“O Little Town of Bethlehem”: Grieving the Ongoing Slaughter of Palestinians

Christmas Eve is just two weeks from today, and the popular Christmas carol “O Little Town of Bethlehem” will be sung in many Christian churches that evening. So, this is a fitting time to think about the ongoing plight of the Palestinians in Bethlehem—as well as in Gaza and the entire West Bank. 

“O Little Town of Bethlehem” was written by Phillips Brooks. In the decades following his ordination as an Episcopal priest in 1860, Brooks (1835~1893) became whom many considered the greatest preacher of his day. While still a young man, he delivered a eulogy for slain President Lincoln in April 1865.

Later that year, Brooks traveled across the Atlantic to Europe and then made a pilgrimage to Bethlehem. On Christmas Eve, he assisted at a service in the Church of the Nativity, built over the traditional site of Jesus’ birth. Three years later he wrote "O Little Town of Bethlehem" for the children of his church.*¹ 

In 2015, 150 years after Brooks visited Bethlehem, I visited there for the first (and only) time. I took the short taxi ride from the south side of Jerusalem to the West Bank wall (or “separation barrier”). That structure, often called the “Wall of Apartheid" by Palestinians, was completed in 2006.

With my U.S. passport, I was able to pass through the wall with no problem. After observing what I could there, I then took another taxi to the main tourist sites in old Bethlehem. I was rather unimpressed, though, by the Church of the Nativity and the commercialism of the surrounding environment.*²

 I soon decided to go to the central shopping area of the city where I walked up and down the streets, observing ordinary Palestinians going about their daily activities. I quickly noticed the considerable difference between them and the Israelis I had seen in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

Despite their close geographical proximity, they seemed to be living in a different, much earlier, time period. And most of them were not free to exit Bethlehem and travel to Jerusalem. They were mostly prisoners confined to their own “little town” of fewer than 30,000 people.

That and my experiences the next day traveling in East Jerusalem and the West Bank territories sparked the drafting of “The Plight of the Palestinians,” my 6/30/15 blog post, which I encourage you to read (again) by clicking here.

The plight of the Palestinians is far, far worse today than it was in 2015. That is true for the West Bank, but extremely, and increasingly, worse for Gaza now, 430 days after Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.

It is also bad again this year in Bethlehem. A recent article posted by Reuters is headlined, “Another bleak Christmas in Bethlehem….” The article includes an image (similar to the one above) of the creche created last year by the Lutheran Church in Bethlehem to depict the sickening rubble in Gaza.

And now, the situation there is so much worse. Just last week, Amnesty International concluded that Israel has committed and is continuing to commit genocide against Palestinians in the occupied Gaza Strip. Sadly, in the coming year, things may get even worse for both Gaza and the West Bank.

President-elect Trump has named Mike Huckabee as his choice for the U.S. ambassador to Israel. Last month, a Religious Dispatches post (see here), stated that Huckabee is a stalwart Christian Zionist who has made over 100 trips to Israel.

According to that article, “Huckabee has aligned consistently with the hawkish Israeli Right and its agenda of permanent occupation, expansion, and Jewish supremacy in Palestine.” 

The first verse of Brooks’s carol ends, “The hopes and fears of all the years are met in you tonight.” In Bethlehem now, the fears of most people are undoubtedly stronger than their hopes—and around the world, many of us grieve the ongoing slaughter of the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.

Then, the last verse concludes with the words “peace to all on earth,” which the angels sang on that first Christmas.*³ May God help us all to strive more diligently to make peace to all a reality in Bethlehem, Gaza, and everywhere across the globe!

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*¹ Click here if you would like to hear the carol being nicely sung. Also, here is a link to an informative piece, including several images, about Brooks written by the New England Historical Society.

*² A short time after his mother Helena visited Jerusalem and Bethlehem in 325–326 A.D., Constantine commissioned the construction of a church on the site traditionally considered the birthplace of Jesus.

*³ The wording of the original carol was updated in The New Century Hymnal (1995), cited above.

Note: “To Bethlehem” is a powerful new poem that begins “O little Town of Bethlehem / forgive us for the lie / our churches tell - that all is well / as Christmas Eve draws nigh.”  I encourage you to read the entire poem by clicking here. 

They’ll Know We are Christians by Our ??

In this last blog post before Christmas, I am writing about the central message of Christmas and also writing about what I want both those of you who are Christians, as well as those who are not, to read and think about deeply.

Christmas is the celebration of love. This past Sunday was the fourth Sunday of Advent, and the theme for that last Sunday before Christmas was love.

