It’s that season again, the time when unprogrammed Friends talk about Christmas. Click Ric has posted about the seeming incongruity of his meeting’s Christmas tree and LizOpp has reprinted a still-timely letter from about five years ago about the meeting’s children Christmas pageant.
Friends traditionally have lumped Christmas in with all of the other ritualistic boo-ha that mainstream Christians practice. These are outward elements that should be abandoned now that we know Christ has come to teach the people himself and is present and available to all of us at all times. Outward baptism, communion, planned sermons, paid ministers, Christmas and Easter: all distractions from true Christian religion, from primitive Chritianity revived.
One confusion that arises in liberal meetings this time of year is that it’s assumed it’s the Christian Friends who want the Christmas tree. Arguments sometime break out with “hyphenated” Friends who feel uncomfortable with the tree: folks who consider themselves Friends but also Pagan, Nontheistic, or Jewish and wonder why they’re having Christianity forced on them. But those of us who follow what we might call the “Christian tradition as understood by Friends” should be just as put out by a Christmas tree and party. We know that symbolic rituals like these spark disunity and distract us from the real purpose of our community: befriending Christ and listening for His guidance.
I was shocked and startled when I first learned that Quaker schools used to meet on Christmas day. My first response was “oh come on, that’s taking it all too far.” But it kept bugging me and I kept trying to understand it. This was one of the pieces that helped me understand the Quaker way better and I finally grew to understand the rationale. If Friends were more consistent with more-or-less symbolic stuff like Christmas, it would be easier to teach Quakerism.
I don’t mind Christmas trees, per se. I have one in my living room. In my extended family Christmas has served as one of the mandatory times of year we all have to show up together for dinner. It’s never been very religious, so I never felt I needed to stop the practice when I became involved with Friends. But as a Friend I’m careful not to pretend that the consumerism and social rituals have much to do with Christ. Christmas trees are pretty. The lights make me feel good in the doldrums of mid-winter. That’s reason enough to put one up.
Unprogrammed liberal Friends could use the tensions between traditional Quakerly stoicism and mainstream Christian nostalgia as a teaching moment, and we could use discomfort around the ritual of Christmas as a point of unity and dialog with Pagan, Jewish and Non-theistic Friends. Christian Friends are always having to explain how we’re not the kind of Christians others assume we are (others both within and outside the Society). Being principled about Christmas is one way of showing that difference. People will surely say “oh come on,” but so what? A lot of spiritual seekers are critical of the kind of crazy commercial spending sprees that marked Christmases past and I don’t see why a group saying Christmas isn’t about Christ would be at a particular disadvantage during this first Christmas season of the next Great Depression.
I’ve been talking about liberal unprogrammed Friends. For the record, I understand Christmas celebrations among “pastoral” and/or “programmed” Friends. They’ve made a conscious decision to adopt a more mainstream Christian approach to religious education and ministry. That’s fine. It’s not the kind of Quaker I practice, but they’re open about their approach and Christmas makes sense in that context.
Whenever I post this kind of stuff on my blog I get comments how I’m being too Scroogey. Well I guess I am. Bah Humbug. Honestly though, I’ve always like Quaker Christmas parties. They’re a way of mixing things up, a way of coming together as a community in a warmer way that we usually do. People stop confabbing about committee questions and actually enjoy one another’s company. One time I asked my meeting to call it the Day the World Calls Christmas Party, which I thought was kind of clever (everyone else surely thought “there goes Martin again”). The joy of real community that is filled once a year at our Christmas parties might be symptom of a hunger to be a different kind of community every week, even every day.
“Christian Friends are always having to explain how we’re not the kind of Christians others assume we are (others both within and outside the Society).”
Well, not to me. My experience of committed and radical Christians, particularly within the Society, is not the same as my experience of the kinds of Christians you are telling us people so often assume you are.
Actually, my problem with the way my Meeting celebrated Christmas was not at all about “having Christianity forced on me.” It was about hypocrisy. If the Meeting wanted to celebrate Christmas with a Christmas tree, a Christmas dinner, and Christmas carols, then to my mind the Meeting could choose to do that — I just wanted the Meeting to be honest and open about it, and not pretend the celebration was something it wasn’t. I especially didn’t want them to pretend it was rooted in unprogrammed Quakerism, because it wasn’t (and isn’t). What were we celebrating? The season in general? The birth of Jesus? Peace on Earth and goodwill?
One of my favorite times in my “home” Meeting used to be Easter. That may sound startling. Part of why I enjoyed Meeting for Worship so much each year on that day was the separation of outward observances from Friends’ inward experiences. In particular, I loved hearing committed Christian Friends talk about their experiences of Easter and of Jesus’ resurrection. I loved the honest sharing of our spiritual experiences, something all too rare.
I want there to be room for more of this kind of honesty, from Friends of all kinds of different experiences of the Divine and different thea/ologies. It hurts us all when any of us are asked not to speak the truth of our experience.
