Tennessean Weighs In On the Yuletide Culture War (Is It Okay To Say "Yuletide"?)

Christmas should be in churches, in the hearts and souls of men.
Christmas is with Easter, one of the two most precious and sacred days of Christians, Catholics and Protestants. It is a day that has special meaning to me, where I attend Mass and spend time with my family.

And I don‘t think we need to defend it. What, I think, we need to do is to practice it.

--U.S. Representative John Dingell (D), Michigan, last night on MSNBC

Amen.

The writers and editors at Tennessean obviously failed to catch Rep. Dingell's comments on Christmas or to pay attention to his riff on 'Twas the Night Before Christmas yesterday from the well of the House (after some anti-Holy Day Republicans in the House introduced a bill to promote Christmas instead of holidays). If they had paid some attention, they could have avoided their bi-polar (and I mean that in every sense of the term) distortion of the views of those who even care to consider the question:

The debate is dividing ... communities. One camp says political correctness has already gone too far, making a religious holiday secular. Others say using a neutral phrase such as "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas" is better because it includes non-Christians.

Yeah, right. Two diametrically opposite sides locked in mortal combat over God's rested, merry gentlemen. Everything can be cut to fit simple black and white distinctions. Nobody nuances his or her views. There is no third or fourth position. Yeah, right. Anything for paper sales and higher ratings.

This is further indication that what drives this controversy is not a lunatic fringe of conservativism (which nonetheless is the spark) but the mainstream media itself simply itching to report an assault that does not even exist beyond the minds of a few cultural cleansers who always convince themselves that they are attacked. Is it too much to ask that the Tennessean give equal time to those of us who are conscientious objectors to this fake war? I know it can be difficult when you've got Metro Council members making self-serving, self-aggrandizing comments like,

It's the birth of Christ .... Christmas is the name of the season. I don't want to offend any other group or any other religion … but I celebrate Christmas. I think council members felt like we were getting away from (things like) the Christmas tree. For me, it was an important aspect of growing up.

Hence, celebrating Jamie Isabel's childhood development joins Jesus's birth as the "reason for the season." As if there were no pressing civic matters to consider on Tuesday nights in Council chambers.

But to Mr. Isabel, the Tennessean editors, and all those who would save the Christ in "Christmas" (does that not sound sacrilege to anybody else?) without saving the "Mass," too, I would recite part of Mr. Dingell's own riff:

We will pretend Christmas is under attack. Hold a vote to save it and pat ourselves on the back. “Silent Night,” the “First Noel,” “Away in the Manger.” Wake up, Congress, they‘re in no danger. This time of year, we see Christmas everywhere we go, from churches to homes to schools and, yes, even Costco.

What we have is an attempt to define and destroy. When this is the season to unite us with joy. At Christmas time we‘re taught to unite. We don‘t need a made-up reason to fight. So on O‘Reilly, on Hannity, on Coulter, on those right-wing blogs. You should sit back and relax. Have a few eggnogs.

The Real Culprits Whom Culture Warriors Should Blame For Taking "Christ" Out of "Christmas"

Here are the unusual suspects:

• White Christmas
• Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas
• The Christmas Song ("Chestnuts roasting on an open fire ...")
• Let It Snow!

According to Harold Meyerson, these humongously popular Christmas songs reflected a trend among songwriters in the 1940s to assert common national holidays stripped of sectarian content. In particular, Irving Berlin, a Jew married to an Irish Catholic raising nominally Protestant children, started the cultural shift away from Christian-only Christmas to a "cosmopolitan, American" Christmas with his composition of White Christmas. Meyerson argues that the more inclusive Christmas has predominated for 60 years, until Fox News started its crusade to dismantle that sense of Christmas.

Almost all of these songs explicitly wish us "Merry Christmas" without reference to "Happy Holidays," yet they all embody the anti-sectarian thrust of choosing the word "holiday" over "Christmas," which local yokels like Eric Crafton and Steve Gill so hate. Another stark contrast: while contemporary demagogues suggest that American Christians are somehow persecuted because of the naming of a tree, Irving Berlin actually experienced real persecution in Czarist Russia, thanks to brutal pogroms generated by Christians. His response? To write Christmas songs that people of all faiths and of no faith could join together to sing.

12/28/2005, 5:00 p.m. Update: As you can surmise from the links section, Nathan Moore--who has always struck me in his blogging as more devoted to the almighty dollar than to almighty divinity (what with his making nonmoral capital a virtue and all)--thinks he has taken me to task for merely pointing out that the defenders of Christmas (God help us if those are the best defenders we Christians have) have mistargeted. He calls it "writhing three days after Christmas" and he insists that my "liberal" logic fails to see the "Christ" in these "Christmas" songs. Given that neither Jesus Christ nor his adoration is ever mentioned in these obviously secular songs or in the songwriters' original intents, his point breaks apart on its own. Irving Berlin's "White Christmas" is no more about Jesus Christ than Hecht's "After Christmas White Sale" is. All Nathan had to do was recite Berlin's lyrics in his head to see the common sense of that. And I proceeded to question the purity of Nathan's conservativism in his comments section if he does not understand that, according to the ages-old Christian calendar, Christmas does not end until "Twelfth Night," which is January 5 (hence, the "Twelve Days of Christmas"). Is it me or is it actually Nathan who fails to see the Christ in Christmas? After all, he thinks that the holy season of remembrance of Jesus's birth is over just because he has unwrapped the last gift and eaten the last sausage ball. But above all one wonders: if this is such a "non-war on Christmas" as Nathan argues, then why is he still attempting to join the fray?