There are various Advent traditions and practices, but according to the Christianity.com website, the selected Bible passage for Dec. 18 was the third chapter of John, with those best-known words of the Bible, 

The longstanding practice of giving Christmas presents is largely rooted in the gifts of the Magi who came from afar and presented gifts to baby Jesus. But the first and greatest Christmas gift was none other than God’s loving gift of Jesus himself to humankind.

Christians were long known for their love. “They’ll know we are Christians by our love,” is one title given for a gospel song written in the 1960s by Peter Schottes, a Catholic priest.

In the 1970s and ’80s, I enjoyed singing that song with Christian friends and fellow church members in Japan. Here is its second verse and the chorus:

We will walk with each other, will walk hand in hand,
We will walk with each other, will walk hand in hand,
And together we’ll spread the news, that God is in our land

And they’ll know we are Christians,
By our love, by our love.
Yes, they’ll know we are Christians by our love.*

The lyrics of that gospel song are loosely based on words of Jesus as recorded in the Gospel of John: “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (13:35, NIV)

In addition, though, until perverted by its alliance with political power, Christianity from its beginning was a religion of love for all people—and it still is when it is faithful to Jesus Christ.

Some Christians are now known for their hate. In my Dec. 10 blog post, I introduced Octavia Butler and her two dystopian novels. I have just finished reading the second of those, Parable of the Talents (1998).

In that prescient book, the U.S. elects a new President in 2032, a man who is an ardent advocate of Christian nationalism. In fact, he formed a new denomination, the Church of Christian America (CA).

The most alarming characteristic of that new church is its horrendous persecution of those considered to be “infidels.” Lauren, the protagonist of both novels, experiences unthinkable suffering at the hands of fanatical CA believers. They, indeed, were “Christians” known for their hate.

Perhaps you have seen the recent news stories about a restaurant that refused to serve a Christian group because of what they deemed was the “hatred” of that anti-gay group toward their employees.

Metzger Bar and Butchery in Richmond, Va., posted on Instagram (here) that they “denied service to the group to protect its staff, many of whom are women or members of the LGBTQ+ community.”

After reading about that happening, I came across a YouTube video titled “Hate Preachers: Bigotry and Fearmongering by Extremist Christian ‘Leaders’.” That video includes several clips of preachers saying almost unbelievable things, especially about LGBTQ people.**

Posted on YouTube eight months ago, that video has had 117,000 views, and when I accessed it last week, the first of the more than 1,600 comments said, “I simply don’t have enough hatred in me to be a Christian.”

How exceedingly sad that this is how some people view Christians now!

During this Christmas week, my plea for all of us is that we will fully accept the love of God manifested on that first Christmas and broadly implement that love. And, indeed, may all of us Christians be increasingly known by our love for all people.

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* Here is the link to a YouTube video with those words being nicely sung.

** Some of these are affiliated with New Independent Fundamentalist Baptist churches, a relatively new organization you can read about here. 

The Battle for Christmas

In recent years there has been considerable talk about the war on Christmas. But conflict at Christmastime is nothing new. “The Battle for Christmas” was the title of my Christmas sermon for Dec. 21, 1997. The title was taken from historian Stephen Nissenbaum’s 1997 book by that name. 

The First Battle of Christmas

My 12/21/97 sermon, which I just happened to run across a printed copy of recently, was based on Matthew 2:1~18, the Bible passage that ends with the terrible “massacre of the innocents.” Since the first part of my blog post a year ago was about that tragic event, I’ll not say more about that now.

The Puritans’ Battle against Christmas

Much of the book by Nissenbaum (b. 1941) is about the history of how Christmas was celebrated in what became the United States. He explains that among the Puritans for a long time there was considerable opposition to the celebrating of Christmas.

In fact, in 1659 the Massachusetts General Court declared the celebration of Christmas to be a criminal offense. It was not until the middle of the nineteenth century that Christmas became a legal holiday in New England—or in most of the other states.

Early winter was most likely not the time of Jesus’ birth, so that was one reason Christmas was opposed. It was not until the fourth century that the Church decided to observe Christmas on December 25—and that date was chosen because of the long-standing celebration of the winter solstice.

So, as Nissenbaum says, the Puritans were correct when they pointed out that to a large degree “Christmas was nothing but a pagan festival covered with a Christian veneer” (p. 4).

But the Puritans had another reason for suppressing Christmas: it

involved behavior that most of us would find offensive and even shocking today—rowdy public displays of excessive eating and drinking, the mockery of established authority, aggressive begging (often involving the threat of doing harm), and even the invasion of wealthy homes (p. 5).

Nissenbaum also states, “There were always people for whom Christmas was a time of pious devotion rather than carnival but such people were always in the minority. It may not be going too far to say that Christmas has always been an extremely difficult holiday to Christianize” (p. 8).

