Megan Mulls It Over

+JMJ

Every Christmas in the United States, you can expect kerfuffles of varying intensity over the greeting “Merry Christmas.” I have yet to see a non-Christian theist object to this greeting, although that has probably happened somewhere. In the stories that make the headlines, the offended party is typically somewhere on the agnostic/atheist/secular humanist spectrum. And this year the story that caught my eye involves the always intriguing (yet sometimes tragic) tradition of Jewish infighting, so I recommend a jumbo tub of popcorn.

I first heard of this story when I ran across this video on the YouTube channel for Ben Shapiro’s The Daily Wire. I read the article that he references before watching the video so that I would be able to form my own impressions before hearing his take on it. And even though I think that he and I are mostly in agreement about the views expressed in the article, I found some valuable insights in it. The author, Julia Ioffe (who is a secular Jew), made several interesting and thought-provoking points, and I found a couple of things that she said to be very challenging and convicting.

One of her key premises is that Christmas is an inherently religious holiday and that because of this, people who say “Merry Christmas” should not be surprised when non-Christians are offended by this greeting. She states, “Whenever I hear the name, I hear the ‘Christ’ in it. To me, it’s strange that many of its celebrants do not.” When I read the first sentence, my first thought was that I don’t typically hear the “Christ” in Christmas and that I am usually not thinking specifically of Jesus when I say “Merry Christmas” to someone. And my printer had cut off the second sentence, so I initially did not see it. When I realized I was missing a sentence and returned to the online version to see what it was, it was very striking to me that Ioffe herself had noticed this about Christians.

The second point in Ioffe’s article that stood out to me in a positive way was about the difference between U.S. observance of Christmas and U.S. observance of Easter. She says regarding Christmas, “…it is everywhere, for over a month, in a way no other holiday is – not even Easter.”

So here we have a liberal secular Jew who appears to intuitively grasp that Easter should be regarded as the most important day of the year by Christians.

Easter is officially the most important celebration in the Church calendar, and the Easter liturgies include a lot more “bells and whistles” than those of Christmas in order to reflect this. But I definitely understand why a lot of Americans, Christian and non-Christian, often do not realize this. Christmas in the United States is culturally a “bigger deal” than Easter, and it is very easy to conflate the secular with the religious in this context (i.e., assuming that Christmas has the highest spot in the Church calendar because it has the highest spot in the secular calendar).

And I know that Ms. Ioffe would probably be appalled by this, but her sentence about Easter made me really want to try to say “Happy Easter” more often.

The next point that I found interesting was when Ioffe said, “When you are from a minority religion, you’re used to the fact that cabdrivers don’t wish you an easy fast on Yom Kippur. But it’s harder to get used to the oppressive ubiquity of a holiday like Christmas. ‘This is always the time of year I feel most excluded from society,’ one Jewish friend told me.” Lest my readers think I’ve gone full snowflake, let me assure you that I definitely thought the “oppressive ubiquity” was a little hyperbolic. And even if it’s accurate, I think that the “oppression” is coming more from the commercialism and secularism rather than the nativity scenes. But Ioffe blames the nativity scenes (“Just look at all those nativity scenes!”).

And now I’m wondering where she lives because the only places that I typically see nativity scenes are churches and a few yards.

Sure, they are in stores, too, but they are greatly outnumbered by snowmen, Disney animals, and other secular characters. Christian-oriented chains like Hobby Lobby are often an exception, but what would an easily triggered secularist be doing in a store like that? (Looking for lawsuit material of course!)

Despite that bit of shade that I felt compelled to throw, the part about belonging to a minority religion and feeling excluded did challenge me to reflect on certain areas that could use improvement in my Church and in my own attitude. Because of the number of “professional victims” in our society, I think a lot of people like me (who are sick of identity politics) are sometimes too quick to dismiss individuals’ feelings about being in a minority group. This is ironic because one thing that you hear over and over from critics of identity politics is some variation of, “The problem with identity politics is that it lumps people into groups and doesn’t view them as individuals.”

And yet, many of us critics, when we hear someone express a feeling about being in a minority group, are very quick to say, “You’re just like all the other [fill in the blank], always whining about something!”

In many cases, there is definitely a grain (or more) of truth to that “always whining about something,” but the problem with this attitude is that it fails to make a distinction between someone expressing a personal feeling and someone delivering a sweeping diatribe about how Group A has always oppressed Group B. Sometimes that distinction is not very clear, but I think that it is important, whenever possible, to assume that someone is being sincere when expressing a feeling, as opposed to pushing an agenda.