Also, don’t assume all Pagan Friends object to Christmas celebrations in our Meetings. There are Pagan Friends who embrace them. I don’t get it, but that’s okay; I don’t have to. 🙂
Martin, I unite with all that you’ve written here. Having come across that old correspondence from years ago really highlighted for me what I would do differently today, as a Conservative-leaning Friend. Your post speaks to my condition.
That said, like the Grinch, even the apophatic Quakers can’t keep Christmas from coming on the 25th of Twelfth Month!
Blessings,
Liz Opp, The Good Raised Up
You reminded me of a claim I haven’t been able to forget, or confirm: that Ebenezer Scrooge was a Quaker. His non-celebration fits, and there were certainly Quaker bankers.
Of course he was fictional, but hmmmm.….
@Liz Yes the juggernaut of Christmas doesn’t pause for anyone’s moral
scruples!
@Simon I too could imagine Scrooge as a Friend. Fortunately the all-knowing
Wikipedia lists a couple of inspirations for the Scrooge
characterand
none of them seem to be Quaker. I guess we weren’t the only skinflints
in England.
I believe that we need to expand the “Christmas” story. I believe we need to recognize the stories (plural) of Chritmas as ways to describe what Jesus meant and means to others as a grown man. Do we celebrate the birthdays of ML King, Washington, Lincoln, etc. by stories of their birth or tales of their adult impact. I think we need to identify the human interaction with God as direct, humble, significant and like children. “Unless you become like one of these…” I also think we need to tell the stories of Dec. 25 and similar dates. The reason for green trees and candles as symbols of the return of the “light.” We ned to introduce the “Festival of Lights” as a time of the sun overcoming darkness, etc.
I think Friends need to expand the idea of “Christmas” and celebrate the Jewish, Pagan, etc. ceremonies which have had and continue to leave lasting impressions on children and adults.
Martin
My post from today at Flexible Forms (http://jtblog.lindajohansen.com/2008/12/24/on-moods-advent-and-keeping-holy-days/) speaks to this, partly.
The post explains that my family’s seasonal celebration has been “more polyglot than any pure Quaker would feel entirely comfortable in, but I’m not trying (Was I ever?) to be pure. I’m just thankful to have had my way open to being family with such lively and considerate people.”
Jay T.
Dear Friend, 🙂
Your good thoughts remind me very much on an intriguing line from Gospell of Thomas, “7. Jesus said, “Blessed is the lion which becomes man when consumed by man; and cursed is the man whom the lion consumes, and the lion becomes man.”” This is about power of consumerizm of course 🙂 — it is hard not to be “consumed” by commercialized “Xmas” ways and things (everybody’s in this desacralized ritual) and it is still harder to “consume” this all humbug in a way that even this collective self-deception would be smething beyond superficial pleasantness and slack affirmation of family-bonds.
At least here in Lithuania, eastern EU, where I live, all the extended family gathering and “magic” of Xmas is used by family women as a scene for gossiping and competition and for men as escapism in pranking, vodka, beer and steam-baths (many rural houses have one). At least the children do enjoy some playing together and recieving toys o other gifts.
What I am mostly revolting against in Lithuanian X‑mas it is this ritualization of “special time” when everybody “should be nice” (mostly insincere, distanced “warmness” and material gifts) to each other and then forgetting that “niceness” in everyday-life. This is a kind of self-deception everybody agrees with lacking the courage and perseverance to exchange freely warm attention in usual, day-to-day conditions.
Speaking about pleasantness of light and colourfull decorations during the wintertime — it is absolutely so, but me personally I refuse to confine these things to a “tree” (although we also have one) :). I use many lamps of various kinds and colourfull prints and other decorations and various table-games or sharades to maintain my family’s (we have three sons) serotonin levels during darkness of winter.
God bless you, in all things friendly — Algis (from Vilnius, Lithuania)
Hey Martin,
I like your post. It’s all true. At the same time, I think there’s something important about having times of the year when we remember certain things. This doesn’t have to be done ritually – with a Christmas tree (what’s that supposed to remind us of anyway???) or presents or what have you, but it’s been good for me for the last few years to just think of holidays as reminder days. It’s not that God is particularly present on that day or that it’s more holy than other days, but it’s a good time to reflect and remember that part of our story, and see what Christ has to teach to the people himself this year, this moment, on this topic.
This of course doesn’t address your question of what to do regarding Friends of various belief systems, but at least for Friends who call themselves Christians, I don’t think it’s all bad to celebrate Christmas. We just need to do it in a way that calls into question the assumptions of our culture about what Christmas means.
By the way, my father-in-law told me he found your blog the other day by randomly searching on Google on a topic he was interested in…I told him about QuakerQuaker and that it might be an easier way to find blogs he was interested in in the future! =)