The Contemporary Battle for Christmas

In the 2010s, “the war on Christmas” became a widely-used phrase to criticize those who wanted to recognize the plurality of the people who live in the U.S.

Acknowledging that a sizeable portion of the populace were not Christians, those who wished to be “politically correct” encouraged saying “Happy Holidays” or “Season’s Greetings” rather than “Merry Christmas.”

Many conservative evangelical Christians were incensed and verbally attacked the “liberals” for being atheists, or Communists, or whatever. Thankfully, that “war” seems to have largely, but not completely, subsided.

I was surprised to see the initial results of a 12/15 Washington Times poll on “How concerned are you about a ‘War on Christmas?’” By this morning (12/20) 72% had responded, “Very, it’s a genuine problem.”

(The Washington Times is the conservative newspaper founded by Sun Myung Moon in 1982. It is mostly read by people who think that D.C.’s major newspaper should be called “The Washington Compost,” as, for example, rightwing talk radio host Mark Levin has regularly referred to it.)

But the contemporary battle for Christmas is a real one, and it has been active during my whole lifetime. After all these years, I remember the sermon I heard at the First Baptist Church in Bolivar, Missouri, when I was a freshman in college.

Referring to that first battle of Christmas as recorded in Matthew 2, Pastor Clayton Baker talked about the three “Herods” that are still trying to kill the Christ of Christmas. He called them the “Herod of Hurried Hours,” the “Herod of Hollow Hallelujahs,” and the “Herod of Hurtful Hypocrisies.”

If you reflect on those three points of Rev. Baker’s sermon, you can grasp some of the problem, that is, keeping Jesus Christ as the focal point of Christmas.

The following meme expresses well a large part of what winning the battle for Christmas really means. 

The End and the Beginning

Today (January 5) is the end of the Christmas season and today and tomorrow mark the end of a long and contentious election season in the U.S. Tomorrow is Epiphany, the beginning of the post-Christmas era, and tomorrow also should be the beginning of the return to normalcy in the U.S.

The End of the Christmas Season

For many people, the celebration of Christmas ends on December 25 and attention is then focused on other things. In some traditions, though, Christmas Day is the beginning of a lengthy celebration and today is the twelfth and last day of Christmas.

In this tradition, Epiphany is celebrated on January 6. The Gospel writer Matthew tells the story of the first gentiles to receive the revelation (epiphany) of Christ. That is the account of the Wise Men of the East who came to revere Jesus, the newborn king. 

In the fifth chapter of his 2019 book Postcards from Babylon (which is being made into a documentary  available for viewing, for a price, on Jan. 21), author Brian Zahnd writes about “the dark side of Christmas,” King Herod’s massacre of the baby boys in Bethlehem.*

Because the Persian magi (magicians) were looking for the new king, “it made sense,” as Zahnd writes, “for them to inquire in the capital city of Jerusalem, but by doing so they unwittingly set in motion terrible events” (p. 68). Herod, the tyrant King of Judea, tried to destroy the new king-to-be.

So, as the celebration of Jesus’ birth ends today on the twelfth day of Christmas, we recognize the epiphany of the Wise Men tomorrow. Epiphany, sometimes called “Three Kings Day,” marks the beginning of the universal appeal of Christianity.

Even though their desire to see the new king triggered cruel action by King Herod, “the baby king escaped the gruesome infanticide ordered by the paranoid king” (Zahnd, p. 72). So, we celebrate Jesus’ escape but grieve over all the “collateral damage” caused by tyrannical King Herod.

Today, people around the world are still compelled to choose whether to follow those known for their love of power, such as Herod and others who aspire to be autocrats, or to follow Jesus, the one whose life and teachings were characterized by the power of love.

The End of the Election Season

The important presidential and congressional elections in the U.S. took place on November 3, but they are not ending until today and tomorrow is the designated day for the final certification of the winner of the presidential election.

The election season ends with voting today for both of Georgia’s U.S. Senators, and seldom have senatorial elections been of greater significance.

Then tomorrow should (finally!) be the end of the presidential election, but never has that formal congressional certification of the electoral college votes been under so much attack.

What should be a routine day tomorrow in Congress is now fraught with uncertainty because as esteemed opinion writer Colbert King of the Washington Post writes, “President Trump, a buffoonish one-term wannabe autocrat, will not accept his election loss.”

King further predicts that tomorrow (Jan. 6) “will be a day of acrimony, probably to Trump’s delight.” As early as Dec. 19, DJT tweeted: “Big protest in D.C. on January 6^th. Be there, will be wild!”