For example, if you are attending a seminar on “Oppression Across the Centuries,” some skepticism about the motives behind what you’re hearing is probably warranted. But if in a one-on-one or small group setting a person says something like, “I’d like to tell you about times I’ve encountered racism,” I think that’s worth listening to with a more open mind and heart. This doesn’t mean that you have to agree with the person’s assessment of their experience, nor that you have to agree with their proposed remedies for whatever they suffered. It doesn’t even mean that it would be wrong to conclude, after listening to them and considering what they’ve said, that they really are pushing an agenda and looking for a sycophant rather than a friend. But it does mean that you should do your very best to see them as an individual rather than as merely part of a group.

The feeling excluded part also made me think about ways that I may be contributing to a culture in my Church that makes people feel excluded. As a theological conservative, I find it very hard to prioritize being “welcoming” and “inclusive” because often the people in my Church who tout those things are those who think we should avoid talking about unpleasant things, like the Church’s teachings on marriage and sexuality. I still think “inclusivity” as it is commonly understood is useless and ultimately harmful. Christianity is already inherently inclusive (in the only way that matters) because Jesus offers salvation to everyone.

But this is not good enough for many promoters of inclusivity because for them, “inclusive” means “willing to change, lie about, or never mention certain Church teachings that tend to make people feel uncomfortable.”

Even though I view inclusivity as a trap, I think that being welcoming is always a worthy goal. Of course, the concept of being welcoming is not immune from being distorted. Many view being welcoming as synonymous with being inclusive, according to the definition that I gave above. But I think that “welcoming” is a word and concept that may merit reclaiming from the iconoclasts. I think that a welcoming attitude, rightly understood, is related to the virtue of hospitality, and that is definitely something that I am interested in getting better at.

I also really liked part of the last paragraph of Ioffe’s article, up to a point. See if you can guess where she lost me: “…my wish, this holiday season, is for people not to make assumptions about others, to put themselves in others’ shoes, to respect others as they wish to be respected, to respond with kindness even when they disagree, to live and let live. I heard about a guy who used to say all that stuff, and apparently his birthday is coming up. Why not honor him that way?”

Ms. Ioffe, you had me until “live and let live.”

Jesus was not a “live and let live” kinda guy, as that term is commonly understood. But in fairness to Ioffe, I don’t think she would have this perception of Jesus if so many Christians didn’t. Many Christians (including many Catholics) are fond of saying things like, “If Jesus were here right now, do you really think he’d be speaking out against premarital sex when so many people are starving?”

First of all, Jesus is already “here right now,” in every Catholic and Orthodox tabernacle in the world. Second of all, He is God, so He is not subject to the same cognitive limitations that we are when we struggle to integrate concerns about personal morality with concerns about social justice. And third, it is not unheard of for regular humans to do a good job of integrating the two. One historical figure who I think did just that was a guy known as Malcolm X. Perhaps the “If Jesus were here right now” crowd has heard of him.

So now that I have summarized parts of Ioffe’s article that I reacted to in a (mostly) positive way, I will turn to those points that were more puzzling or cringeworthy to me. One of the first was, “It’s lonely to be reminded a thousand times every winter that the dominant American cultural event occurs without me.” This was strange to me because she goes on to say that Christmas is an inherently religious holiday. Even though I sympathize with her feelings of being excluded (as explained above), part of me can’t help but wonder if it’s appropriate to feel excluded from something that you don’t want to be a part of because it is inconsistent with your religious beliefs. Feeling left out is no fun, but neither is feeling like you had to change a fundamental part of who you are just to feel included.

The other odd aspect of the loneliness statement is that in the next paragraph, Ioffe reveals that she “often” takes part in Christmas celebrations and that this year she is going over to a friend’s house for Christmas dinner and giving them Christmas presents.

So not only is she excluded due to her own religious choices, I think many would dispute that she is excluded at all.

Nevertheless, Ioffe is able to say that she feels excluded despite taking part in Christmas celebrations because she doesn’t consider her participation to be celebration. For the record, I do. It seems that Ioffe has a very narrow view of the word “celebrate” and/or believes that because Christmas is inherently religious, it is exclusively religious. I agree with the “inherently” part, but not the “exclusively” part. The American celebration of Christmas goes far beyond the birth of Christ.

