This is a dark
and difficult time in America. Violence is in our schools, discord is in our
national institutions, decline haunts our dreams, want and need stand
threatening at the door. The season of joy and giving seems hollow, as though
something is missing.
But of course,
something IS missing. Perhaps more than
ever before the real message of the real Christmas is missing from our national
narrative. And I don’t mean that warm emotional feeling that goes with giving
Christmas gifts to old friends, or watching tots await Santa’s visit, or
drinking cocoa at grandma’s snow covered house, or even giving food to the poor.
I am talking about the core understanding of how life works for our people and
our nation -- how this specific holiday fits into our narrative of who we are
and how we act. So here is a Christmas review of the real Christmas story and
why it is so important to us as Americans. The story we have forgotten follows
this logic:
·
There is a God – a first cause – a Creator.
·
He created Man as a unique creature – with the
instincts of other animals, but the intelligence and ability to reason beyond our
passions and instincts. So man occupies a unique place in nature, with unique
value, but unique responsibilities as well.
·
Those responsibilities are to respect God and
the guidelines He established. The resulting healthy balance between God,
believers and other people brings happiness and fulfillment in this life and
the next.
·
But because of their base nature, men and women
consistently reject God and His guidelines. Instead, they “sin” – which means
to fall short of the mark – in their behavior toward God, their own selves, and
others.
·
When people turn from God to embrace selfishness
and irresponsibility, the decline and fall of the individual and the society inevitably
follows. This is the story of Eden, of earth before Israel, of the Israel of
the Old Testament, and of all nations everywhere for all times – past and
future. Freedom without respect toward God and self-restraint toward our fellow
man is simply license – the destruction that follows is as certain as gravity.
The miseries of this earth are the direct result of mankind’s misbehavior.
·
With the original Christmas – the birth of Jesus
-- God tried a new approach. Instead of rules delivered by priests, he offered
principles delivered to us directly – his mouth to our ears. “Love God with all your heart, mind, soul and
strength, and love your neighbor as yourself,” Jesus said. Control your behavior with these principles
and you can govern yourself and your society. The path to self-control and
governance (and thus salvation) is through belief in Jesus as God, and thus adherence
to the principles He teaches.
·
Delivering this good news, that men and women
can be saved from their own nature to live respectfully toward God and each
other, cost Jesus his earthly life. But it successfully established for 1600
years of Western history the belief and self-discipline of Christianity as THE
solution to the challenges of this life and the next.
·
Initially the political and religious elite
controlled the way this message was distributed, and they emphasized the sinful
nature of man, excusing their own dominance and opening the door for their
abuse of power.
·
But once new learning (the Renaissance) and
technology (printing) allowed the principles of Jesus to be translated and read
by all the people, the value of the individual, the ability of the individual
to govern his/her own behavior, and the responsibility to do so, became clear.
This moment was called the Reformation (in Martin Luther’s words, every man
could and should be his own bishop). The associated ideas of individual worth,
individual capability, and individual responsibility – all endowed by a Creator
-- changed the world.
·
In Europe the old regime stood in the way of
this revolutionary concept. So Christian believers fled to America, where they
established a society dedicated to putting these exceptional ideas into practice.
The New World provided a new opportunity to avoid some of the institutional
sins of the past, and the result was “American Exceptionalism” – an imperfect
but self-correcting social, political and economic system that promoted freedom
and creativity for every individual, but demanded individual responsibility and
accountability in exchange.
·
America has not been perfect. It is populated
after all by humans, each of whom carries the dual nature of sinner and saint,
capable of selfish rebellion or responsible behavior.
·
But America’s embrace of the real Christmas
Story – the ability of every individual to be saved from his animal nature, and
to rise above it to govern himself, and cooperate in the good governance of
society –established the foundation of American government and society, and made
it the most successful and envied in history.
The way this
embrace has played out in politics and economics, its failures and triumphs,
its detractors and competitors, and how its abandonment by citizens has
precipitated a troubling national decline, are all subjects for separate exploration.
But for this Christmas Season, please
accept this gift, explaining why THE Gift of Christmas – God’s son come down to
explain our worth, our opportunities and our responsibilities -- still matters
to America today. Dave McIntyre
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