Embarrassingly for many of us Missourians, last Wednesday Sen. Josh Hawley announced his intention to object to the certification of Joe Biden’s electoral college victory, which will lead to hours of debate tomorrow on what should be merely a routine matter.

Then on January 2, Sen. Ted Cruz and 10 other GOP senators announced that they would join Hawley in opposing certification of President-elect Joe Biden’s victory.

That same day, DJT made a ludicrous, and most likely illegal, telephone call to Georgia election officials asking (demanding?) them to change the voting results in that state.

But tomorrow should, thankfully, end the contentious election season and begin a new day in which the Biden administration will vigorously seek to Build Back Better.

May it be so!

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* That was one of the massacres I wrote about in my 12/26 blog post.

Grieving After-Christmas Massacres

It was not long after that joyous first Christmas that things turned violent in Palestine. Although it didn’t happen as soon as depicted in most Christmas pageants, not long after Jesus’ birth there was a horrendous after-Christmas massacre.

The “Massacre of the Innocents”

According to Matthew 2:16~18, Herod the Great, the reigning king of Judea, ordered the execution of all male children two years old and under in the vicinity of Bethlehem.

The Catholic Church has long recognized those massacred baby boys as the first Christian martyrs and celebrates the Feast of the Holy Innocents on December 28.

That terrible “massacre of the innocents,” as it is often called, has been depicted by famous artists such as Raphael and Rubens in their paintings of c.1512-13 and 1611-12. But those works are so “busy,” I am sharing this 1860-61 painting of Italian artist Angelo Visconti:  

The Indian Massacre of December 26, 1862

What was at the time the largest one-day mass execution in U.S. history, 38 Dakota men were hanged on this date, Dec. 26, in 1862.

The Dakota War of 1862, also known by several other names (including Little Crow’s War), began that year on August 17—in the middle of the Civil War raging mostly on the east side of the Mississippi River.

That “Indian war” was between the U.S. and several bands of the Native Americans known as the Dakota and also as the eastern Sioux. It began in southwest Minnesota, four years after its admission as a state.

Treaty violations and late annuity payments led to hunger and hardship among the Dakota. Their desperation led to extensive attacks on White settlers in the area and resulted in the death of some of them.

Hundreds of Dakota men were captured, and a military tribunal sentenced 303 to death for their deadly use of violence. President Lincoln commuted the sentence of 264 of the condemned men, and one was pardoned shortly before the remaining 38 were hanged.

It was a sad, day-after-Christmas massacre.  

The Indian Massacre of December 29, 1890

The end of the Indian wars came 130 years ago this week, on Dec. 29, 1890, with the Wounded Knee Massacre.

The story of that massacre is told in some detail in the last chapter of Dee Brown’s widely read book Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West (1970). (The highly popular TV movie with the same name was aired in 2007.)

That after-Christmas massacre took place near Wounded Knee Creek on the Lakota Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. (The Lakota and Dakota are the same Native American nation that is usually called the Sioux by Whites.)

By the time the massacre was over, more than 250 Native Americans, including women and children, had been killed—and perhaps as many as 50 more died later from wounds received on that fateful day.

Most of those who died were needlessly and unjustly killed. Accordingly, in 1990, a century after the massacre, the U.S. Congress passed a resolution expressing “deep regret” for the grievous slaughter.  

Beyond the Massacres

Some of those injured at Wounded Knee were taken to the Episcopal mission at Pine Ridge. Dee Brown ended his book (on page 445) with these words:

When the first torn and bleeding bodies were carried into the candlelit church, those who were conscious could see Christmas greenery hanging from the open rafters. Across the chancel front above the pulpit was strung a crudely lettered banner: PEACE ON EARTH, GOOD WILL TO MEN.

That reminded me of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s wonderful Christmas carol, “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day.” The third verse of that carol, written during the Civil War, says,

And in despair I bowed my head:
“There is no peace on earth,” I said,
“For hate is strong, and mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good will to men.”

Then verse four exults,

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
God is not dead, nor doth He sleep
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail,
With peace on earth, good will to men.”

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**For more about Longfellow and his 1863 poem, “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day,” see my 12/25/18 blog post titled “Can You Hear the Christmas Bells?”

Pondering the Birth/Death of Jesus, the Slave

During the Christmas season, we sing/hear many hymns/carols. In the New Testament, though, there are few hymns. Philippians 2:6~11 is most likely one of those hymns, and there Jesus is referred to as a doulos, the Greek word for slave.

“The Christ Hymn”

The words of Philippians 2:6~11 are often called “the Christ Hymn,” and they are a significant summary of the nature of Jesus Christ’s existence. Verses 6~8 emphasize Jesus’ humiliation and verses 9~11 highlight his exultation.

