us to hold forth the gift of new and eternal life.
God bless you, brother.
There's nothing delusory about our faith in Christ. It's crystal clear. Because you have no revelation of Him, you speak only for yourself.
I hold that the GOD of the Abrahamic faiths is not the only one.
The GOD of the Hebrews was stronger than the GODS of the Egyptians.
The GOD of the Hebrews was stronger than Ba'al the GOD of the Canaanites. People get the misguided notion that because a god is a false god to the Hebrews that it is a false god period. Scripture says differently. Yes, faiths fade away and are reborn. Look at the myriad splinter groups Christianity has itself formed.
Christmas for some, Yule for others, consumerism for most.
"There is no reason whatever to think that it's true - it is actually improbable beyond words - but it seems to calm our fears a little bit!"
- Well that would be a pretty good justification, I guess - for the ways of a six-year-old child.
If you are going to hope for something, it is better to hope for something incredible. I learned this lesson at the race track, of all places. Betting only on favorites is a losing proposition. Betting on longshots (but doing so intelligently), is in the long run more profitable, not to mention more fun. The improbable happens more often than people think. Those who hope only for mundane things will likely achieve only mundane things.
Merry Christmas (or insert your solstice celebration term of choice here) to all!
Thomas, the doubter, stated that he needed to not only see, but touch the wounds of the Lord, to which Jesus replied: "Put your finger here, see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe."
Then He said: "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."
We walk by faith and not by sight.
As far as fullfillment - you go your way, and I'll go the way of the Truth and Life.
Forget the manger scene, think on this:
..Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man.
Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death,
Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren. Heb 2:9, 14, 17
We can also modify our habits of hygiene and diet. I'm just sayin'.
Regular bathing was not a well-established habit in all parts of 16th-centiry Europe. To judge from some portraits of Calvin, he may not even have been in the habit of washing his hands or face.
Why this obsession with belief?
Leave belief on the coat rack when entering the king's chamber.
Leave all this baggage behind. It does not suit you.
And then naked before the gaze of the ineffable presence, that is, with no defenses, and no distractions, you are simply that. But that simplicity of spirit which transcends (i.e., goes beyond) existence versus non-existence, a personal god versus an impersonal one or none at all, a separate detached ego versus a self intrinsically tied to universal consciousness falls away. These things are unimportant and serve as hindrances at best.
Faith needs no testing, no trials, and no challenges upon which to feed. And we require no credal faith
With your clothes left in the mudroom, now what is to be done?
There simply remains this question. Wrestle with it.
It is sahaj sthiti (Skt for the simple state of being).
I do not accept glory from human beings, but I know you. I know that you do not have the love of God in your hearts. I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not accept me; but if someone else comes in his own name, you will accept him. How can you believe since you accept glory from one another but do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?" John 5: 36-44
Recognizing and embracing absurdity really enhances life.
Beliefs are not directly controllable, and are solely the result of personal experiences such as observation and study. To *decide* one believes something is to lie to oneself and others. If I suddenly decided to believe the nativity story, I'd be delusional. My conscious mind knows that it's highly improbable, and I cannot choose to change that.
In short, no one who arrives at atheism through rationality *chose* to be atheist. It was inevitable.
The "choice" I see the author hinting at is that he is deciding he isn't ready to admit what he really believes, because saying so isn't comfortable yet.