“Religion is what one does in his privacy” (Alfred North Whitehead)
I made myself a mini-experiment during this holiday season. I decided to greet the cashiers, check-out persons, ticket booth operators and others in the public with the greeting, “Merry Christmas!” Actually, I don’t much like the phrase because it has the overtones of Santa Claus, commercialism of the department stores and the syrupy generalized songs of Christmas that are played incessantly from Halloween to the last shopping day of the season.
Three levels of greetings express the intimacy of our Lord Jesus Christ the Son of God’s incarnation celebrated on December 25 NS or January 7 OS. The most near and spiritually meaningful is: “Christ is born!” We learn it in the various languages of Orthodox America, as well as the response: “Let us glorify Him” in the same native responses. However else we are divided into multiple jurisdictions, nevertheless, we at least share our common celebration of the Nativity of our Lord, God and Savior in the same way we greet one another at Pascha with: “Christ is risen!” “Indeed He is risen!”
It’s an axiom of history that conquerors are often influenced by those they vanquish. The classic case is the influence of Greece upon their Roman victors. Even the variety of deities had the same myths and traits. Only the names were changed. America defeated Communism not by outright warfare, but by offering an economic and military superiority that the USSR was not able to match. Ironically we touted our freedoms as incentives to the religiously suppressed nations of the Soviet bloc, among them being the freedom of religion. In the USSR the laws for religion mimicked the legislation for sexual literature: Acceptable only in the privacy of one’s domicile.
Ironic, because in our nation of the new millennium we have evolved to a linguistic conundrum called “politically correct” language. So my humble experiment with greeting any and all with “Merry Christmas” in all cases but one received the programmed response plugged into all those trained to substitute their stock “Have a nice day” with the seasonal “Happy holidays.” Only one black woman at a toll booth gave me a charming smile and a “Merry Christmas to you,” as a sign that we both understand the meaning of the season beneath the banalities and commercialism that have converted this sacred event of history into something bland and essentially meaningless, little more than an excuse to lift up one’s spirits above the dreariness of winter.
What began under the Kennedy administration with the proscription of prayer in public schools has tumefied ever since. Those who protest, citing the references to religion and God in the statements written by the founding fathers, pointing out the slogan even on our currency, “In God we trust,” are evidently waging a losing battle. The judge in the South who last year lost his office because he refused to remove the Ten Commandments from his court, the challenge to the Nativity scenes in public places even with a menorah prominently displayed, are further examples of the retreat of religion from America’s expression of faith in God.
Two outcomes are possible. We may continue on this route of secular humanism. If so, we will feel it even more in the laws impinging ever more on churches—no bell ringing, pressure to tax all religious establishments, no crosses worn by students, no clerical garb in public, and as in post-revolutionary France, counting the years other than A.D. and B.C.
Or Americans of all faiths will rise up in protest. Politicians are at best public servants, at worst human weather vanes turning in whatever direction the wind is blowing. Interesting to anticipate what America and religion have in store for the future.