Even though most English versions of the Bible translate the word doulos (in v. 7) as servant, its primary meaning is slave. And Jesus, the slave, ends up being crucified, which according to Black theologian James Cone is the equivalent of slaves and, later, their descendants during the Jim Crow years being lynched.

Those of us who grew up in evangelical churches, and those who are evangelicals today, see the first three verses mainly as linked to Jesus’ death on the cross as the means of providing atonement for sinful human beings.

Be that as it may, Jesus was crucified as a common criminal by the usual Roman means of capital punishment. Moreover, the Jews of Jesus’ day knew that the Hebrew Bible states that “anyone hung on a tree is under God’s curse” (Deuteronomy 21:23).

The last half of “the Christ hymn” emphasizes the inexplicable exaltation of the crucified Jesus. Certainly, both Jesus’ humiliation and his exaltation must be recognized and affirmed. Most of us, though, perhaps fail to grasp the full impact of the ignominy of Jesus’ being “lynched” as a dissident slave.

“The Gospel according to Mary Brown”

In July, a youngish blogger in California posted a long and thought-provoking blog article titled “The Cross and The Lynching Tree by Dr. James Cone.”

On pages 6-7 of his post, the blogger introduces W.E.B. Du Bois’s “The Gospel According to Mary Brown” and provides this link to the “Xmas 1919” issue of The Crisis magazine with, scrolling down, to Du Bois’s brief three-page story.  

Du Bois co-founded the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 1909 and long served as the founding editor of The Crisis, the official publication of the NAACP.**

In that 101-years-ago issue of The Crisis, Du Bois took the conventional Jesus story and brought it to his Black readers living in the Jim Crow South. He replaced Jesus with Joshua, a black baby born to a single mother (Mary Brown) sharecropping in the rural South.

That re-telling of the narrative about Jesus was consistent with a central point Du Bois had made in his The Souls of Black Folk (1903) and other essays. He condemned “white religion” as an “utter failure.”

As Cone points out in his book mentioned above, for Du Bois, true Christianity is defined by “the life and teaching of Jesus of Nazareth and the Golden Rule.” But, Du Bois emphasized, “the white church’s treatment of blacks was “sadly at variance with this doctrine” (Cone, pp. 103-4).

As we celebrate Christmas this year—in ways far different from usual because of the covid-19 pandemic—let’s celebrate not only the birth of Jesus as the Savior but also the one who came “to liberate the oppressed” (Luke 4:18, CEB).

In Du Bois’s story of Joshua, “the White Folk” were offended by what he said. They complained, “What do you mean by this talk about all being brothers—do you mean social equality?”

And they also said to Joshua, in Du Bois’s words, “What do you mean by saying God is you-all’s father—is God a nigger?"

These White Folk finally brought Joshua before a judge from the North—but he “washed his hands of the whole matter.” The White crowd then seized Joshua and lynched him.

Since in our land today 100 years later there are still problems of discrimination and oppression because of race and/or class, perhaps this is the “Christmas story” we need to hear and to ponder this week. What do you think?

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** My 9/15/18 blog post was written in honor of Du Bois (1868~1963).

Subverting the Culture of Contempt

The President has been impeached. But more about that next time. This article is about seeking to subvert the “culture of contempt” that was so evident in the impeachment hearings. The message of Advent (and Christmas) is hope, peace, love, and joy. How we need this message in the U.S. where the culture of contempt is so prevalent—and yes, so contemptible!

Help from Arthur Brooks

Arthur C. Brooks, the Washington Post columnist and professor of public leadership at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, is the author of a book published in March of this year. You have previously heard the words of the title of that book: Love Your Enemies.

That is certainly not an original title—but the subtitle is: How Decent People Can Save America from the Culture of Contempt.

Brooks (b. 1964) is a political conservative, and I disagree with many of his political positions. But I fully agree with what he writes in his new book—and with Nebraska Republican Senator Ben Sasse, who is quoted on the back cover of the book:

If you are satisfied with our toxic ideological climate, then don’t bother reading this book. But if you’d like to rebel against the present nonsense, Arthur Brooks can show you how to do it with joy and confidence—regardless of your political preferences. If we follow the lessons in Love Your Enemies, better times lie ahead for America. 

Help from These Five Rules

In the Conclusion, Brooks advocates “Five Rules to Subvert the Culture of Contempt.” Rather than repeating his five rules, I am sharing a helpful statement about each one.

1) “Stand up to people on your own side who trash people on the other side.” Since contempt is destructive, whenever we read or hear words of contempt, to subvert the culture of contempt we need to speak up, kindly, in opposition to those words.

