In November the Gold Coast PFC group conducted a seminar on the recent work of Borg and Crossan, The First Christmas: What the Gospels Really Teach About Jesus’s Birth. The session was led by Bryan Glimour. His introduction to the seminar follows:
Most of us wouldn’t like to lose the wonder and joy, the mystery and holiness, the generosity and hope, the humility and drama that the nativity stories have acquired through the centuries. Yet as recent scholars have researched and discovered, the story has been spectacularly spiritualised and dramatically immortalised beyond the human and natural birth of Jesus.
So then, how do we, – without destroying what history has enshrined as sacred and factual, – demythologise the nativity stories and put them into a 21st Century understanding that is both comprehensible and real. Borg and Crossan have done this in their Book –“ The First Christmas”.
The Enlightenment period, (17th & 18th Century) generated an understanding of TRUTH and REALITY very different from the pre-modern world,(where the stories of history were just accepted.) And this has forced the factual fundamentalist to dig in and force feed their followers with so called scriptural proof . – on the other hand, the enlightened modernist is quick to throw out these stories of history as mere fable.]
What then will our response be, in being able to celebrate Christmas with all the positive and affirming values of the Nativity stories in the light of the revelations of modern scholarship?
Firstly, recognise the following –
- Paul’s letters (the earliest NT writings) have scant reference to Jesus’ birth – ‘born of a woman’ – and no reference to Nativity stories.
- Mark’s Gospel, an originating Source has no references to the Nativity Stories.
- Mathew’s focus is a Jewish affirmation and a narrative document of Jesus being the long awaited Messiah. The virgin birth and the gifts of the Magi are strong parabolic Overtures of the Christ , Emmanuel , – God with us, – the Divine Presence with us for all eternity.
- Luke’s focus, – a gentile proclamation narrative of Jesus, sets the scene in his two chapter Nativity parabolic Overture, by his portrayal of Jesus as the loving Friend and Saviour of all humanity, with strong female focus, (roles of Mary and Elizabeth), focus on the poor and weak, (shepherds and Jesus birthplace).
- John’s Gospel bears only parabolic reference to the Nativity stories by referring to Jesus as the Light and life from the beginning.
My faithfulness to being a Disciple of Jesus and recognising God’s divine, and indeed, living Presence in all humanity (and the whole environment) does not depend on the factual truth of the Nativity stories but in fantastic parabolic truth that these stories release in enabling me to discern –
- The liberating power of the divine hope that emerged through the humble, humiliating and sacrificial lifestyle of Jesus.
- The JOY and acclamation of all those who witnessed the birthing to all the world, in the person Jesus, God with us and within us, experiencing that Indwelling Presence
- The intimate love that evolved in the person of Jesus who has gifted the world with the passion and perseverance of one who was divinely inspired.
- The gifting of Jesus’ life, gifted and lived to generate peace in every community, that is cross cultural, cross geographical and cross generational.
All of these we celebrate in the birth of the Christ child through the stories that enhance that primitive Jewish cultural period of history.
Wishing you all a Christ centred happy and blessed Christmas.
Bryan Gilmour
Christmas Reflections
Bryan Gilmour’s thoughtful and informative opinion piece on Celebrating Christmas as led me to a few reflections of my own on the 2013 Christmas experience.
Christmas Card templates: Despite the fuss of broadcast media publicity and in-your-face urging from the retailers the Christian religious elements underlying this frenzy of annual celebration have in recent years been under strong challenge. Nevertheless, I was staggered and very frustrated in looking up my Microsoft Word software in seeking to find an appropriate template for designing a personal Christmas Card. In the very great range of designs for the templates,there were plenty of pictures of Santa Claus, snow, holly and ivy, reindeer etc. There was not one design however, which provided a Christian religious theme as a base template. Not one! I thought, “Surely this cannot be”. I wondered if it were deliberate, something to do with some form of “political correctness” about keeping religion out of society. Of course, I am sure there are other websites with plenty of Christian religious card designs and maybe if I look hard enough I may find a Microsoft link with Christian religious themes. Better luck next year!
Christmas Church celebrations: I have attended three Christmas services this season. I enjoy these occasions of buzz and excitement, the once-a-year meeting of friends, the general good humour and goodwill, but at the theological level I can’t say I have been favourably impressed.
At one service the preacher held up a decorated stocking designed to invite Santa Claus to bestow some of his goodies on the stocking’s owner. The stocking was then thrown away over the preacher’s shoulder with the admonition that this had nothing to do with Christmas. The rest of the service was a full-bore summation of the Five Fundamentals, including the doctrine of substitutionary atonement. It ended up with what might have been regarded as an “altar call”. Persons desiring to be “born again” were invited to have a chat with the minister after the service.
At another of the services the minister made a passing reference to the “virgin birth”. He agreed that it was a bit hard to understand, but God could do anything so that settled it.
With the same minister, however, I did like the way he treated the historical development of December 25th (or thereabouts) as the date to celebrate the birth of Jesus when actually nobody knew when he was born. In my experience, preachers of orthodox persuasion tend to play down the way Christianity took over many over many of the old pagan and secular rituals. Even I, in some ways, feel a bit uneasy that Christians could not havestuck to doing something unique. It seemed to me that we Christians may have stolen something from other institutions.
This preacher, however, put a softer light on what transpired. He claimed that Christians absorbed the old celebrations because they wanted to be inclusive and not set themselves apart from the general community. One might say that instead of claiming to be the sole source of what is good they were prepared to learn from the community. They would integrate “outside” ideas with their Christian traditions of the memories of the Jesus Way, something which was good in itself and led to a better world – the Kingdom of God.
It is clear why this struck a chord with me. It is this very process which is at the core of the Milpara vision – that of making our churches the heart of their local communities – both religious and secular. That is, instead of assuming that we as Christians are the sole source of the expertise on goodness and therefor must maintain control of its dispersion (e.g. through our church membership rules and governance) we may further our purpose by taking in skills, resources and commitment from people outside the church.
This may sound like a “motherhood is a virtue” kind of statement but I am finding that reluctance to give up this assumption of prime knowledge and authority by institutional Christians may be a key reason why the Milpara concept has so far obtained very little traction.
On a final note, much of the thrust of Bryan’s article is discussed in the book I am reading right now, “Cards, Carols and Claus” by Rex Hunt. It was published this year and contains a lot of background information for those looking for sermon material at this season of the year. Copies should be available at online bookstores such as Mosaic Resources and MediaCom.