Continuing on the subject of what it means to “celebrate” Christmas, one part of the article that made me sad was when she discusses how her family celebrated “for decades” a Communist version of Christmas during the time that they lived in the Soviet Union. According to Ioffe, the government called it “New Year’s,” and it included decorated trees “under which Father Frost would leave New Year’s gifts.” She says, “These images are central, beloved memories of my childhood – waking up to a sparkling, decorated tree in my room, piled high with presents that, given that it was the Soviet Union, were often slightly defective.” (Btw, I love the fact that she doesn’t say that the presents were always awesome because Communism rocks.)

The New Year’s tree tradition was one that her family continued “for the first few years” after they moved to the United States. They stopped, however, because “It was no longer a New Year’s tree in a Soviet house. It had become a Christian symbol in a Jewish house…It began to feel deeply alien precisely because we were secular, but it was not.” (Emphasis is Ioffe’s.)

This story was sad to me because it seems like Ioffe’s family might have allowed their new country to redefine something that had long been meaningful to them. I don’t think you should give the culture of your new country that much power over the traditions that you bring from your homeland.

And isn’t it a little ironic that the identity politics shunner is the one who’s telling the liberal “Don’t let them colonize you!”

Some of my readers might be surprised that I would have this take on Ioffe’s family’s abandoning of the New Year’s tree tradition. Perhaps you expected that I would think it’s good that they stopped this tradition because it was a distortion of the Christmas tree’s true purpose. I think some of that is because a lot of Christians have come to believe that “Christmas isn’t Christmas without a Christmas tree.” I agree that the Christmas tree has become a Christian symbol, but it is not exclusively Christian. Pagans and secularists are often fond of pointing out that the Christmas tree custom is one that has pagan origins. In fact, this is why some Christian denominations are opposed to Christmas trees. Even though I am not opposed to Christians having Christmas trees, I don’t think that they are such an integral part of Christianity that it is disrespectful for non-Christians to have their own interpretations of them.

Before diving into Shapiro’s take on Ioffe’s article, I would like to share this fun fact: Shapiro is not the first one of her fellow Jews that Ioffe has clashed with over her stance on “Merry Christmas.” In her article, she mentions that one fellow Jew wrote to her about it, “We’ve already got a reputation for being miserable f – – – s, let’s not make it worse.”

And I know I am not the only one who thought that that was hilarious.

Let’s be honest – if Jews never complained, we’d be missing a large chunk of the Scriptures. The Book of Lamentations comes right out and says in its title that it is going to revolve around grievances against the Almighty. And there are also many instances of what I would call “meta-complaining,” that is, Jews complaining about other Jews. Perhaps the most well-known example of this in the Old Testament is Moses, and in the New Testament, Jesus Himself takes it to a whole other level with all those “Woe to you scribes and Pharisees!” statements and the famous table-flipping incident.

I think a lot of people take offense to this because they think saying that someone is complaining is the same as saying that they are whining. I don’t think it is. Whining implies that you are complaining about something that is trivial or something that is important, but in a disproportionate or otherwise inappropriate way. “Complaining” is a more neutral term (and the Scriptures show us over and over again that complaining, when done in the right way, can yield great results).

As far as Shapiro’s take on Ioffe’s article, his main points are summarized below.

1) “Merry Christmas” shouldn’t be triggering to non-Christians because it is not the same as proselytization.

At 0:30, Shapiro says, “What do I care? You’re not tryin’ to convert me.” I would agree that “Merry Christmas” is typically not being said with the express desire to convert the person being greeted, but I’m not sure I fully agree with Shapiro’s perception that strangers who tell him “Merry Christmas” in person know that he’s Jewish. At 0:32, he says, “…it seems to me that you’re just wishing me a nice time of the year because you know I don’t celebrate Christmas ‘cuz I wear a yarmulke.”

And I think that was literally the first time I ever noticed that Ben Shapiro wears a yarmulke.

In fact, when he said that, my first thought was, “Pssh, no you don’t!” And then I looked closer at my monitor and saw that he was, in fact, wearing a yarmulke. It appeared (on my monitor at least) to be very similar in color to his hair. I realize that it is probably more visible in person. But I still don’t think it’s a stretch to assume that some strangers who have told him “Merry Christmas” in person didn’t see it and that if they had, they wouldn’t have said “Merry Christmas” (not necessarily because they thought it would be triggering, but because they only say it to people they assume are Christian).

2) It is okay to make assumptions about people’s observance of holidays based on the majority population of their nation.