2) “Seeking out what those on the other side have to say will help you understand others better.” Whenever we read or hear words with which we strongly disagree, we first need to seek to understand why the writer/speaker wrote or spoke such words.

3) Here is a point that Brooks makes repeatedly: “never treat others with contempt, even if you believe they deserve it.” Contempt never causes others to change for the better and is “always harmful for the contemptor.”

4) Brooks also encourages his readers to “disagree better” and to “be part of a healthy competition of ideas.” He writes, “The single biggest way a subversive can change America is not by disagreeing less, but by disagreeing better—engaging in earnest debate while still treating everyone with love and respect.”  

5) Finally, Brooks advocates tuning out, disconnecting more from unproductive debates. “Unfollow public figures [and social media ‘friends’] who foment contempt, even if you agree with them.”

Trying It Out

Partly because of Brooks’s book, I have been reading, and trying to understand without contempt, two books with which I have strong disagreements.

Dark Agenda: The Way to Destroy Christian America (2018) was written by David Horowitz, the son of Jewish parents who in 2015 identified as an agnostic. Even though Jewish, Horowitz (b. 1939) dedicated his book to his wife and to three “Christian buddies.”

And on the back cover, Horowitz’s book receives praise from the ultra-conservative Christian politician Mike Huckabee.

Reading some of that book with the desire to subvert the culture of contempt helped me understand why Horowitz, and many religious and political conservatives, think the way they do.

Although the book contains much I strongly disagree with, reading it with the goal of gaining deeper insight into why conservatives think the way they do was beneficial. And I realize afresh that I can view Horowitz as a good and honorable man—even though wrong in many of his ideas!—without having contempt for him.

The same goes for Star Parker, author of Necessary Noise: How Donald Trump Inflames the Culture War and Why This is Good News for America (2019). Parker (b. 1956) is an active Christian as well as an African American woman who has been a strong supporter of President Trump.

During the Christmas season—and throughout the new year—let’s work together to subvert the culture of contempt, for the good of the country and the world.

Merry Christmas to all!

Can You Hear the Christmas Bells?

Five days ago I posted a blog article about Charles Dickens’s famous novella “A Christmas Carol.” This article is about a powerful Christmas poem Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote twenty years later, in 1863.

Longfellow (1807~82) was unquestionably one of the most famous American poets of the 19^th century. When I was in elementary school, I read some of his poems—which I assume is true for many of you. I am thinking particularly of “The Village Blacksmith” (1842) and “Paul Revere’s Ride” (1860).

Although I probably didn’t first read it until later, one of my favorite Longfellow poems is “A Psalm of Life” (1839). If you haven’t read that powerful poem recently, I encourage you to take a couple of minutes to click here and read it.

For those of you who like good novels, I highly recommend Jennifer Chiaverini’s delightful Christmas Bells (2015), which in alternating chapters toggles between the historical story of Longfellow in the 1860s and a contemporary fictional story set in Boston and features a children’s choir practicing “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day.” 

As you perhaps know, in the summer of 1861 Longfellow's beloved wife Fanny died of burns after her dress caught on fire. Then at the end of November 1863, his oldest son, Charley, was seriously wounded as a Union soldier. Still grieving greatly over Fanny’s untimely death, Longfellow was greatly shaken by news of his beloved son’s life-threatening injury.

According to the novel, just before Christmas 1863 as he worried about Charley’s survival, Longfellow felt Fanny's inspirational presence and penned the words to "Christmas Bells."

Before my final comments, I am sharing the full text of that impressive poem. I certainly hope you will read these words, slowly and thoughtfully. Or if you would prefer to listen to them sung, here is the link to Karen Carpenter singing some of the verses.

I heard the bells on Christmas Day / Their old, familiar carols play,

And wild and sweet / The words repeat

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And thought how, as the day had come, / The belfries of all Christendom

Had rolled along / The unbroken song

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Till ringing, singing on its way, / The world revolved from night to day,

A voice, a chime, / A chant sublime

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Then from each black, accursed mouth / The cannon thundered in the South,

And with the sound / The carols drowned

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

It was as if an earthquake rent / The hearth-stones of a continent,

And made forlorn / The households born

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And in despair I bowed my head; / “There is no peace on earth,” I said;

“For hate is strong, / And mocks the song

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!”

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:/ “God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;

The Wrong shall fail, / The Right prevail,

With peace on earth, good-will to men.”

My sermon on Christmas Day in 1960 was titled “Was the Song Wrong?” (That was also the title of my first Christmas blog article, posted in Dec. 2009.)

The time of peace on earth, as sung by the angels and recorded in Luke 2:14, has certainly not come as yet, but those words remain as our hope for the future and our challenge for the present.

May each of us do what we can in the year ahead to bring peace on earth!

