Tolerance...
Dec 15, 2008My “speech room” at school happens to be part of the health suite. In order to get to my room, I actually have to walk through the nurses office. This is not a big deal of course, but it does mean that I get to chat with the nurse and her health assistant on a regular basis. Both are very nice people.
One day last week, the health assistant gave the nurse a present…an adorable metal worked Santa Claus. The nurse said, “I wish I could put it up for the kids to see, but I would get in trouble.”
Me, in one of my more abashed tones, replied, “Santa Claus? Why can’t you put up Santa Claus?”
“Oh, because we have students here who aren’t Christian?”
OK…I know Santa is associated with Christmas. But honestly, at this point he’s pretty much the father of consumerism and probably more of a “pagan,” for lack of better term, symbol than a Christian. Don’t get me wrong, I like the fat, jolly guy and cry at the end of “Miracle on 34th Street” as much as anybody. But to call him a Christian symbol is a huge stretch at this point. Are folks who do not self identify as “Christian” truly offended?
The sad part of tolerance, in my opinion, is the silence. I’ve never been offended by hearing how someone else might celebrate Hannukah, Id, Winter Solstice, whatever…and I am a Christian. It is interesting and allows me to connect with someone on a deeper level when I can hear about their deepest convictions. I may not agree with those convictions, or even like them very much, but so what?
In the effort to be tolerant, in avoidance of being offensive to others, we celebrate nothing. There can be no cross cultural sharing of values. But if we only look at how we are all the same, we’re left with only a few variables, and even those requre a careful soft shoe to navigate. Where’s the fun in that?
And the sad part is, that without sharing who we are at our deepest levels, we miss out on finding the true values we might actually share cross culturally. We’ll just keep missing each other. And that could end up leading to disastrous consequences…
Reader Comments (3)
Well, the sad fact is, we're not being "tolerant" for the sake of those of other faiths. For the most part, they're not offended by our celebrations (as we're not of theirs). Those who complain about Christmas may in fact be ethnically Jewish (sometimes), but it seems to me that most of the time they're not practicing anything.
I was in a government office building the other day that had these little "holiday" displays set up, with a tiny Christmas tree next to a menorah. Now, my first thought was--why does highlighting two religious holidays make it better than only one? The proportion of this country that's Jewish is really quite small, so if their holiday is the only one we're adding, we must still be leaving out a lot of people.
The second thought was, what's religious about a Christmas tree? Or at least, what's Christian about it? I know the answer, of course. All trees have been sanctified by the death of Christ on a cross of wood (just as all trees were cursed by Adam eating from the Tree in the Garden), so the tree points to the gospel message. Also, as an evergreen, it points to the eternal life that comes through the wood of the cross. But seriously, if you polled people--even practicing Christians--how many would know that? And without explicit teaching, how is it any more likely an explanation than that we simply like to celebrate life in the midst of harsh winter (albeit by cutting down these hardy trees and bringing them inside). And what's uniquely Christian about that?
I suppose it's just as easy to devalue the religious message of Hanukkah into a simple celebration of light, which again begins to increase on earth at the winter solstice. But it still seems like Christianity gets the short end when it comes to implicit religious meaning in the symbols that do remain in public. If we're going to be tolerant by putting up one symbol from each faith, at least let me pick which symbol I want for mine.
One parting gripe--I despise the Blue's Clues holiday episode, where the three friends celebrate different holidays: Kwanzaa, which celebrates family and togetherness; Hanukkah, which celebrates light; Christmas, which celebrates "the miracle of birth." Excuse me while I choke on my own vomit . . .
I remember when I was informed that "Jingle Bells" was a little too Christian for my cell phone... go figure.
On the other hand, I, am rather pleased to support the protection of the faith from such public devaluation. Let the world have its warm and fuzzy "holiday of family and light". (Warm and fuzzy is good, let's be clear.) But keep it apart from the Feast of the Incarnation of the second person of the Trinity in Human Flesh.
We've no one to blame but our selves, to be clear: since Dickens the whole idea of the Warm Family Holiday has taken over even our own ideas of the feast.
This is so disappointing. Santa is suppose to be a Christian symbol, but yes, I agree - he's been horribly commercialized. He's a jolly fat man who eats cookies, drinks milk, flies, and floods our living rooms with presents. And the elves? Where did they come from?
But the idea of not being able to wear a Santa pin in school is just aggravating. It's intolerance in order to be tolerant?? That makes no sense.
Try telling someone who is gay that they can't wear their rainbow pin and see how that goes...
BTW, I posted an entry on my blog today about Modern Symbols of Christmas. Here's a snippet about the Christmas Tree:
Christmas Tree Symbol of the Jesse Tree. Jesse was the father of King David. He had 8 sons and 2 daughters. It is from his lineage that the Christ Child receives his earthly ancestry.” (Isaiah 11:1-2)
Symbolizes life. The tree was Christianized in the 4th century during the reign of Emperor Constantine. The pagan celebration of the Saturnalia was replaced with Christmas on Dec. 25th.
- All nature rejoices at the birth of the Savior