Lord: I admit it - I still believe

Rev. Tim Lord, LOCAL CONTRIBUTOR

Thursday, December 20, 2007

I have a confession to make: I still believe in the Christmas story.

I don't mean all the winter-wonderland themes of dancing snowmen, North Pole factories and reindeer with fluorescent noses. I believe in the original Christmas story, the one with Mary, Joseph and the baby Jesus in a humble stable, announced by angels and visited by shepherds.
I believe this, despite James H. Dee's recent column that tried to convince me otherwise.

In case you missed it, Dee's article can be summarized as follows:
1. The Christmas story didn't happen.
2. Plato thinks God isn't fair.

I'll leave Plato to work out his own issues with the Divine. But on the first point, Dee claims that today's ministers who "sermonize" about the Nativity are either a) ignorant or b) withholding the truth from their congregations.

Now that hits close to home. You see, I not only believe the Christmas story, I am also a minister. Every year, I proclaim to my congregation the wonderful truth that God took on human flesh, came down to our level and lived among us so that we could learn what life is really all about. On Christmas Eve, we read the Christmas story from the Gospel of Luke. Since I'm not setting out to deliberately deceive my church, Dee would say I'm operating out of naïveté or ignorance.

Though I have great respect for anyone who has taught the classics — and I am surely not in the same league as a scholar such as Dee — might I humbly make a few observations on behalf of the "true believers"?

First, any Christian with a decent study Bible already knows what Dee seems to think is a bombshell revelation: Jesus wasn't born in 1 A.D. We're quite aware of this and embrace the facts that His birth took place somewhere between 6 and 4 B.C., that errors were made in the calculations for the current calendar.

We are also quite aware that the date of Dec. 25 is based in tradition, not Scripture, and has only a 1 in 365 chance of being the "actual" day. But my response to these anomalies is, "So what?" Jesus was born sometime, and Dec. 25 is as good a day to celebrate it as any other.

Second, I'm getting weary of the methodology used by those who deny the Christmas story. They begin by comparing the accounts found in Matthew and Luke, and any detail that is only found in one account is immediately suspected and termed a "contradiction."

But what does that leave them with? Both accounts mention the names of Mary and Joseph, place Jesus's birth in Bethlehem, say His conception was accompanied by angelic announcement, and —gasp! — both accounts say Mary conceived while still a virgin. These are the details at the core of the story, and, in these, the gospels agree.

Our Christmas-denying friends, however, can't leave well enough alone. Not only do they discredit any detail mentioned by only one gospel writer, they also throw out every detail mentioned by both gospel writers. Why don't they just come out and admit they are biased against the biblical accounts instead of pretending to analyze them?

Where Dee sees two contradictory stories, I see two accounts that include unique details and harmonize well with each other. I'm glad they don't read exactly the same way — the Bible is richer for having the diversity and different emphases of each writer. Would Dee be happier if the stories read identically? Then he might charge them with collusion, fixing their stories to match each other.

Readers should understand that, though there are some scholarly Scrooges around, there are countless others with solid academic credentials who have defended and affirmed the accounts in the Bible.

And so I will continue to believe in and proclaim the Christmas story, despite what Dee (and Plato) might think about my choice. The naysayers can have their "Bah, humbug!" December. I intend to celebrate the birth of the Savior with my eyes and heart wide open.
And to Dee, I wish a sincere Merry Christmas!

Lord is the pastor of New Life Assembly of God in South Austin.

Dee: The Christmas story didn't happen

James H. Dee, LOCAL CONTRIBUTOR

Saturday, December 15, 2007

It's the final month of the year, and that guarantees some controversies over Christmas। Is it too commercialized, or are we not shopping enough to help the economy? Is the holiday season in retreat because of a "war on Christmas," or is the omnipresence of Christmas symbols and references an affront to the growing population of non-Christian Americans?

Was the Christmas described in the Bible a historical event? Was Jesus really born in a Bethlehem manger and visited by Magi and shepherds on Dec। 25 precisely 2007 years ago? Should we believe the claim that Jesus' career is the critical turning-point in human history, making eternal salvation available to all?

The Y2K furor introduced us to the sixth-century monk Dionysius Exiguus, who determined which year should be called AD 1। But Dionysius made a mistake, and it's directly related to Christmas. The birth story in Matthew says that the infant Jesus was threatened by King Herod, but Herod was dead by 4 B.C. So, in the 1650s, James Ussher, Anglican Archbishop of Armagh, declared that Jesus must have been born "before himself," on Dec. 25, 5 B.C., which would make this the year 2011.

Biblical texts have no indication of day or year, and no Christian source specifies Dec। 25 until the early fourth century. So the year is unlikely to be correct and the calendar date is surely erroneous. And the historical status of the Christmas story is no better: It's not a single, unified tale but two contradictory stories, one in Matthew and one in Luke.

The conclusions of the late Raymond E। Brown, a Catholic priest and one of the 20th century's foremost New Testament scholars, about both accounts are surprisingly negative. After careful analysis, Brown rejects the historicity of (in Matthew) the Magi, the star, the Massacre of the Innocents and the flight to Egypt, (in Luke) the census, the angels and the shepherds, and (in both) the birth in Bethlehem, which means no inn and no manger.

The Christmas story never happened। That raises a disturbing question: Do the ministers, pastors and priests who sermonize every year and encourage Nativity re-enactments not know how unhistorical it is, or do they choose to deny their congregations an opportunity to develop a more mature understanding? The former would reflect badly on their Biblical competence, the latter would undermine confidence in their candor.

What about the "real meaning" of Christmas? Brown insists that abandoning the colorful but illusory mythological surface of the story does not diminish the deeper theological significance of Jesus' incarnation, life, death and resurrection। That's valid in principle, but it leads to a difficult philosophical issue.

A core belief shared by most Christians is that each person will spend eternity with the blessed in Heaven or the damned in Hell, a view found in the Gospels. However, that all-or-
nothing dichotomy creates a moral dilemma।

How can a perfectly just divinity establish an ethically acceptable dividing line between the good and the bad? In my high school, a 65 got through while a 64 failed, but there were no eternal consequences। Even a single criterion, say, faith in Jesus, will not avoid the dilemma, since theologians usually acknowledge that doubt is inseparable from faith.

Invoking divine wisdom ("God knows all and His judgments must be fair") also won't work। Plato's "Euthyphro" demonstrates that even an omnipotent divinity cannot make that-which-is-unjust to be just.

So there is a challenge for promoters of Christianity: Do you endorse keeping believers in the dark about the unhistorical nature of the story? And how can Jesus save us if there is a moral impossibility at the center of Christian claims?

Dee, a retired classics professor, lives in Austin.

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