How News 2 Saved Christmas From Being A Holiday

Just when we were beginning to think that repressive provincialism was shrinking to smaller places like unsexy Spring Hill, along comes News 2 stoking the culture wars (I don't think they were just joining the battle) with their perception of some kind of growing fight between calling a public evergreen a "Holiday Tree" or calling it a "Christmas Tree." I got to listen to anchor Bob Mueller tell me somewhat smugly at 6:00 p.m. that News 2 would no longer accept the mayoral definition of the tree as a "Holiday Tree." Instead, said Mueller, News 2 would be referring to the tree as a "Christmas Tree." Thank God for that. I was a little worried that whatever was happening to trees over at Riverfront Park was going to demolish my own family's Christmas celebrations.

If Mueller's battle cry on behalf of the Tannenbaum weren't enough crap, I also had to sit through one of News 2's "videojournalists" doing a no doubt scientific, double-blind poll with a cross section of Nashvillians, whom he approached and asked, "What do you call that?" (referring to Metro's "Holiday Tree," I suppose). Each individual in the representative sample (if by "representative sample" you mean "5 or 6 people on the street") answered, "A Christmas tree." Aside from methodology, the tenents of Christian faith have never been simply subject to what a plurality of people on the street have to say; hence, add bad theology to bad journalism on News 2 tonight.

While his method was funny and his theology was troubling, most bothersome was the VJ's total lack of grace toward those who might not agree with his theological point of view. At the end of his "videojournal" on misnaming the "Holiday Tree," he took it upon himself pointedly to wish his audience a "blessed Christmas" as if blessings were weapons used against malcontents in this culture war. To paraphrase Deputy Barney Fife, I'd rather be called "skunkface" than to have such an arrogant blessing rammed down my throat like a curse; and in this, the season of "good will toward all."

Never mind all of those messages reportedly left with WKRN about how the Mayor is trying to take "Christ" out of "Christmas" by saying "Holiday Tree." Such a ridiculous charge may sound like scary secularism and political correctness run amuck, but just recall the etymology of "holiday" : it literally comes from old English for "holy day," signifying religious festivals all the way back to the 14th century. Actually, by calling it "Holiday," Metro is not removing any faith-based or Christian connotations at all. On the ironic contrary, Mueller's announcement that News 2 would refuse to use "Holiday" to describe the tree seems to be taking the "holiness" out of these days set aside for religious observance.

But if News 2 wants to take all of the holiness out of the days of Christmas, then I say, "Let them." They should start with their own news stories where "Christmas" and "holiday" seem to be used interchangeably. It is not sporting to act all noble as you take a stand for Christmas, but continue to use the term "holiday." Say what you will about Bill O'Reilly and Fox News. At least they purged references to "Holiday" off of the "O'Reilly Factor Holiday Ornaments" ads in the Fox News online store the day after MSNBC's Keith Olbermann pointed out the hypocrisy of their paranoid attacks on liberals for allegedly trying to replace "Christmas" with "Holiday" while peddling "holiday ornaments." Yet, while WKRN is taking a stand on "Christmas" over "Holiday," their stories still refer to "marching bands and holiday floats" and "holiday tradition for local store."

And if News 2 is going to push the "Christ" in Christmas, then the image below has little to do with Jesus. The red glass ornament has absolutely nothing to do with Jesus Christ.

A cross or a manger would have been direct references to Christ. Better yet, since the original meaning of Christmas was "mass of Christ" (which excludes all non-Catholic Christians), then why not just take out the ornament and hang a graphic Catholic crucifix behind the "Christmas Parade" banner in the picture? If New 2 is going to be authentic about this, then why post a picture that says "holiday" more than "Christmas"? That would be a lot easier than trying to put Christ into Christmas by not observing Christmas at all; there's a thought. But I guess that News 2 has identified the specific Christian demographic to whom it wants to appeal; it sure ain't mine.

Waiting on the War on Christmas Paranoia

With no more shopping days left until the alleged "War on Christmas," I'm wondering how the magical season is passing without any shots fired over Christmas Trees, "Happy Holidays" greetings, and the Baby Jesus. It's just not the same fun season without being able to pick a fight with the histrionic edges of the rightwing.

