Happy Festivus

Posted in: News By House Divided on December 15, 2018

This year, it’s been hard to get into the Christmas spirit. Between allegations of sexual misconduct against Hollywood elites, T.V. moguls and politicians and allegations of conflict of interest at the highest levels of those in the FBI participating in the Russia collusion probe, it feels like America is a pinball, bouncing from one scandal to the next. The political and cultural distractions of our day may keep many from considering the Christmas story.

There was a time when virtually every American observed Christmas as a religious holiday. In 1892, Justice David Brewer, writing for the U.S. Supreme Court, said America “…is a Christian nation”. Today, poll results recently published in the New York Times confirm only 46% of Americans see Christmas as primarily a religious holiday, 9% marked Christmas as both a religious and cultural occasion and 33 percent of Americans believe Christmas is mainly a cultural holiday – Christmas minus Christ.

According to the poll, the disparity between those who view Christmas as primarily religious and those who see it as primarily cultural tends to break down along party lines, with Republicans tilting toward the religious view of Christmas and Democrats leaning toward the non-religious, secular view. Since Donald Trump’s election, polls show the divide along religious lines is deeper than ever.

This difference in religious views has produced a “values-divide”, prompting journalist Michael Barone to write, there are “two Americas…” reflecting “…two nations of different faiths. One is observant, tradition-minded and moralistic. The other is unobservant, liberation-minded and relativistic.”

Yet Americans who don’t believe the biblical account of the birth of Jesus have their own special celebrations.

For example, enthusiasts of the sitcom Seinfeld remember Festivus, the holiday invented by those who hate the religious and commercial aspects of Christmas. Celebrated on December 23rd, it began as a “Festivus for the rest of us” and was described by Journalist Allen Salkin as the “perfect secular theme for an all-inclusive December gathering”. The birth of Jesus? A “Festivus miracle!”

Festivus rituals include the unadorned aluminum pole instead of a Christmas tree. Other Festivus traditions include the annual Airing of Grievances, which takes place immediately after the Festivus dinner is served – meatloaf on a bed of lettuce. During the airing of grievances, celebrants go around the table, sharing all the ways the world and others have disappointed them during the past year.

The final Festivus observance is the Feats of Strength. In the orthodox home, this involves wrestling, with the holiday ending only if the head of the household is wrestled to the floor and pinned. As an alternative, some who observe Festivus engage in arm wrestling or thumb wrestling. Only in the most liberal settings is Beer Pong considered an acceptable Festivus alternative. What’s not to like?

At one point in his life, the late C.S. Lewis would have happily celebrated Festivus. As an atheist, he wrote, “Amiable agnostics will talk cheerfully about ‘man’s search for God’. To me, as I then was, they might as well have talked about the mouse’s search for the cat”. When he finally converted to Christianity, Lewis described himself as “the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England.”

Lewis believed, “Christianity, if false, is of no importance and if true, is of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important”. Why? Because “Christianity asserts that every individual human being is going to live forever, and this must be either true or false”. Lewis continued, “…there are a good many things which would not be worth bothering about if I were going to live only seventy years, but which I had better bother about very seriously if I am going to live forever”.

In our “post-truth” world, you have your truth, I have mine. Against this view, Christianity asserts everyone lives forever, somewhere. On this point, everybody can’t be right.

Unless you count the meatloaf, no gifts are exchanged in Festivus. At the heart of the Christmas story is a gift. The Christmas story reminds us that God offers this gift to all who will accept it.

To those who have accepted this gift, Merry Christmas! For those who have not yet received it, Happy Festivus!