Christmas in the crosshairs : two thousand years of denouncing and defending the world's most celebrated holiday

310 Pages·2017·1.17 MB·English

by  Bowler

Christmas in the Crosshairs

Christmas
in the
Crosshairs
Two Thousand Years of Denouncing
and Defending the World’s Most
Celebrated Holiday
z
Gerry Bowler
1
1
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Bowler, G. Q., 1948 – author.
Title: Christmas in the crosshairs : two thousand years of denouncing and
defending the world’s most celebrated holiday / Gerry Bowler.
Description: New York : Oxford University Press, 2016. |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016005102 (print) | LCCN 2016031263 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780190499006 (hardback : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780190499013 (updf) |
ISBN 9780190499020 (epub)
Subjects:  LCSH: Christmas—History.
Classification: LCC BV45 .B684 2016 (print) | LCC BV45 (ebook) | DDC
263/.91509—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016005102
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed by Sheridan Books, Inc., United States of America
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction ix
I. The Inventors 3
II. The Revivers 43
III. The Tyrants 81
IV. The Godly and the Godless 104
V. The Appropriators 154
VI. The Discontented 183
VII. The Privatizers 199
A Brief Epilogue 243
Notes 247
Index 291

Acknowledgments
i would like to thank the staffs of the libraries of the University of
Manitoba and Duke Divinity School for their assistance in providing the
raw materials for this book. Thanks also to the students of my University
of Manitoba Social History of Christmas class for their lively feedback.
I am most grateful, however, for the wonderful teachers I have had in my
life. This book is humbly and happily dedicated to Mrs. V. Hogg, Miss C.
Kortes, Mr. W. Clark, Miss Robinson, Mr. K. Sauer, Mr. R. Rashley, and
Professors M. Hayden, J. Fry, R. Grogin, L. Kitzan, G. Porter, and H. G.
Koenigsberger. My gratitude comes too late on this mortal path for some of
these worthies, but I hope to thank them personally in the Great Library
beyond. Thanks also to Cynthia Read and Gina Chung, of Oxford University
Press for their encouragement and deft editing, and to Martha Ramsey
for her copyediting.

Introduction
is there a war on Christmas? Of course there is. Bill O’Reilly says so,
and John Gibson agrees. The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights
says so, and the American Family Association does too. It is a calculated
and pernicious attack not only on the holiday but on Christianity itself.
Is there a war on Christmas? Of course not. Michelle Goldberg at Salon
says it is a canard, and the New Yorker agrees. Jon Stewart mocks the notion,
and the Guardian calls it nonsense. To claim there is such a war is an
example of “Christonormativity,” a right-wing plot to bolster the ratings of
Fox News and disguise the drive for Christian theocracy.
Is there a war on Christmas? Yes, indeed. In fact, there is a history of
almost two thousand years of opposing, controlling, reforming, criticiz-
ing, suppressing, resurrecting, reshaping, appropriating, debating, replac-
ing, and abolishing the world’s most popular festival. It continues to this
very day, and that is what this book is about.