MetaCatholic

Michael Halcomb launches a puritanical attack on several Christmas carols. (A little premature in my view – it’s only the second day of Advent!) He promises more to come. I quote with several large omissions indicated by ellipses:

One thing that really irks me is when Christmas tradition replaces Scriptural truth and teachings … as believers, we “must” have our facts and our story straight. We must be honest and knowledgeable about our faith and its narrative … I see no point in teaching the story incorrectly through sermon or song!

His illustrative carols are We Three Kings, Silent Night, and The First Nowell. He is, of course absolutely right that the details of the story as portrayed in these carols does not concur with the (mainly Matthean) nativity story he has in mind. I say “mainly Matthean” because at one point, critiquing Silent Night he says:

Jesus’ parents can’t find a place to stay, angels are coming to Joseph in dreams, angels are singing aloud before shepherds

Noticeably this conflates Matthew (angels coming to Joseph in dreams) with Luke (the other details) and is, by harmonising incompatible accounts, equally incorrect in its construction of the story (stories). And at one level, I say “so what?” The traditions of Christmas as told in harmonising narratives, portrayed in the crib, and sung about in carols act as a kind of midrash on the text, and are part of the interpretative tradition by which we read them.

I’m quite happy to deliberately bring the relative restraint of the different texts into counterplay with the traditions, and equally happy to make points based on the traditions. In many respects, the contrast between one or other biblical narrative and any particular tradition can be a useful preaching point. But the varied stories and moods of the carols all help different responses of wonder and praise, and we would be the poorer without them.

Anyway, if midrashic stories were good enough for Matthew, and Luke was quite happy to replace Matthew’s story with his own scripturally and theologically thematic narrative, why shouldn’t carols also continue a tradition of interpretation begun in scripture?

Well, people say here in England that there’s no major difference between the main political parties, but a new battleground has opened up. In the blue corner¹ is Tory überblogger Iain Dale. He reports from a baby’s baptism on Sunday:

This morning I have been to a Christening. Here is a line from one of the hymns…
“And if I were a fuzzy, wuzzy bear, I’d thank you Lord for my fuzzy wuzzy hair, but I just thank you, Father, for making me ‘me’”
And they wonder why the Church of England is losing its congregation!

In the red corner is (non-New) Labour political pundit Paul Linford:

For a blogger of Iain’s prominence and influence to do this is really a bit like Nancy Banks-Smith giving a critical pasting to In the Night Garden as if she were reviewing the latest Stephen Poliakoff epic.
All that the Butterfly Song is really saying is that God made us as we are, and that we should celebrate our individuality. Somehow, I would have thought that was a sentiment which Iain Dale would have approved of.

I give you the battleground of the next election. It’s so much more interesting than the politics of sleaze. Don’t believe me? This topic collects more comments than any other of Iain Dale’s most recent posts (some of which comments are bizarre in the extreme). Fuzzy-wuzzy bears are the new “clear blue water”.

1. US readers: in the UK blue means right-wing and red means left-wing [↩]