About
After this mini-course you'll understand the origins of Christmas, the basic doctrine of the Incarnation, how to celebrate Christmas well—and whether Santa Claus is a threat or a blessing to an authentically Christian Christmas! This mini-course will take us through the history of the holiday(s), both Christian and pagan. We will then look at the history of the “War over Christmas,” a war that continues to this day. The course will then go back further, to the first Christmas Day. On that Day we will find controversy embedded in the heart of the story. Here is a baby conceived out of wedlock born to peasants on the fringes of an ancient empire who angels declare to be the once-for-all salvation of the world wrought by Israel’s God. Here is a story so immediately preposterous as to defy a moment’s consideration by any serious person. Yet it becomes the story at the heart of the world’s largest religion, the single most important cultural force in human history. It is also an event that even Christians have trouble getting into focus and balance, with no properly churched Christian claiming to understand it: neither how Jesus was conceived, nor who and what Jesus was. We will try, however, to affirm what we can, and should, as we can and should. Then the course will conclude with the observance of Advent and Christmas. How should Christians—particularly in North America but also around the world, since Christmas is a truly global phenomenon—properly observe a season that, at least traditionally, is as much about penitence as it is about praise? Let’s get started . . . with how Christmas started.