So, I'll start:

• Even though I think that the prayers given before Council Meetings are inappropriate from a civic perspective and profane from a faith perspective, I always enjoy listening to them and parsing their theology. Tonight's prayer was actually pretty tame and uninflammatory even as it still amounted to Metro sponsorship of religion. It was even a little contemplative. And it actually ended on a higher note than the plethora of other un-closeted (as in "prayer closet") ones that end "in Jesus' name." The invocation ended instead with, "We ask it in all the names you are known by." That's an improvement, although I would have added, "... and those we'll never know at all."
• What is it about Christmas that brings out the most theologically incorrect pop lyrics? For example, in one pop Christian song a guy sings:
  

  He gave up his pride and came here to die.

  Ugh. A not-so-slight problem: pride is one of the seven deadlies. Singing, "he gave up his pride" is worse than singing, "he gave up his serially murderous habits."
• It's about damned time: pastors owning Rolls Royces, flying in private jets, living in mansions, staying in $5,000 suites, and crapping in $23,000 commodes is obscene. Now a Senate Republican is leading the investigation as to whether their churches should lose their non-profit status. Hell, yes, they should.
• Speaking of investigating, Liberty University and Jerry Falwell, Jr. should be investigated for violating tax laws by endorsing Republican Presidential Mike Huckabee in a mass e-mail on university letterhead.
• School Board President and local Pastor encourages Texas School Board to be intolerant and to tell members who ask for legal opinions on whether opening government meetings with prayer was constitutional to "Shut up."

Let the Christmas Wars begin, but let them begin with this prayer:

"May The Merry Bells Keep Ringing ..."

After experiencing some catharsis from my previous editorial on the ridiculous controversy between the adjectives "holiday" and "christmas" used to describe a tree, I let go and went on about my weekend not intending to give the matter more attention than it was due. However, my comments seem to have kicked up some dust at a couple of other blogs, especially with those who consider my perceptions "overly emphatic" and "exaggerated." So, here's some postscript.

Now, I've never claimed that my editorial observations about what I see in the media are anything other than that: my own subjective opinions based on my own perspectival perceptions. I never asked any other blogger to assume anything more. Hence, I interpreted Bob Mueller's comment that News 2 would be choosing "Christmas" over "Holiday" at the end of the report on the semantic culture war as "somewhat smug." That's a subjective call on my part. As WKRN's President, Mike Sechrist (whose knack for yoking diplomacy and backbone ranks with the best of them, in my subjective opinion) concluded, I called it like I saw it.

But just because I saw something subjectively, does not mean that my perception of it was unreasonable. One of the tests of reason is to put it up against the subjective judgments of others who saw the report Friday evening. If there is a profound disjunction between my take and someone else's take, then charges like "exaggerated" may stick to my interpretation. Kay Brooks, who also saw the broadcast, disagrees with my view, but she characterizes Mueller's presentation as "an attempt at humor." I don't question that Kay is being much more charitable toward the News 2 anchor than I was. And I acknowledge without hesitation that Kay's take is as worth a look as mine is.

However, I learned a long time ago that humor in public speaking is one of the more risky affairs, because unless your audience is on your page, your message may be misinterpreted to mean something more or less than you intend. If Bob Mueller (and his writers and editors) was making an attempt at humor, then it is not unreasonable that I might fail to understand the joke. Within the context of the entire story, especially with the VJ's wishing a "blessed Christmas" (and I do not see the connection that Mike Sechrist does between the VJ's blessing and the Dickensonian "God bless us, everyone"), Mueller's comments came across to me as "somewhat smug." And attempts at humor may be interpreted as self-satisfaction precisely because there is a very fine line between a presentation that lacks gravitas and the perception of complacency. So, even if Kay Brooks' take is more believable than my own, my initial conclusion about the story was not unreasonable.

But I also admit that as Friday's post went on, I eventually crossed over myself to satire of all of the bile-churning concern about a tree. The political correctness of clutching one adjective over another as if the very fabric of the season was knit by what we name things rather than how we treat others is sheer foolishness to me. I saw an example of such foolishness early Saturday morning on the midnight rebroadcast of Channel 5's 10:00 news, which interviewed a tree salesperson who said that one of her customers asked her if the trees she was selling were "holiday trees," because he only wanted a "Christmas tree" and he would never ever buy a "holiday tree." By all means. As I told friend and fellow Salemtown bard, John H., on Saturday morning--despite the fact that my Christmas tree was already up--that story nearly motivated me to hit the local tree sellers and to ask for exactly the kind of tree that the ancient Egyptians and Romans would have put up in their pagan celebrations at the winter solstice or to go out buy an artificial tree produced only by the local Saturnalia plant, feigning opposition to buying any tree connected to Christmas or even to the pre-Christian Scandanavian pagan kings.

