Trafficking and Slavery (via Cat)

Cat is a friend of mine in San Francisco and she posted a couple of articles today about trafficking in her own back yard. The first post is more personal. The second gives some good suggestions on what we can do to help combat trafficking and slavery in the world today. I recommend them both.

heavy heart

What we can do about Human Trafficking

Keeping Christ's Mass in Christmas

I've seen a lot of billboards around town that say,"Keep Christ in Christmas." They all seem to be sponsored by the Knights of Columbus, so I assume this is a nationwide campaign.

I think it's fine to want to celebrate a Christmas that is Christ-focused. But what grabs my attention on these billboards is not what they say, but what they don't say.

Christmas is short for Christ's Mass. The Mass is a Roman Catholic liturgical celebration. So is the implication in these bulletin boards that the Catholic mass should also be kept? I'm sure the Knights of Columbus would reply to that with a resounding "Yes!" as they're one of the largest Catholic fraternal service organizations in the world. But what about all the people who echo the "Keep Christ in Christmas" phrase?

Back in 2005, Christmas fell on a Sunday. What a perfect time for Christ and Mass to collide. And yet the New York Times reported that many megachurches (which tend to be Protestant, so we're really talking about "services" rather than "masses") canceled their Sunday morning events. (Here's the NY Times article or if you can't view that, try this repost.)

What's my point? I think it's just that this is a band-wagon and people love to jump on it without thinking through what it means. Shall we celebrate the Christmas holiday (Christ's Mass Holy Day) as Catholics - with a midnight mass which we attend in reverence and probably also a sense of obligation? Or is this rather a phrase to be used as a weapon of the culture wars, more for bludgeoning others than anything else?

I'm not a big fan of religious bandwagoning. I'm all for jumping on the Doctor's bandwagon ("Bow ties are cool.") or a viral bandwagon (Chanukah with the Maccabeats) or perhaps even a technological bandwagon (Kindle vs. iPad). But God is not a bandwagon, and I don't believe the birthday of Jesus is a divinely sanctioned time to bludgeon others with words. If a non-Christian celebrates a time of Santa and evergreens and lights, what is that to me? They're not making a religious claim by that, so why should I respond with a religious polemic? On the other hand, it seems like a far more interesting and meaningful discussion to approach "Christ in Christmas" Christians and discuss the intersection of the birth of Christ with pagan rituals involving trees and garland or corporations' co-opted version of Saint Nicholas. If you're going to push the Christ back into Christ's Mass, then why celebrate with the non-religious trappings of the holiday rather than with... well, a Mass?

... because for some people, this is what it's all about.

North Point's iBand

Happy Chanukah (with a song from The Maccabeats)