At 0:38, Shapiro says, “…if I weren’t wearing a yarmulke, I don’t think it would be unfair to assume that I might celebrate Christmas in a country where legitimately 90% of people celebrate Christmas.” (I agree with this statement, but I think Shapiro and I have a different definition of “celebrating” Christmas. His definition is, from what I saw in this video, closer to Ioffe’s.) I don’t think his 90% statistic is way off because, as discussed above, the American celebration of Christmas is one that offers lots of room for religious and non-religious people alike. Ioffe disagrees with this of course, but, as previously mentioned, this is only because she doesn’t consider sharing Christmas dinner with a friend and giving them presents to be “celebrating Christmas” (and Shapiro probably doesn’t either).

Furthermore, I think there is an argument to be made that offering an immigrant or visitor a traditional religious greeting is a way of indicating that you are welcoming her into your country, even if such greeting stems from a religion that the immigrant herself doesn’t practice. I realize that Ioffe is not a newly-arrived immigrant and that most (if not all) of the strangers who tell her “Merry Christmas” probably aren’t aware that she’s an immigrant at all. But I still think this point is worth exploring.

It is possible that someone who is offering a religious greeting is a bigoted individual who would shun you if she knew your actual religious affiliation (or non-affiliation). But in most cases I think a seasonal religious greeting is an implicit way of including the person being greeted in the greeter’s observance of that holiday. This doesn’t mean you’re automatically invited to the greeter’s place for dinner, but it does mean that she is not viewing you as an outsider or a stranger in a negative way.

3) Christmas lights are fun.

Ioffe makes at least a couple references to Christmas lights in her article. One is when she mentions that her street is “decorated with lights and wreaths and nativity scenes,” and another is a reference to the “sparkling aesthetic” of Christmas. I thought it was strange that she lumped lights and wreaths in with nativity scenes. Ceremonial wreaths predate Christianity by centuries and had many applications in pagan cultures. And many wreaths that you see during the Christmas season do not include any specifically Christian symbols.

So how does Ms. Ioffe know that that house with a wreath on the door doesn’t belong to a pagan household who is celebrating the winter solstice?

And if there were a pagan house and a Christian house right next to each other that were decorated the exact same way (let’s say lights and wreaths plus a couple inflatable characters in the yard), would Ioffe think that only the Christian household was trying to push their religion on her?

I also find this theology-based aversion to Christmas lights ironic and amusing because liberals are all about redefining things. They have no problem redefining marriage, but apparently redefining Christmas lights is beyond the pale. What’s up with that?

Shapiro is more adamant in his defense of Christmas lights because he is what I would consider a superfan of them. You see this in statements such as, “Honestly, if you look at Christmas lights and you get sad, you got a problem in your life, lady” (3:27-3:30) and “As a very Orthodox Jew…I don’t celebrate Christmas. You know what’s fun? Christmas lights. They’re twinkly. And pretty. And they make me happy. Because they’re twinkly. And pretty. And they don’t make me think of pogroms because we don’t do that sort of thing here in the United States…” (3:31-3:46).

I loved the pogrom reference because I viewed it as a straightforward, hard-hitting way for one Jew to say to another, “Stop whining about nothing burgers because things could be so much worse.” Even though I want to be sympathetic to feelings of religious minorities (as discussed previously), Christmas greetings and decorations are the kind of thing you complain about when you are not in imminent danger.

The fact that Ioffe is complaining about these things tells me that she does not encounter actual persecution on a regular basis. If she did, why would she be writing about “Merry Christmas” and not the more severe things?

The grievances that prompted her to write her article seem to me like a “luxury concern” and a mark of privilege, which is ironic because I’m sure she is someone who doesn’t hesitate to point out when someone else is rocking a privilege of their own.

4) Christianity is awesome.

Shapiro has high praise for Christians and the role of Christianity in America in this video. At 3:51, he states, “The people that celebrate Christmas in the United States are largely the people who are standing between Western civilization and the abyss.” I was really impressed by this comment, but I thought to myself, “He’s probably going to say something about Christian support for Israel next. I hope it’s not too stomach-turning.” Sure enough, his very next sentence was, “And by the way, as a Jew, these are also the greatest defenders of Israel” (3:57-4:00). That was very non-confrontational, especially for Shapiro, so I wasn’t too put off by it.

He goes on to say that Christianity and Christians are “why the country is so great” and “why the country is so tolerant” (4:59-5:01). I am not sure what Shapiro’s reasons are for the tolerance part of that statement, but I have my own reasons for why Christianity can be accurately described as tolerant. Christianity is fundamentally about conversion. This does not just mean converting to Christianity from a different religion. In the Catholic Church today, conversion is described as a lifelong process that should take place in the life of every Christian. This has to do with the fact that Catholics do not have a “one and done” approach to “accepting Christ.” I can accept Christ in one moment and then turn right around and reject Him by choosing to sin. In light of this, I think it’s accurate to say that Christianity is inherently tolerant because Jesus Himself is tolerant of our human frailties. He is not tolerant of sin itself, but He is patient when we fail and eager to forgive.