It does not tarnish my tinsel if Metro refers to one tree with one religious adjective instead of another. It does not diminish my Christian faith one iota. It would not have even bothered me if News 2 had just started without flourish slipping "Christmas tree" instead of "Holiday tree" into its reports. But past that, bowing to the political correctness of what we name trees is simply a ridiculous slippery slope, which I attempted to show satirically as I approached the end of my editorial on WKRN's salvation of Christmas; and I concede at this point that in satire, editorial becomes exaggeration. I don't really believe that the people at News 2 are trying to take the "holiness" out of "holidays," but I do believe that in the story that ran Friday night they unnecessarily took a side in this regrettable culture war and that the VJ unnecessarily lobbed a Christmas blessing at the audience for good measure.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly in Metro Services in 2008

Because of the limits that following the TVA disaster has placed on my disposable research and writing time, I am not able in 2008 to pour the usual amount of effort into Enclave's Annual Best and Worst of Metro Services. So, I am going with a concise format of what I found to be the good, the bad and the ugly in Metropolitan Nashville governance. If you are a devoted Deaniac, you should stop reading here because if I were doing the regular format, the things I hit on below would have sunk the Mayor's Office to the bottom of the worst Metro services this year (even though Mayor Dean did make a laudable effort to fight English Only).

• January
  • The good: Metro Police caught the thief of the Metro Election Commission laptops and located the hard drives at "rave-type" coffee bar, effectively dispelling a Wachenhut-contracted security guard's claims that the computers were stolen before he was on Christmas Eve duty.
  • The bad: Mayor Karl Dean singled out Metro ITS for the heist of Election Commission and promised security changes without any reference to culpability in either his office or former Mayor Bill Purcell's regarding a building alarm and camera system that was turned off on Christmas Eve 2007.
  • The ugly: Metro Legal lead with a wrist slap on Wachenhut. CM Charlie Tygard intended to go where Buck Dozier failed to go before: LEDland. Metro's computer chief had laptop stolen from his own car during Metro's IT security audit.
• February
  • The good: Metro Parks says Morgan Park will get a playground by summer.
  • The bad: Court Clerk Vic Lineweaver wanted Metro to buy him a new car! CM Tygard's LED bill passes first reading with no debate, thanks to Vice Mayor Diane Neighbors' new iron-fist of order.
  • The ugly: CM Tygard blamed former Mayor Bill Purcell for Metro's budget problems a year after the council was spending discretionary funds furiously on pet non-profits.
• March
  • The good: Council members paid attention to flood of neighborhood emails opposing Tygard's LED bill. Metro Public Works responded to traffic complaints in Salemtown.
  • The bad: Zoning Administrator Sonny West ignored popular opposition to the LED bill.
  • The ugly: government haters kept angling for Metro government jobs.
• April
  • The good: CM Megan Barry called upon Vice Mayor to appoint a representative LED task force to study the LED proposal.
  • The bad: Tygard appointed his own task force to rubber stamp LED recommendations.
  • The ugly: Mayor Karl Dean appointed pro-development darling of the conservative Nashville Business Coalition, Chris Whitson, to Metro's Board of Zoning Appeals.
• May
  • The good: CM Mike Jameson showed himself to be the only CM with the backbone to stand up and counter-punch the Dean administration's pro-development leanings.
  • The bad: Metro Police called to Salemtown to deal with drunken party brawls and indecent exposures across various properties only to excuse the law-breakers as part of a "Meharry Medical graduation party."
  • The ugly: Mayor Karl Dean rumored to eliminate pro-neighborhood Metro leaders on behalf of developers.
• June
  • The good: Metro Planning Commission disapproved 7th & Garfield development and asked developer to get all of his ducks in a row before coming back.
  • The bad: Metro Council meeting again turned into a bash-Purcell-fest, and yet, usually iron-fisted Vice Mayor Neighbors did not lift a finger to rule it out of order.
  • The ugly: Metro Council followed "Developers Playbook" and scheduled planning and rezoning public hearings just before a major travel holiday.
• July
  • The good: CM Emily Evans challenged fabrications of the May Town Center developers.
  • The bad: Metro Planning Department moved May Town Center proposal to the Planning Commission for a vote on the strength of the developers' studies because they lacked the funds to conduct their own economic impact study.
  • The ugly: Mayor Karl Dean allowed without objection the local media to write his role as Metro Legal chief out of the narrative on why the Bush Justice Department was investigating a council rezoning issue.
• August
  • The good: Metro Parks met with Sylvan Park neighbors of Richland Park to consider expansion, including an amphitheatre.
  • The bad: summer ended without Metro Parks fulfilling its February promise to install a playground at Morgan Park.
  • The ugly: I received an icy monologue from Sylvan Park CM Jason Holleman comparing the property values in Sylvan Park to Morgan Park Place condos rather than to anything in Salemtown, which also borders on Morgan Park and which has never even asked for an amphitheatre.
• September
  • The good: at least we did not have to live with Williamson Co. Republicans.
  • The bad: because of snafus, Metro Police and Metro Youth Services delayed sending detectives to Salemtown to investigate a teenage shooting, failing to support Mayor Karl Dean's central campaign promise to deal effectively with youth crime.
  • The ugly: based on the narrative of Tennessean reporter Janell Ross, Metro Police Chief Ronal Serpas asserted that "all too often" suspicious person calls are racist calls.
• October
  • The good: you fill in the blank ____________.
  • The bad: Metro Youth Services Detectives still had not followed up with the teen victim of a Salemtown shooting.
  • The ugly: CM Jim Gotto resurrected the perennial empty patriotic gesture of introducing a memorializing resolution to put cheap yellow ribbons on poles at the Courthouse Square because he got a nod that the Dean Administration would make Parks follow through this time.
• November
  • The good: somewhere Tony Orlando is smiling.
  • The bad: Metro Police were clearly the only ones responding to crime in after hours bars.
  • The ugly: while the press pounced on Metro Council attempts to deal with after hours crime, Mayor Karl Dean, who had run for office on the promise of dealing with youth and gang crime did nothing.
• December
  • The good: the war on Christmas nonsense seemed to stay away from Metro this year.
  • The bad: Metro Public works was "unresponsive" to Belmont-Hillsboro Neighbors and CM Keith Durbin.
  • The ugly: Mayor Dean promised CM Erica Gilmore that installation Morgan Park playground equipment is still going to happen.

