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PaperclipPerfector  11mo ago (text post)   26068 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 4, 2023

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For some Christians, sure.

But as a former American Christian it’s definitely Christmas among most American Christians in terms of both religious and secular celebration and emphasis. Revealed preferences and all that.

I am an elderly one legged korean midget woman

Source: trust me, I say so.

Do I really need to somehow demonstrate evidence that I was raised a devout Christian in America?

Anymore than anyone else in this thread, for you to consider my views not simply made up, for some reason?

I’m not exactly making a significant claim here, and elsewhere in the thread there is discussion on how different flavors of Christianity celebrate and emphasize in diverse ways.

The whole of Easter involves the passion of Christ, His crucifixion, His redemption of mankind's sin, and His death, ressurection and eventual assumption. It's literally the point of Christianity, and the core holy-day. In this case I would just say the American Christians who think Christmas is more important than Easter from a Christian point of view are just wrong and have been unduly influenced by the secular popularity of Christmas.

I'm arguing empirical reality, not doctrine; I agreed above that it's almost certainly because of the dang holy men bringing gifts, which meshes nicely with secular Santa and consumerism.

Perhaps my personal experience doesn't generalize, but Christmas also involved more religious emphasis than Easter as well, in my childhood, with special programs and celebrations.

You may be right about most Baptists and non-denominational evangelicals, but I’d say you’re wrong about most Catholics and lectionary-following Protestants. Christmas is preceded by four weeks of preparation and followed by twelve days of celebration (and accompanied by a secular gift-giving celebration that happens at the same time). Easter is preceded by 40 days of preparation and followed by 40 days of celebration. There’s fasting, extra services, “giving up something for Lent….” The difference is that these are much less visible to the outside world, including to the aforementioned Baptists and evangelicals.

Raised Catholic in America, it feels kind of like an apples to oranges comparison. I remember way more church stuff going on around Easter for sure, but I feel like there was more 'energy' around Christmas. Obviously a child's perspective might be skewed what with the gifts but Christmas was the bigger deal for me.

Well, as a Puritan Atheist, I don't consider those Papists and quasi-papists real Christians anyway. /s

Also, I don't know that the length of "preparation" and "celebration" is the best way to compare the relative level of celebration between the two holidays, but the admixture of the secular bits definitely muddies the waters a lot. In a slightly different universe, perhaps the Christian West managed to make Easter a major commercial holiday (beyond mere candy) and so it became far more significant culturally than Christmas across the board.

It's interesting that in the West our winter celebration is so much bigger than our spring/fall/summer ones. The Chinese New Year is on the tail end of winter celebrating the coming of spring, "Greater Iran" has Nowruz in the spring, the Islamic world has Ramadan on a rotating basis, Rosh Hashanah is fall, as is Diwali.

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