I also thought that the tolerance part of Shapiro’s statement was interesting since one of the most popular criticisms of Christianity is how intolerant it is. When you hear more from many of these critics, however, it becomes clear that they are referring to intolerance of certain behaviors and ideas that have historically been considered sinful. Intolerance is morally neutral – its rightness or wrongness depends entirely on what (or who) it is you’re not tolerating.

And to the extent that Christianity has historically been intolerant in negative ways (e.g., the execution of heretics), I would argue that this is no longer a large-scale danger in our world today.

Many Christians think it’s “mean” to say “Same-sex marriage is wrong,” so I think it’s safe to assume that the vast majority of Christians alive today are opposed to burning heretics. For the record, I am.

5) Secular Jews are no fun.

Shapiro explicitly throws shade on secular Judaism in this video, and I love that. Despite my Zionism-based disagreements with Shapiro, I agree with his negative views of secular Judaism. Secular Judaism is kind of a joke. For the record, I find it very refreshing when a secular Jew will come right out and refer to themselves as an atheist, agnostic, or some other type of non-theist. But it always stings to hear a Jew say something like, “Just because I don’t believe in the God of Moses doesn’t mean I’m less Jewish than the Jews who do.” Technically that’s true because Jewishness (unlike Christian-ness or Muslim-ness) isn’t just about religion. It is also about ethnic identity.

But without the God of Moses, Jews are basically just another ethnic group who were once at the top of the food chain and are now trying to claw their way back (or may already be back, depending on who you talk to).

Sure they have certain cultural traditions that are unique to them, but so does every other ethnic group. So they’re unique even without their religious identity, but it’s a “unique like everybody else” kind of unique.

And if all you have left is your ethnic/cultural identity, aren’t you setting yourself up for accusations of racism when you promote your group’s interests?

(Wait, can Jews even be racist? Is it anti-Semitic to think that they can be? Oh no…)

There were two specific instances of shade thrown on secular Jews in the video that stood out to me. The first was when Shapiro said, “I promise you that the Jews who are most orthodox in the United States don’t give one whit about being wished merry Christmas” (4:18-4:25). Full disclosure – my first reaction to this was, “Pssh, you’d better not after all the money we send to Israel!” More importantly, this statement highlighted for me that the biggest divide in the United States today is not between people of different religions or denominations. Rather, it is between people who believe in objective morality and objective truth and those who do not.

The other secular Jew reference that struck me was when Shapiro said that secular Jews are “not in favor of their own Jewishness unless it makes them othered from Christianity” (4:41-4:44). I was intrigued by this, and I am not 100% sure what he meant by it. My best guess is that it means something like secular Jews are only proud of their Jewishness to the extent that it makes them different from the Christian “oppressors” of American society.

Shapiro ends on an amusing note that draws on Ioffe’s admonition for people to “live and let live.” His exact words are, “Well, if they say ‘Merry Christmas’ to you and you’re not living and letting live, I would suggest that you’re the one who’s intolerant and being kind of a jerk. I mean the Grinch, apparently, is real” (5:21-5:28). I think this was very fitting considering that “live and let live” sounds kinda strange coming from someone who is as offended as Ioffe by “Merry Christmas” and holiday decorations.

The main takeaway that I have from this intra-Judaic dust-up is that Christians should not allow non-Christians (or anyone else other than a Person of the Trinity, for that matter) to have absolute veto power over what we say. We should not stop saying “Merry Christmas” just because we are afraid that people will have the same reaction as Ioffe. But I think it’s also important to realize the gravity of what we are saying when we say “Merry Christmas.” The American celebration of Christmas goes far beyond the birth of Christ, but for us, His birth should be the focal point. And to that end, we should use criticisms like Ioffe’s as an opportunity to make sure that Christmas is still a religious holiday for us, rather than just a secular one.

And if someone bites our head off for saying “Merry Christmas,” we should do our best to respond to them with charity (which may very well mean saying nothing at all). And if someone respectfully expresses discomfort about the greeting, we may be able to use that as an opportunity to find out more about their personal story and why they feel that way, which I don’t think is ever a waste of time.

Verso l’alto and Merry Christmas,
Megan