Happy New Year, everyone! And we still deserve a better year from Metro than we got the last one.

Hollin wins the final memorializing showdown and Gotto does not know when to leave well enough alone

A few weeks after conservatives CMs Phil Claiborn and Jim Gotto (a Republican) took down CM Jamie Hollin's attempt to honor some high school students who organized protest against the General Assembly's "Don't Say Gay" bill, Hollin struck back at his last meeting as CM tonight and won approval for the memorializing resolution.

Even this evening, Gotto got up to speak against the resolution based on the pitch that memorializing resolutions should not identify controversies with particular groups. He equated it with bringing MRs supporting the Tea Party. That is a rather convenient argument for the Republican to make given that in previous years he has sponsored MRs that express preference for parochial groups in controversial settings.

In 2009, CM Gotto joined other theologically conservative CMs and co-sponsored an MR endorsing the National Day of Prayer, which is an event promoted by a national evangelical Christian organization. Gotto's resolution promoted a sectarian group's agenda for wedding governance and religious observance. Anyone who maintains that religion is not controversial has never engaged in discussions about religion.

In happier times saving Christmas
for Christians
with memorializing resolutions

In 2005, CM Gotto co-sponsored the "Saving Christmas" memorializing resolution which "affirmed and supported the use of the words Christmas or Merry Christmas, instead of non-descript, generic terms such as Happy Holidays ... when referring to Metro Government events or activities traditionally associated with Christmas, such as the Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony". Not only is the annual "war on Christmas" debate controversial, but it is often sensationalistic and designed to get press coverage. The same week that Gotto's MR was approved by the council, Gotto gathered with conservative talk-radio host Steve Gill to celebrate passage of the resolution in front of Metro's tree and voracious news media.

So, for Jim Gotto to oppose CM Hollin's resolution honoring some students because they stood up for GLBT is sanctimonious and cynical, especially given the context that council conservatives set for opposition to Metro's nondiscrimination regulations on contractors: nondiscrimination would burden "Christian business."

To deepen the hypocrisy, CM Gotto announced earlier tonight that he could not "in good faith" vote for Hollin's MR. However, he once proclaimed that memorializing resolutions in general were a waste of time and  not worth the paper they were written on. If these bills are worthless, then debating them is meaningless and there is not faith, good or bad, that would ever prompt us to consider them.

In Rush to Defend "Christmas," Reporter Ignores Pagan Influences That He Focused on at Halloween

Originally published at Free Tennessee:

WRKN reporter Jamey Tucker filed a story on October 30 about the "pagan roots" of Halloween. In and of itself, his story would be a non-starter, except that Mr. Tucker has lately shown a tendency to take up the "Christmas" mantle in the perennial culture war over words used to describe the holiday season. That indicates that the reporter may lack an even hand when dealing with volatile cultural issues involving holiday observances. He is entitled to call the holiday season anything he wants, but one would think that the intellectual honesty of a journalist would require him to file a story on the pagan roots of Christmas just as he has on those of Halloween, if for no other reason that it is conventional to gloss over the pagan roots of a seemingly Christian holiday.

Mr. Tucker has yet to note the probable ties between Christmas and the seasonally-structured practices of gift-giving, role reversals, and feasting of earlier pagan observances in Ancient Greece, Imperial Rome, Indo-Iranian Mithra, and pre-Jewish Canaanite religions. Granted, the possible pagan roots of Christmas do not stir the same negative emotions that Halloween (Christianized as All Hallows Eve, the day before All Saints Day) does among Tucker’s favored target audience of conservative evangelicals in their ironic Holy War against the word "holiday"; but we are bound to point out that there is little difference between the trick-or-treat ritual of keeping food on hand to appease evil spirits and caroling at Christmas to ward off evil spirits.

It is entirely fair to ask that Mr. Tucker bracket his personal concerns about making sure that that "Christmas" does not get called "Holiday," so as to give more journalistic attention, for instance, to the ancient pagan rituals of decking houses with evergreens, which was a magical representation of fertility, and which transferred into the American practice of erecting Christmas Trees, which Mr. Tucker himself now defends against so-called "political correctness." It is one thing to guard Christianized rituals from pagan influences; it is quite another to privilege some Christianized rituals over others under the pretense of journalistic evenhandedness.

