[Peace-discuss] The Christmas He Dreamed for All of Us

[Janine Giordano]

Karen Medina wrote, > Actually, we borrowed the holiday; Christmas is a 
combination
> of  Zagmuk, Sacaea, Winter Solstice rituals, Yuletide,
> Saturnalia, and other pagan traditions.

Yes, we borrowed the time of year to celebrate from pagan traditions. But, 
that does not mean the celebration is a "combination" of other traditions, 
or that the meaning/point of the holiday is as vague as "honoring 
selflessness, loving our brothers and > sisters, a renewal of hope, and 
forgiveness for the times that > we separate ourselves." To many 
self-identifying Christians today, Christmas is about the birth of a Messiah 
born to redeem humans' morass in sin: hatred, selfishness, unkindness, 
violence against humanity, etc. and give us new life on earth and eternal 
life with our God in heaven. I'd say this is a bit more radical and specific 
than the earlier pagan holidays.

But, speaking of Christianity, how guilty do we think evangelical Christians 
are in building the present Bush administration and 
Conservative/white/wealthy/male power establishment? How much of this 
"guilt" is tied to their theology? Does the theology/belief-system need to 
be destroyed in order to bring about political change? Is this really the 
best strategy? As a Christian and radical feminist, I personally see Wall 
Street republicans who love low taxes, outsourced sweatshop labor and 
totally unequal school funding schemes are just as culpable, if not far more 
culpable, in engineering this conservative revolution. It seems like we 
don't attack anyone else's culture and religion in our political activism. 
In fact, we protect it. Is my theology to blame?

Janine Giordano


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Karen Medina" <kmedina at UIUC.EDU>
To: <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>
Sent: Thursday, December 22, 2005 7:13 AM
Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] The Christmas He Dreamed for All of Us


> Phil Stinard wrote:
>>If you're going to turn a religious holiday into a
>>secular holiday, what's the point in having Christmas at all?
>
> Actually, we borrowed the holiday; Christmas is a combination
> of  Zagmuk, Sacaea, Winter Solstice rituals, Yuletide,
> Saturnalia, and other pagan traditions.
>
> And the point of "having Christmas at all" has a little bit to
> do with honoring selflessness, loving our brothers and
> sisters, a renewal of hope, and forgiveness for the times that
> we separate ourselves.
>
> Peace and all good,
> -karen medina
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