From the President: The Politics of Jesus’ Birth
By Dr. Chris Seiple on 06 December 2010
In this reprise of a column originally published in 2003, Chris Seiple argues that the politics of Jesus' birth is an essential chapter of the Christmas narrative. "Putting Christ back in Christmas," he writes, "means putting the 'King of the Jews' back in the story."
Lines of determined shoppers jostle for advantage in the mall. "Black Friday" dominates the news. Relentless television specials peddle gauzy sentimentality and nostalgia. It must be Advent in America. As we shake our heads and wonder how the birth of Jesus could have been overtaken by such commercialism, we would do well to recall, not just the spiritual, but also the political context of this event. Putting Christ back in Christmas means putting the "King of the Jews" — a political title if ever there was one — back in the story.
Westerners, 2,000 years removed from the first Christmas, are tempted to assume that there could hardly be anything more innocent, non-threatening, and "non-political" than a baby in a manger. Yet the birth of a baby that first Christmas resulted in a horrific wave of persecution; thousands of young boys under the age of two were killed while the baby's family fled to Egypt. (If anything similar happened today, the international human rights and diplomatic community would be instantly mobilized, an armed humanitarian intervention quickly considered.)
How could one birth in a remote corner of the mighty Roman Empire have such political impact? By any common standard, the baby was politically unimportant. He hailed from a minority group in a global empire. Seemingly, he was a bastard of foreign and sometimes wicked blood. His mother's betrothed, Joseph, was not the father. Nor had Joseph done the culturally "honorable" thing — break off the engagement. While the baby's once-proud genealogy made him the son of Abraham and David, he was also the descendant of Rahab the prostitute and Ahaz the human-sacrificing idolater...
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Last updated 06 December 2010