Further Evidence that the Editorial Voice of the WSJ is Nuts

When the implosion of the American economy is blamed on the "war on Christmas," the culture warriors have nothing left in the tank:

You got that? Mortgage lenders engaged in questionable lending practices because they could no longer wish people, "Merry Christmas." AIG backed up dubious loans and sent their executives to expensive resort- and spa-based conferences riding first class or on company luxury jets because they could no longer wish people, "Merry Christmas." GM made some stupid purchases of foreign car companies with they were raking in huge profits instead of investing in green technologies of the 21st Century because they could no longer wish people, "Merry Christmas." The federal government deregulated instead of defending the welfare of Americans because we could no longer wish people, "Merry Christmas." And no one misbehaved when wishing "Merry Christmas" was popular.

It all makes sense to me now. Why couldn't I see the connection earlier? Probably because I'm not nearly as wacked out as the opinion editors at the Wall Street Journal.

Metro Council's Annual Attempt to Take the Closet Out of Prayer

It has been a while since Metro Council conservatives have tried to join the war on Christmas or to turn zoning disputes into liberal neighborhood do-gooders against innocent churches, but you had to know they were eventually going to start the next culture war diversion to get away from their actual responsibilities as laid out by the Metro Charter.

At next Tuesday night's council meeting, Jim Hodge (The Churches of Christ), Randy Foster (The Churches of Christ), Jim Gotto (The Churches of Christ), and Robert Duvall (fundamentalist Baptist) introduce a memorializing resolution designed to pander to the theocratic right-wing in Nashville that will do nothing to advance the economic and communal quality of life in the city itself. The MR says:

WHEREAS, May 7, 2009, is the 58th Annual National Day of Prayer; and

WHEREAS, the religious freedom guaranteed us by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and the diversity of faiths practiced in America have made our land a beacon for people who seek freedom to worship according to their conscience; and

WHEREAS, Americans of every race, background and creed come together in their places of worship, homes and work places to pray for guidance, wisdom and courage; and

WHEREAS, just as we rely on prayer for courage, hope and renewal in our private lives, so too do we turn to prayer at times of joy, crises, economic uncertainty and tragedy in our public life as a Nation, a State and a City; and

WHEREAS, Congress, by Public Law 100-307, has called on our citizens to reaffirm the role of prayer in our society by recognizing annually a “National Day of Prayer” and many of our Nation’s Presidents have asked us to pray for our Nation; and

WHEREAS, at this time in our history, we are especially mindful of the heroic men and women serving in our Armed Forces, especially those serving abroad for their safety, for the recovery of the wounded, and for the peace we will seek and their families; and

WHEREAS, it is fitting and proper that the Metropolitan Council recognizes the 58th Annual National Day of Prayer as May 7, 2009, and encourage all residents to pray and request of their Creator, “May your unfailing love rest upon us, O Lord, even as we put our HOPE in you” – Psalm 33:22.

NOW THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE COUNCIL OF THE METROPOLITAN GOVERNMENT OF NASHVILLE AND DAVIDSON COUNTY:

Section 1. The Metropolitan Council hereby goes on record as proclaiming May 7, 2009, as National Day of Prayer.

Section 2. This Resolution shall take effect from and after its adoption, the welfare of The Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County requiring it.

In spite of the sponsors' ultra conservative church affiliations, their action actually violates the same Bible that the churches from which these men hail purport to follow.

Can I get a witness, Jesus?

Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them .... and whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they can be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But whenever you pray, go into your closet and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees you will reward you .... When you are praying do not heap up empty phrases like the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard because of their many words.

Not only does the council's latest culture war resolution heap up self-aggrandizing, wheedling phrases to suit the vanity of conservatives, but it is an exercise in hollow piety inconsistent with Jesus's dominant views of prayer itself. These council members are attempting to impose a splinter ideology in the guise of civil religion at odds with founding teachings the ideology claims to follow.

How are they not being the very hypocrites that Jesus himself excoriates? And keep in mind that Hodge's, Foster's, and Gotto's "undenominational" denomination, The Churches of Christ, claims to have no central executive because Jesus Christ himself is their executive. So, why aren't they listening to him on prayer?

In the end, Jesus never teaches proclaiming an Annual National Day of Prayer, and if these self-proclaimed Christians are to truly follow his teachings, then they should be exercising humility, contrition, and even shame at even being tempted to speak of prayer publicly as they intend to do next Tuesday. If they don't feel lead to repent, they should at least apologize to Metro taxpayers for wasting our resources to draft, to seek lawyers' opinions on, to call to committee, and to introduce to council a bill that will not help make Nashville a better place. What a waste of money; what a waste of faith.

Not exactly Father Christmas

One group of Nashvillians concerned about Mayor Karl Dean's plan to move fairgrounds events to Antioch's Hickory Hollow Mall is the Nashville chapter of the Pi Phi alumnae, who have organized and sponsored Christmas Village as a charitable event for half of a century. Their proceeds go to fund a number of Vanderbilt's medical services and programs of a Gatlinburg arts and crafts school.

