CHRISTMAS
Theological Anticipations
by Adam C. English
CHRISTMAS
Theological Anticipations
Copyright © 2016 Adam C. English. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.
Cascade Books
An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers
199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3
Eugene, OR 97401
www.wipfandstock.com
paperback isbn: 978-1-4982-3932-5
hardcover isbn: 978-1-4982-3934-9
ebook isbn: 978-1-4982-3933-2
Cataloguing-in-Publication data:
Names: English, Adam C.
Title: Christmas : theological anticipations / Adam C. English.
Description: Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2016 | Includes bibliographical references.
Identifiers: isbn 978-1-4982-3932-5 (paperback) | isbn 978-1-4982-3934-9 (hardcover) | isbn 978-1-4982-3933-2 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: 1. Christmas. | 2. Theology | 3. History | 4. Manners and customs. | 5. Title.
Classification: GT4986.A1 E50 2016 (paperback) | GT4986.A1 (ebook)
Manufactured in the USA 08/15/16
Acknowledgments
The spirit of Christmas is the spirit of thankfulness. I am thankful to many people and I will name a few, starting with Father Joseph Marquis of the St. Nicholas Institute, Mrs. Carol Myers of the St. Nicholas Center, and Father Gerardo Cioffari of the Centro Studi Nicolaiani. I am grateful for the encouragement of my colleagues in the Department of Christian Studies, the College of Arts and Sciences, the Divinity School, and Wiggins Library at Campbell University, with special thanks to the college’s associate dean, Dr. Glenn Jonas, my dean, Dr. Mike Wells, my provost, Dr. Mark Hammond, Campbell’s president, Dr. Brad Creed, and chancellor, Dr. Jerry Wallace. A word of gratitude is in order to the editorial staff at Wipf and Stock. I could not imagine my life without the support of Charissa, W.D., Nancy and Dan, my siblings, and my wife’s wonderful family who love me and whom I love dearly.
I dedicate this book to the future: Cassidy, Rachel, Rebekah, Iain, Brett, Aubryn, Braylon, Caden, Jessica, Makayla, Kaitlyn, Weston, Colton, Colten, Zachary, Lizzy, Ellie, Nate, Mary-Haven, Teagan, Miles, Amos, Kara, Jade, Elle, Hanna, Hannah, Gracie, Mariah, Thomas, Summer, Angelica, Chadisey, Winter, Autumn, Elizabeth, Catherine, Madison, Katy, Brady, Adam, Emilee, Eliza, Liam, Aaron, Isaac, Natalie, Allison, Alyssa, Hannah, Emma, Drew, Blake, Bennett, Michala, Eva Gray, Izzy, Lee, John Duncan, Hayden, Abby, Emily . . .
Santa Claus in Bethlehem
It’s the most musical time of the year. Church choirs carol door to door in the frosty night air. Families gather round the piano and sing while sipping eggnog. Pop artists shamelessly cash in on the easy money of a holiday album. Perry Como, Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, Linda Ronstadt, The Beach Boys, The Jackson 5, Barbra Streisand, Neil Diamond, Mariah Carey, NSYNC, Michael Bublé, Kelly Clarkson, Taylor Swift, Justin Bieber . . . you get the picture. Seasonal standards dominate the airwaves. More than a few radio stations switch over to an endless rotation of holiday hits. Deeply pious cantatas blend seamlessly with catchy jingles. The stand-up Hallelujah chorus from Handel’s Messiah follows Elmo and Patsy’s beer tab-twanged “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer” on the radio and we all feel the swell of the season.
Holiday music sounds off in miniature the eclecticism at work in the larger culture. December witnesses high art pressed into plastic yard ornaments and low art elevated to city hall decoration. A Hanukah menorah hangs next to a North Pole elf on the Christmas tree and no one thinks anything of it. In neighborhood drive-through light displays, ancient Jewish, modern American, and medieval Bavarian traditions collide and comingle like old friends. Christmastime welcomes a kaleidoscope of nostalgic, religious, and kitschy stuff. Bronner’s Christmas Wonderland wonderfully demonstrates this fact.
Located in the well-groomed and tourist-friendly Bavarian town of Frankenmuth, Michigan, Bronner’s Christmas Wonderland draws over two million visitors a year to view the inventory of tree ornaments and Christmas trimmings, making it one of the top attractions in the state. Sprinkled around the parking lot perimeter are an assortment of nativity sets with life-sized figures of Mary and Joseph, all being watched over by three seventeen-foot–tall Santas and a snowman. At the far end of the lot visitors can enter an exact replica of the Chapel from Oberndorf, Austria where pastor Joseph Mohr and musician Franz Xavier Gruber first performed “Silent Night” in 1818. Inside the main store, visitors discover a winter warehouse of personalize-able ornaments, nativity displays, and other holiday home décor. Bronner’s Christmas Wonderland stirs powerful emotions for bygone days of childhood play, heartfelt religious devotion, and family. It feeds the instinctual desire to “nest” the home with colorful decorations. And the devout Lutheran faith of the Bronner family infuses everything. The store has consistently displayed and promoted its motto: “Enjoy CHRISTmas, It’s HIS Birthday; Enjoy Life, It’s HIS Way.” Such a place channels and magnifies the cultural, spiritual, and personal meanings and emotions of Christmas.
Seen from another angle, the town of Frankenmuth and its beloved Bronner’s Christmas Wonderland exemplify one of the key characteristics of these postmodern times you and I live in: bricolage. The term bricolage names the untidy habit of grouping all kinds of different things into the same experience. Bricolage refers to the process of cutting, lifting, and pasting to create something novel. Think of an art collage where magazine pictures of cars, perfume, dogs, and celebrities get clipped and glued together with beads, string, and candy to create one conglomerate picture—this is life as we know it: a pastiche of parts. The touristy town of Frankenmuth comingles Bavarian architecture, deep-fried chicken, mega-shopping, and yesteryear tourism. What is astounding is that this gonzo mishmash of styles and experiences does not discombobulate our innards or make our heads spin. It sits perfectly well with our other life expectations. We have come to expect life and all its pieces to get cobbled together from many sources—some ancestral, some cultural, some commercial, some religious.
Those of us who have since our youth breathed the air of postmodernity (whether we called it by that name or not) have acquired a taste for the bric-a-brac Christmas with its family meals, crass sweaters, and inflatable snowmen in the yard. Like an Internet web search that displays anything and everything, so the holidays have a way of summoning the bonkers and the beautiful, the neon blitz of the shopping mall and the gentle wonder of midnight Mass.
It may come as a surprise, but I do not intend here to reject the hodgepodge of the season in favor of some idealized purity. The allure of Advent for me as a theologian is that it combines the high and holy with the popular
