THE INAPPROPRIATE APPROPRIATION OF CHRISTMAS

A reoccurring war-drum beat today (I hope that wasn’t appropriation.) is that folks are racists because they appropriate. Appropriation, that’s the thing—not to do. One realm where righteous woke warriors (again, I hope I didn’t appropriate.) go on attack is the sports arena: They point out that sports teams’ names and mascots have been appropriated, and, thus, are racist. Some examples are Washington Redskins, Cleveland Indians, Edmonton Eskimos, and Chicago Blackhawks. One decrier proposes that any reference to humans be expunged from team names, mascots, and memorabilia. This, I find ironic since sports are all about people. Really, I’m not entering the fray of what is and isn’t cultural appropriation. But I am going to point out, that, once again, as almost always, those who decry others’ sins are committing, perhaps, greater sins themselves. If to name a team “Redskins” is appropriation, what in the world would you call the hijacking of Christmas if not appropriation? When you have taken the holiday and bleached it free from its very inception, purpose, and import and profaned it with your debauched festivities, prostituted it to make money, and repurposed it for your fairytales, what is that if not appropriation? Christmas has been inappropriately appropriated. The critical theorists who are astute include spiritual appropriation in cultural appropriation. As one explained, to wear a feather about your head is a spiritual appropriation from Native Americans. They (the Plains Indians) traditionally wore war bonnets. Also, feathers were used in Native American spiritual practices. Thus, to wear a feather on your head is appropriating culturally and spiritually. Yet, these same fastidious appropriation ferreters cannot see that Christmas has been inappropriately appropriated. I do not believe in ridiculing, maligning, or targeting any ethnic or spiritual group. Nor do I believe in being discriminatory or racist. True appropriation does exist when a group’s traditions, beliefs, customs, costumes, etc., are used for these malevolent purposes—not perceived but actual. But, contemporaneously, all such maligning things are being done with Christmas. It is being inappropriately appropriated. Before someone grabs a troll megaphone and shouts, “Don’t you know anything? It is the Christians who appropriated Christmas. December 25th is probably not even close to the day Jesus was born. But Christians appropriated the holiday of the celebration of a Roman deity to celebrate Christmas on the 25thof December.” I do know that. But I would call it re-appropriation. Polytheistic pagans had supplanted the worship of the true God with the worship of false gods. When they put the names of their contrived gods on worship and altars and feast days, they were appropriating “worship” for their own purposes. All worship belongs to God, Yahweh. Everything else is an appropriation. It’s not a pagan festival at the winter’s solstice that has been inappropriately appropriated. It’s Christmas, the celebration of Christ’s birth, the moment of the greatest wonder of all human history—God became One of us, a human. If celebrating the Word becoming flesh on December 25th, if worshiping Christ on that day is appropriation, it is an appropriate appropriation. All else being done to, with, and on that day to supplant the Christ is the inappropriate appropriation of Christmas—the holiday which bears His name, Christ. A continuously played rerun during this season is “How the Grinch Stole Christmas.” That’s not the worst of it. A depraved culture has appropriated Christmas*. That’s the cultural appropriation that should concern us most. It is totally inappropriate appropriation. --Pastor Clifford Hurst *If you think this far-fetched, look how the White House this year was decorated for Christmas, and the performance there with which the First Family chose to celebrate Christmas.