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Simplify Christmas


C.S. Lewis--Santa in Narnia. Simplifying Christmas.

Church leaders, I am empathizing with you: we are in the final throes of the Christmas whirlwind. 


The story is simple, but the context gets more and more complicated.

 

In his children’s book, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, C. S. Lewis suddenly introduces a well-known character: Father Christmas. Yes, that’s Santa Claus for us Americans. When reading through a draft with his fellow Inklings, J.R.R. Tolkien, author of all things hobbitish, deeply disliked the inclusion of Father Christmas.

 

George Sayer, a professor at Malvern College and occasional Inkling, was a friend of both Lewis and Tolkien. Sayer wrote that Lewis was “hurt, astonished, and discouraged when Tolkien said that he thought the book was almost worthless, that it seemed like a jumble of unrelated mythologies. Because Aslan, the fauns, the White Witch, Father Christmas, the nymphs, and Mr. and Mrs. Beaver had quite distinct mythological or imaginative origins, Tolkien thought that it was a terrible mistake to put them together in Narnia, a single imaginative country.”

 

Dang. What’s Santa doing invading a world of minotaurs and talking beavers? Is nothing sacred?

 

As a fan of both Tolkien and Lewis, I don’t have a dog in this mythological throw-down. And as an aside, if you want to go down a seasonal rabbit hole, try YouTubing “pastors hating Santa” …although it will be time you can never get back.

 

The point is: the modern enculturated American Christmas celebration is a curious trek through a consumeristic hellscape and saccharine rom-coms. Yes, that sounds Grinchy…and it’s not really my intention to rail against the season. It’s just that since 336 A.D.—arguably the first recorded Christmas celebration—there has always been some religious tension in what we do with it. Heck, Christmas was even banned in Massachusetts for over two decades by the Puritans.

 

It’s complicated.

 

C. S. Lewis revealed an anecdotal gold nugget in a personal correspondence with an American acquaintance. He wrote, “My brother heard a woman on a bus say, as the bus passed a church with a crib outside it ... ‘They bring religion into everything. Look, they’re dragging it even into Christmas now’.”

 

All I can suggest is this: keep it simple. As someone who led in over 120 Christmas services (we did multiple services every year…and I’m not bragging, believe me), trying to make it the Best.Christmas.Ever was exhausting.

 

In retrospect, I’d say: Just tell the story and wrap it in love.

 

Merry Christmas, friends!

 

 

Dave Workman | The Elemental Group


 

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