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238 Pages·2016·1.055 MB·English
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OUPCORRECTEDPROOF–FINAL,6/4/2016,SPi CHRISTMAS AS RELIGION OUPCORRECTEDPROOF–FINAL,6/4/2016,SPi OUPCORRECTEDPROOF–FINAL,6/4/2016,SPi Christmas as Religion Rethinking Santa, the Secular, and the Sacred CHRISTOPHER DEACY 1 OUPCORRECTEDPROOF–FINAL,6/4/2016,SPi 3 GreatClarendonStreet,Oxford,OX26DP, UnitedKingdom OxfordUniversityPressisadepartmentoftheUniversityofOxford. ItfurtherstheUniversity’sobjectiveofexcellenceinresearch,scholarship, andeducationbypublishingworldwide.Oxfordisaregisteredtrademarkof OxfordUniversityPressintheUKandincertainothercountries ©ChristopherDeacy2016 Themoralrightsoftheauthorhavebeenasserted FirstEditionpublishedin2016 Impression:1 Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthispublicationmaybereproduced,storedin aretrievalsystem,ortransmitted,inanyformorbyanymeans,withoutthe priorpermissioninwritingofOxfordUniversityPress,orasexpresslypermitted bylaw,bylicenceorundertermsagreedwiththeappropriatereprographics rightsorganization.Enquiriesconcerningreproductionoutsidethescopeofthe aboveshouldbesenttotheRightsDepartment,OxfordUniversityPress,atthe addressabove Youmustnotcirculatethisworkinanyotherform andyoumustimposethissameconditiononanyacquirer PublishedintheUnitedStatesofAmericabyOxfordUniversityPress 198MadisonAvenue,NewYork,NY10016,UnitedStatesofAmerica BritishLibraryCataloguinginPublicationData Dataavailable LibraryofCongressControlNumber:2015957293 ISBN 978–0–19–875456–5 PrintedinGreatBritainby ClaysLtd,StIvesplc LinkstothirdpartywebsitesareprovidedbyOxfordingoodfaithand forinformationonly.Oxforddisclaimsanyresponsibilityforthematerials containedinanythirdpartywebsitereferencedinthiswork. OUPCORRECTEDPROOF–FINAL,6/4/2016,SPi For my four beautiful children—Estelle, Celeste, Rupert, and Theodore OUPCORRECTEDPROOF–FINAL,6/4/2016,SPi OUPCORRECTEDPROOF–FINAL,6/4/2016,SPi Preface This book begins with the premise that religion plays an elementary role in our understanding of the Christmas festival, but takes issue with much of the existing literature which is inclined to associate ‘religion’ with formal or institutional forms of Christianity or to construeChristmasasacommercialandsecularholiday.InChristmas asReligion,Iarguethatsuchapproachesfailtotakeadequatestockof themanifoldwaysinwhichpeople’sbeliefsandvaluestakeshapein modernsociety.Itmaybe,forexample,thatasupernaturally-themed Christmas film about Santa Claus or a Christmas radio programme such as Junior Choice comprises a non-specifically Christian, but nonetheless religiously rich, repository of beliefs, values, sentiments, andaspirations.This bookthus makesthecase forlaying torest the secularization thesis, with its simplistic assumption that religion in Westernsocietyisundergoinga period ofescalating andirrevocable erosion,andtoseeinsteadthatthesecularmayitselfbearepositoryof the religious. I posit that a festival of consumerism can be an unex- pectedlyfertilesiteofspiritualityandtranscendenceandthatmateri- alism and consumption need to be understood within a context of familial, social, and interpersonal connection and, even, transform- ation. Rather than see Christmas as comprising an alternative or analogous form of religious expression, or dependent on any causal relationshiptotheChristiantradition,mypremiseisthatitisreligious per se, and, moreover, it is its very secularity that makes Christmas suchacompelling,andtranscendent,religiousholiday. OUPCORRECTEDPROOF–FINAL,6/4/2016,SPi OUPCORRECTEDPROOF–FINAL,6/4/2016,SPi Acknowledgements Thisbookwasoriginallyconceivedasmerelyasinglechapterinwhat was to become my 2012 monograph, Screening the Afterlife, where I thought that having an extended case study of Christmas movies would serve to illuminate wider arguments relating to how films about life after death might be said to comprise secular paradigms of resurrection, redemption, and the transcendent and to contribute to the theological task of exploring the meaning and function of death, judgement, heaven, and hell in the twenty-first century. As the work on that book progressed I found that there was sufficient material here for a monograph in its own right and the filmic angle endedupbeingrelegatedtoasinglechapterwhilethefocusonradio tookitsplace.Myradioobsessionpredatesmypassionforthecinema as anyone who used to know me at school or university will testify andit wouldnot exactly be wideof the mark to saythat theprepar- ationforthisbookhasbeenalabouroflove.Fromwritingdownthe Top 40 singles chart every Sunday evening in the 1980s to studying Theology at university in the 1990s with the warm and enchanting presence of Chris Stuart, Sarah Kennedy, Steve Madden, Debbie Thrower, and Ed Stewart—now sadly vestiges of a bygone era—to keepmecompanywhileIreadmybooksandwrotemyassignments, radio has played a seminal role in my life and it feels that I have comefull circle in producingthis book.I have oftenwonderedwhat EdStewart,1whofeaturesprominentlyinthepagesthatfollow,would make of my argument that Junior Choice (which was, curiously, on theradiothemorningthatIwasborn)constitutesanimportantsite of religious meaning, ritual, and agency in the world today, and if nothingelse Ihopethat Ihavemanagedtoengender adebate about thewayinwhichtherelationshipbetweenthesacredandthesecularis a very porous and permeable one, and one that also straddles the artificial divide between religion and popular culture. I am most grateful to Tom Perridge, the Senior Commissioning Editor at OUP, for supporting this book on Christmas and religion from the outset, 1 Followingthisbook’scompletioninDecember2015,EdStewartpassedawayon 9January2016aftersufferingastroke.

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