I obtained an e-mail sent from leaders of Christmas Village to parties affected by the Mayor's proposal. That correspondence discloses that these leaders met with the Mayor in August to iterate to him that they were not a part of the preservationists with "Save the Fairgrounds," but that they were concerned about the effects of moving Christmas Village to Hickory Hollow. The e-mail describes Mayor Dean as starting "very angry" after hearing that the alumnae group was going to "wage a war in the media" if he did not meet their expectations.

The e-mail says that the leaders tried to assure the Mayor that the unnamed council member who lead him to expect a war was wrong, but that their membership was merely "very concerned about the future of the Christmas Village." They also communicated that perpetuation of their charitable cooperation required solutions "very soon." The leaders asked the Mayor to keep the Fairgrounds Expo operating until an alternative site could be developed.

Reportedly, Mayor Dean refused to discuss any other shows beyond Christmas Village with them, and he suggested that the Pi Phi alums "relax" and wait until September for more answers. On the one hand, while Mayor Dean refused to make them promises, the leaders wrote that they got the impression that he was working on a solution. On the other hand, they disclosed that they believed that Karl Dean could "suspend all efforts if he is angry about tension with council."

I must ask at this point: wouldn't it be wrong for any Mayor to throw a wrench into the plans of everyone connected with the Fairground Expo--including a charity that raises a lot of money to help people--simply out of what seems to be petty anger and retaliation? Don't we expect more from a Mayor than suspending all fairgrounds efforts for any reason short of it being in the best interest of Nashville/Davidson County as a whole to do so? Why should long-standing organizations be forced to tiptoe around the Mayor for fear of pissing him off? I know Nashville's Mayor operates as a CEO might, but the reports from this meeting do not exactly make Hizzoner sound like a benevolent dictator.

Twelfth Night is On Us and No Christmas Warriors Are Left

I noticed yesterday as I drove past the Courthouse that Metro took down the Public Square Christmas Tree. I would like to take this opportunity to note the total vacuum of criticism on the conservative side of the culture war. Remember how social conservatives pitched a fit that the "word" Christmas was under attack (cue the black helicopters)? Remember their outcry last year when "Christmas" got called "Holy Day" "Holiday"?

Well, where is all of that outcry and kowtowed media attention now that Metro is not observing the traditional Twelve Days of Christmas? This is historically a time of feasting and celebration in an observance older than the habit of putting up an evergreen. Classically, Christmas is not over until Epiphany, which recalls the visit of the Three Wise Men. Yet, where is all of the protest about taking down the tree before Twelfth Night has ended?

The Metro Christmas Tree was nothing more than a de facto "Holiday Tree" because it was taken down before Twelfth Night (and that does not threaten me in the least; the things of Caesar belong to Caesar). But the social conservatives in Nashville who once groaned that we were losing the "reason for the season" because of superficial labels are now silent, which indicates to me that their bluster had more to do with political opportunism, superfluous semantics, and whipping up emotions and less to do with a sincere faith in the Spirit of Christmas.

As for me, my trees and lights and garland will stay up until Epiphany morning breaks this weekend. It just seems the Christian thing to do. Why celebrate the "reason for the season" without seeing the season to its end?

The True Spirit of Christmas

The real war on Christmas:  "savage" suburban shoppers rush a Wal-mart at its 5 a.m. opening like a pack of frenzied wildebeests and kill a store worker who couldn't clear their stampeding.  Wal-mart of course said that the safety and security of its customers is a top priority.

Aren't marketing and consumerism wonderful things?

Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la.

End of the Ice Sculpture Age?

AIG won't be giving 7 of it's 60 executives bonuses this year to prove the bailworthiness of their failing company to taxpayers.  How inspiring.  If only they gave awards for doing a tiny fraction of the right thing.

And only 81% of offices are going to have holiday parties this year.  Ouch.  20% of all offices are making the supreme sacrifice.  I just hate this war on Christmas, don't you?

Impure Thoughts

Today's Nashville City Paper joins the semantic culture war over the religious terms of "Holiday" vs. "Christmas" to describe certain trees (at least they clearly distinguished their plug for the "Christmas" qualifier/signifier/labelizer as "editorial"). There is one most telling comment:

The evergreen tree with a star at the top is purely Christian [emphasis mine].

I would not be writing this if they had left the word "purely" out of the statement. But its use raises red (in the non-Christmas sense of "red") flags for me. Do the NCP editors really intend to make their statement a quasi-hygienic nod to purity vs. contamination, when the tree comes down to us from a very amalgamated and adulterated history?

Terms like "purely" expose some of the impetus at the center of this debate: it is the drive toward cultural cleansing and purification. Fundamentalism--"the striving for purity of belief based on precise, unquestioned fundamentals, coupled with a willingness to do whatever it takes to insure that those basic tenets are protected from the challenges of secular society"--is the machine behind the controversy. Even President Bush is getting bulldozed by that machine simply for sending out culturally impure Christmas cards.