Merry Christmas!

A Big “Christmas” Hoax

Mid-day on December 20, DJT tweeted, “We are delivering HISTORIC TAX RELIEF for the American people!” That was followed by a GIF showing a present opening with the words “Tax Cuts for Christmas!” bursting out of a box. This, I contend, is all a big “Christmas” hoax.

An Early Celebration

DJT and the Republicans in Congress celebrated “Christmas” five days early, after passing the “Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.” Then on Dec. 22, DJT signed the massive bill into law.

The vote on the tax reform bill was 51-48 in the Senate—all the Republicans against all the Democrats. In the House, the vote was 224 to 201 with all the Yes votes being by Republicans and the No votes being by all the Democrats and 12 Republicans.

How in the world could there be 249 Congresspeople opposed to what is touted as a wonderful Christmas gift to the USAmerican people? And why do most polls show that more Americans oppose the newly enacted bill than approve of it?

Yes, the “tax cuts for Christmas” were celebrated by DJT and the GOP days before Christmas this year. But one wonders how much celebration there will be by most USAmericans by next Christmas or in the years following.

Who Celebrates?

It is evident that there are reasons for some to celebrate this new tax bill. Corporations are jubilant over the reduction of their tax rate from 35% to 21%, a huge drop—although many corporations already pay around 21%, or far less (see this report).

The wealthiest people in the land also celebrate the passing of the tax bill for several reasons. “Final Tax Bill Includes Huge Estate Tax Win For The Rich” is the title of a Dec. 21 article on Forbes.com.

Among other super-rich people in the country, DJT and the Trump family are, no doubt, celebrating their personal gain as well as their political gain from this bill. “Trump stands to save millions under new tax measure, experts say,” is a recent article in the Washington Post worth noting.

Last Wednesday DJT said, ““I promised the American people a big, beautiful tax cut for Christmas. With final passage of this legislation, that is exactly what they are getting.” Well, that’s at least true for Donald, Jr., Ivanka, and others of the Trump clan. They certainly have reason to celebrate. But many do not.

Who Won’t Celebrate?

There are many serious problems with the newly-passed tax bill, including (1) most likely a large increase in the national debt, (2) an increase in taxes for the poorest 1/3 of U.S. taxpayers, and (3) a large decrease in the number of people who have health insurance and a large increase in the cost for many who do have insurance.

While the numbers for the final bill are likely slightly different, the CBO Report of Nov. 26 indicated that the Senate version of the bill would show an increase in taxes for people (units) with income of less than $30,000—more than 1/3 of the taxpaying units.

By contrast, those with incomes of more than $100,000 –fewer than1/4 of filers—would get tax reductions of from 10.6% to 27.5%.

Those figures are for 2019. They get much worse for the poor and much better for the wealthy by 2025. (Here is the link to the PBS NewsHour article consulted.) 

So, yes, the new tax bill seems to be a “hoax” as a Christmas present, especially for the poor. But the wealthy will fare well, as is cleverly depicted by this cartoon by Pulitzer Prize winning editorial cartoonist Jack Ohman:  

Does the Old Testament Prophesy the Birth of Jesus?

Forty-five years ago on December 23, 1972, Abraham Joshua Heschel, the eminent Polish-born American rabbi, passed away at the age of 65. He was one of the leading Jewish theologians/philosophers of the 20^th century.

Heschel’s Brilliant Book

Although he was the author of several books, the most notable was The Prophets, published in 1962. That was when I was a financially poor seminary student. But along with Here I Stand, R. Bainton’s book on Luther, Heschel’s book was one of the very few non-textbooks that I bought. I thought then that it was a brilliant book—and I still do.

Recently I looked to see how Heschel interpreted the Old Testament prophecies of the birth of Jesus. I was quite surprised that in the 16-page “Index of Subjects and Names” there are only two brief references to Jesus—and one of those is in a footnote—and nothing listed for Messiah.

Christians, of course, see numerous Old Testament passages as prophecies of Jesus. (This website lists “353 Prophecies Fulfilled in Jesus Christ.”) But Heschel apparently didn’t think a single one of those were prophecies about Jesus. 

Heschel’s Passion for Justice

According to Heschel, one of the main characteristics of the Old Testament prophets was their passion for social justice. In the opening paragraphs of the first chapter of his book, he cites Amos 8:4-6 as an illustration of the prophets’ condemnation of injustice. Then his 11^th chapter is titled simply “Justice.”

Heschel identified with the OT prophets in many ways. In the 1960s, he marched for justice with Martin Luther King, Jr., and his daughter says that he was “close friends” with Christian justice-seekers such as Daniel and Philip Berrigan as well as with William Sloan Coffin when he was the Protestant chaplain at Yale.

