Okay, so one more post...
What secular, humanistic Christmas does is disembody what were originally Christian concepts linked to God Himself. Words like love, peace and joy are ripped from their original contexts by early humanists who, like most Western philosophies developed over the past several hundred years, were both reacting against and borrowing from Christianity.
The point in its' modern application is to try to retain "the good stuff" without the scandal of particularity. After all, it isn't only Christians who want peace, love, and joy.
The problem, of course, then becomes one of definitions. Peace means mighty different things to the people on the two sides of the conflict in Gaza. Joy is defined differently by the stoic and the hedonist.
What secular humanism has done by attempting to remove the scandal of particularity has simply imposed new problems--that of parochialism, each of us defining the terms as we like. This would seem to defeat the original purpose of the universal good.
In Christianity we proclaim that there is no disembodied virtue. There is no such thing as theoretical peace, theoretical love, and theoretical joy. The Word has become flesh and made His dwelling among us. What is peace? Look at Jesus. What is joy? Look to Jesus. What is love? We see it in the Christ.
And so again we see that secular humanism Christmas misses the point entirely. The injunction for us to seek peace can only find its' proper hope anchored in the reality that Peace has already come to get us. Love and Joy have done the same. This is what we celebrate at Christmas--not our own meager attempts at moving towards hypothetical ideals but in these ideals becoming Human and coming to get us.
And so yes, we must press on with all our might into love, joy, and peace. But as Christians we do so deeply rooted in the reality that love, joy, and peace has already come to get us, live and in the flesh. And that's worth celebrating.
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