I have already pointed out that the term "holiday," is just as traditionally and generally (not purely) a Christian-oriented concept as the Christmas tree is. So, taking a side in this ridiculous fight is a little unChristian, although not "purely" unChristian.

An Alternative Story on Muslims and Klansmen

Like News 2 before it, NewsChannel5 has joined the Christmas Wars over Phil Bredesen's choice of personal (as in "unofficial") Christmas cards. Details after the jump. In his latest interview, pastor Maury Davis again links Islam and the Ku Klux Klan and he demands cultural purity from Bredesen's personal choice.

However, one comment that Davis made hit me:

If on Martin Luther King day you sent a picture of a Klansman and said, "Martin Luther had a dream that this guy would one day get along with the people he is trying to kill," I'm not sure that the African American community would handle that very well.

That comment in particular called to mind a miraculous story told by Will Campbell; it is an impossible possibility that might not ever haunt the ungraceful mind of Maury Davis.

From Forty Acres and a Goat:

Word circulated among the black prison population [in Danbury, Connecticut] that the Grand Dragon of the [North Carolina] Ku Klux Klan [J.R. "Bob" Jones] was there [after being convicted of contempt of Congress]. Further word had it that he wouldn't be there long because he would be dead in the yard. A mutual friend [of Campbell's] in New Jersey, Pete Young, knew a Black Muslim minister who had members and numerous contacts at Danbury .... The word then became that if anything happened to Bob Jones while he was in prison, the one responsible would have to answer to Muslim justice. Jones continued in good heath, his best friend in prison a Black Muslim. Mysterious ways ....

A few years later Pete Young's house caught on fire .... His wife, their three-year-old daughter, and his wife's mother were killed. Pete lay in critical condition from burns he received when he tried frantically to save them. Pete was a Protestant. They were Catholic .... [The funeral had] twenty-four pallbearers. At the front of the line was the former Grand Dragon .... Beside him was his Muslim prisonmate.

While Rev. Davis--an ex-con himself--sees a world at cultural war, Rev. Campbell tells us a story of truce and of the laying aside the issue of cultural purity for the sake of a closer fellowship. Which one would Martin Luther King, Jr.--or, I daresay, Jesus--prefer?

Tennessean Columnist Joins the Class War against Unions Regardless of Management

According to Gail Kerr, if you dare even criticize Bob Corker's one-sided targeting of unions as the cause of the demise of the auto industry (let's not forget Honda is contracting and Toyota is putting its Tupelo plant plans on hold, even as they enjoy state and local tax breaks and other bailout-type subsidies), then you are a "union loyalist." You might even be making a reasonable argument, but you are still a friggin' "loyalist," which in the Bush era carries connotations of blind and unquestioning obedience (as if Gannett journalists are not loyal to the corporation that pays them and lately makes them thankful to still have jobs at Christmas).

Kerr all but calls Senator Corker a savior. But what does she see him saving the industry from? From workers trying to protect their health care benefits. She is attacking people for trying to provide basic health care for themselves and their families. She is blaming people for quite naturally trying to stay healthy. But she, like many corporate journalists in these Nissan/Volkswagen states are loath to raise the issue of CEOs who spend whatever amount they can get on the best health care for themselves and their own (let alone raise the issue of fleets of company cars and planes, expensive retreats, and golden parachutes). Would Bob Corker ever demand that CEOs be willing to give up half of their benefits as a concession? Would Gail Kerr ever call him a savior for doing so?

But those of us who would not blame another working sap for doing whatever it takes to make the best of a bad health care situation in this country are tabbed as union loyalists by Gail Kerr. I am not in a union, don't come from a union family, and have criticized union corruption on this blog in the past. But if I dare criticize Tennessee's new media darling and his storied advent to the national stage, then according to Kerr I am a loyalist. So be it.

This loyalist awaits Gail Kerr's call for management to make their own proportional sacrifices. Unions are not the only ones who should be held accountable for not bending. And I also await Kerr's explanation of the method by which the U.S. will absorb the rising health care costs of the increasing number of uninsured retirees who cannot afford preventative care once the unions bend to give up half their health care benefits. Heaven forbid that she, like Dickens' Scrooge, believes they should just die off and "decrease the surplus population."

Convoluted Reporter Logic

[T]here's nothing Christian or even religious about the Christmas tree. Is there? Its roots are in paganism. A tree is nothing more than a traditional Christmas symbol.

- - Jamey Tucker

Where did WKRN's Faith and Ethics Reporter ever get the notion that evergreen-decking pagans were not religious? And what kind of convoluted logic is it for the same reporter to say that a Christmas Tree is devoid of Christian reference, when a whole culture war is being waged around him over calling it a Christmas Tree?

It would be one thing if any old garden-variety reporter had these lapses in logic about the admittedly difficult subject of religion, but this is WKRN's "Religion" Reporter: the guy who is supposed to have a firm handle on this subject.