Undertakers bury people, tax collectors collect taxes and Mannheim Steamroller makes Christmas albums that bore into shoppers\u2019 psyches like the whine of a dentist\u2019s drill.<\/p>\n\n
This year\u2019s offering from synthesizer-superstar Chip Davis and company, \u201cThe Christmas Angel: A Family Story,\u201d uses \u201cSilent Night,\u201d \u201cJoy to the World\u201d and other classics to accompany a new fable. Here\u2019s the plot: Darth Vader plays the Grinch who stole Christmas, who is touched by an angel in a near-death light show in a Norse Netherworld that resembles a video-game arcade, or something like that.<\/p>\n\n
Finally, the heroine uses nonsectarian liturgical dance to heal the troubled Gargon. The libretto states: \u201cBut the terrible mask fell away from his face, and a new, kindly visage appeared in its place. For the terrible Gargon was merely thus: An old Christmas angel, somehow villainous. The magic released the Lost Souls from their jail, and now they were transformed back into Christmas Angels.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
The kids and toys live happily ever after and Jesus never shows up.<\/p>\n\n
The key to this story, said philosopher Douglas Groothuis of Denver Seminary, \u201cis that, deep down, we\u2019re all really luminous beings of natural goodness. Evil is just an illusion, or an accident, and it can be easily overcome with a mere trick or magic. There\u2019s no sense of sacrifice or struggle. This isn\u2019t the message of Christmas, to say the least.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
But it\u2019s hard to be sure what \u201cThe Christmas Angel\u201d is all about, because it offers such a bizarre blend of symbols and messages. \u201cIt\u2019s like a Rorschach test,\u201d said Groothuis. \u201cI guess people are just supposed to see whatever they want to see.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
\u2018Tis the season to be vague \u2014 so be careful out there. Christmas has become a laugh-to-keep-from-crying holiday.<\/p>\n\n
* Another strange disc was \u201cThe Ultimate Lounge Christmas,\u201d from Essential Records, a major player in the Contemporary Christian Music market. I can understand a secular label releasing a leopard-skin package of lounge-versions of Christmas classics, as an ironic toast to a post-modern holiday. Why would a Christian company do this?<\/p>\n\n
\u201cLounge music,\u201d said singer John Jonethis, \u201chas the unique ability to liven up any celebration, or bring a peaceful reverence to sacred classics.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
* The most recent issue of The Door (\u201cThe World\u2019s Pretty Much Only Religious Satire Magazine\u201d), carried a Christmas greeting from the staff on its back cover. It features a painting of the Madonna and Child that had been altered, using digital editing, to depict Bill Clinton in the arms of Monica Lewinsky. The baby Clinton has his hand down the front of her dress.<\/p>\n\n
* Up in Alberta, Canada, Telus Mobility quickly pulled an advertisement in which one of the Three Wise Men offers the baby Jesus a deal on the company\u2019s prepaid cell-phone service.<\/p>\n\n
* Over in England, the Anglican hierarchy and the Roman Catholic Church protested a French Connection UK \u201cXMAS\u201d ad campaign featuring a blunt acronym of the company\u2019s name. The statement by the company said the ads were merely supposed to make shoppers \u201cdo a double-take and smile.\u201d Many did not.<\/p>\n\n
* The Windham Hill music company came up with this year\u2019s perfect marketing slogan for a pluralistic holiday: \u201cOne Heaven, Many Angels, All Believers Can Fly.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
* Yes, my fax machine heated up when the Levi Strauss company asked the private Makkos Organization in New York City for permission to put a Christmas tree near its Central Park ice-skating rink. The plan was to unveil the tree on Dec. 1, World AIDS Day, and to decorate it with a festive selection of condoms. The request was denied.<\/p>\n\n
* Cuba\u2019s Communist Party made news by ending a three-decade effort to stifle Christmas. But while celebrations return to Havana, the seasonal culture wars here keep escalating. As pundit George Will noted, the \u201cpotential for litigation is limitless\u201d in America. After all, those supposedly safe wreaths began as symbols representing a crown of thorns. Those sweet candy canes stand for shepherds\u2019 staffs and, later, the crosiers carried by bishops \u2014 such as St. Nicholas of Myra.<\/p>\n\n
Where will it end? A lawsuit in Cincinnati is challenging the constitutionality of the law making Christmas a federal holiday.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Undertakers bury people, tax collectors collect taxes and Mannheim Steamroller makes Christmas albums that bore into shoppers\u2019 psyches like the whine of a dentist\u2019s drill. This year\u2019s offering from synthesizer-superstar Chip Davis and company, \u201cThe Christmas Angel: A Family Story,\u201d uses \u201cSilent Night,\u201d \u201cJoy to the World\u201d and other classics to accompany a new fable. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":610,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1057","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n