Commercialize Christmas, or else

A well written Commentary about the religious Right's war to turn America into a theocracy.

Adam Cohen of the International Herald Tribune writes:

Religious conservatives have a cause this holiday season: the commercialization of Christmas. They're for it.

This campaign - which is being hyped on Fox and conservative talk radio - is an odd one. Christmas remains ubiquitous, and with its celebrators in control of most branches of government, it hardly lacks for powerful supporters. There is also something perverse, when Christians are being jailed for discussing the Bible in Saudi Arabia and slaughtered in Sudan, about spending so much energy on stores that sell "holiday trees."

What is less obvious, though, is that Christmas's self-proclaimed defenders are rewriting history. They claim that the "traditional" American Christmas is under attack. But America has a complicated history with Christmas, going back to the Puritans, who despised it. What the boycotters are doing is not defending America's Christmas traditions, but creating a new version of the holiday that fits a political agenda.

The Puritans considered Christmas un-Christian, and hoped to keep it out of America. They could not find Dec. 25 in the Bible and insisted that the date derived from Saturnalia, the Roman heathens' wintertime celebration.

The concern that Christmas distracted from religious piety continued even after Puritanism waned. Throughout the 1800s, many religious leaders were still trying to hold the line. On the eve of the Civil War, Christmas was recognized in just 18 states.

Christmas gained popularity when it was transformed into a domestic celebration, after the publication of Clement Clarke Moore's "Visit from St. Nicholas" and Thomas Nast's Harper's Weekly drawings, which created the image of a white-bearded Santa who gave gifts to children. The new emphasis lessened religious leaders' worries that the holiday would be given over to drinking and swearing, but it introduced another concern: commercialism. By the 1920's, the retail industry had adopted Christmas as its own, sponsoring annual ceremonies to kick off the "Christmas shopping season."

Religious leaders objected strongly. The Christmas that emerged had an inherent tension: merchants tried to make it about buying, while clergymen tried to keep commerce out. A 1953 Methodist sermon broadcast on NBC - typical of countless such sermons - lamented that Christmas had become a "profit-seeking period."' This ethic found popular expression in "A Charlie Brown Christmas." In the 1965 TV special, Charlie Brown ignores Lucy's advice to "get the biggest aluminum tree you can find" and finds a more spiritual way to observe the day.

This year's Christmas "defenders" are also rewriting Christmas history on another key point: non-Christians' objection to having the holiday forced on them. The campaign's leaders insist this is a new phenomenon. But as early as 1906, the Committee on Elementary Schools in New York City urged that Christmas hymns be banned from the classroom after a boycott by more than 20,000 Jewish students. In 1946, the Rabbinical Assembly of America declared that calling on Jewish children to sing Christmas carols was "an infringement on their rights as Americans."

Other non-Christians have long expressed similar concerns. For decades, companies have replaced "Christmas parties" with "holiday parties" and schools have adopted "winter breaks" instead of "Christmas breaks" out of respect for religious diversity.

The Christmas that O'Reilly and his allies are promoting fits with their effort to make America more like a theocracy, with Christian displays on public property and prayer in public schools.

Most Americans do not recognize this commercialized, mean-spirited Christmas as their own. Of course, it's not even clear the campaign's leaders really believe in it. Just a few days ago, Fox News's online store was promoting its "Holiday Collection" for shoppers. Among the items offered to put under a "holiday tree" was "The O'Reilly Factor Holiday Ornament." After bloggers pointed this out, Fox changed the "holidays" to "Christmases."

Commercialize Christmas, or else - Editorials & Commentary - International Herald Tribune