Sadly, though, it seems that not only did Heschel not see the birth of Jesus as having been prophesied in the Old Testament, he apparently did not even consider Jesus a Jewish prophet—although Jesus self-identified with the words of the prophet Isaiah at the beginning of his public ministry (see Luke 4:16-21).

In his book How God Became King, N.T. Wright emphasizes that the “fulfillment of Israel’s story” is “in the story of the Messiah” (p. 112). That clearly seems to have been Jesus’ understanding, and it certainly was the early church’s understanding of Jesus. But that was not something Heschel could accept or affirm.

Heschel’s Fate?

In his book Sinners in the Hands of a Loving God, which I introduced (here) earlier this year, Brian Zahnd tells about sitting with his dying father, who could no longer communicate with him. On one occasion in that situation, BZ said he was reading Heschel’s book The Prophets—which I found most interesting.

BZ makes only positive statements about Heschel—such as, “Everything I’ve ever read from Heschel has shown him to be a thoroughly God-saturated soul.”

As he was leaving the hospital that particular night in 2009, though, this question “erupted from some fundamentalist outpost” in his brain: “Is Abraham Joshua Heschel in hell?” BZ concluded that such an idea was “irredeemably ludicrous” (pp. 118-120).

Because of his worldview/faith, Rabbi Heschel could not accept the core beliefs of his Christian friends—or of others who are followers of Jesus Christ, such as BZ or me. But even though he could not acknowledge Christ or the prophecies about him, we can accept/affirm him as one who truly believed in “the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Eph. 3:1).

In this Christmas season, may we all nurture a passion for justice such as Rabbi Heschel—and especially such as Jesus Christ—embraced.

The Folly of Christmas

Yesterday was Christmas Day. Just like five years ago it was Sunday, an especially good day for family and friends to get together and to enjoy a festive time. But, oddly, Christmas on Sunday isn’t a particularly a good day for churches.

Most churches had scaled back activities yesterday, and some even had expanded Christmas Eve programs and no services on Sunday.

A foolish claim?

This article, though, is not about the folly of Christmas Day being on Sunday. It is about the folly of Christmas itself—and I am writing this partly as an extension of my previous blog article titled “In Praise of Folly.”

When you get right down to it, isn’t the Christian claim that God Almighty chose to send the Savior of the world as a baby born in humble circumstances in a sparsely settled place in the world a rather foolish one?

Walking where Jesus walked

In the summer of 2015, I went with my daughter Karen to Israel/Palestine. Our first time there, we greatly enjoyed traveling in a rental car from Tel Aviv to Nazareth—and then to Tiberius on the west bank of the Sea of Galilee, to Capernaum on the north bank of that beautiful sea, down the east side of that sea to the Dead Sea, and then on to the fascinating city of Jerusalem.

Our time in the “Holy Land” was certainly interesting and enjoyable. For me, though, it was not a time of great religious impact—in a positive sense at least.

People who lead, and especially tourist agencies who sell, tours to Israel encourage people to join in their “inspirational journey” in order to have a “life-changing” experience by “walking where Jesus walked” (words from a travel website).

That wasn’t exactly what I experienced.

I visited the Church of the Nativity, the large, ancient building over the place in Bethlehem where Jesus supposedly was born. We also visited Nazareth Village, a reconstruction of what Jesus’ boyhood neighborhood looked like—and quite near to where he probably lived.

At Capernaum we walked on the seashore where Jesus called his first disciples. We then drove up the big hill north of that small town to where Jesus delivered what is called the Sermon on the Mount. Later that week we saw where Jesus was crucified and visited the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, built on the site where Jesus was buried and then resurrected three days later.

The foolishness of God

It was particularly in Nazareth and Capernaum that questions began to rise in my mind. Why would God choose such a remote, provincial, unsophisticated place as Nazareth to be the Savior’s hometown and an insignificant, out-of-the-way town like Capernaum to be the place for him to begin his ministry?

An even greater question is this: Why would Christ become a human being at all? 

As Erasmus expressed it in The Praise of Folly, Christ “became a fool when taking upon him the nature of man” (Wilson trans.; Kindle loc. 1256). The reference there, of course, is to Philippians 2:6-8, the basis for what biblical scholars refer to as kenotic theology, which explains the eternal Christ emptying himself to become a human.

The Apostle Paul’s answer, though, which Erasmus also quotes, is this: “the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom” (1 Cor. 1:25).

Yes, it was through the folly of the first Christmas that the Savior came into the world. On this day after Christmas, we each one are challenged to grasp the great significance of the “foolishness” of Christ’s birth—and to live our lives accordingly.