Dec 03
Christmas carols and bit of "Bah! humbug"
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?
December 4th, 2007 at 12:10 am
How do we harmonise “no crying he makes” (from “Away in a Manger”) with “tears and smiles like us he knew” (from “Once in Royal David’s City”)? I suspect we have to reject the former as docetic. But sadly it means that most children, who know about Jesus only from “Away in a Manger”, grow up with a seriously heretical view of our Lord. Is it OK to teach heresy if it is “midrash”?
But some mediaeval carols are even worse. I remember once finding an error of some sort in every line except the first of “Adam lay y-bounden”.
December 4th, 2007 at 12:51 am
As I said, I bring out the tensions between carols and scripture, rather than banning carols. If I were to ban any, “Away in the manger” would be near the top of my list, as would at least one verse of “Once in royal” – “Christian children, all must be, mild obedient, good as he” Mrs Alexander seems to have forgotten the story of the boy in the temple. And of course, as you no doubt suspect, I like “Adam lay y-bounden”: “Had the apple ne’er taken ben, our Lady ne’er ben hev’nly Quene” !!!
December 4th, 2007 at 2:32 am
I wouldn’t worry too much about people learning heresy from hymns when the likes of Joel Osteen and TD Jakes are spewing even more lewd heresy from mega-church pulpits and the swarming mobs of am-ha-aretz are lapping it up like a dog eating it’s own vomit.
Hymns, too, are seasonal. Soon as football season comes into full swing Christmas will be forgotten anyway. Along with hymns, Church, Christ, faith, fidelity, and constancy.
December 4th, 2007 at 10:07 am
The football season is already in full swing. As for the game you Yanks play, while the rest of the world enjoys real football, I wouldn’t know.
December 7th, 2007 at 8:28 pm
In thinking about carols. it is important to remember that they are not hymns, and were not written to expound theology. Rather, they are, as the preface to the Oxford Book of Carols says, “songs with a religious impulse that are simple, hilarious, popular, and modern.” Hilarious as in joyous, as in merry. The earliest carols are based upon dance music - the word carol traces its roots back to the Greek chorus, a circle dance. Some writers see in the growth of carols in the 15th century a sort of combustion of joy long-suppressed by excessive puritanism that had forbidden dance, theater, and communal singing and at times (later, in 1647) even the celebration of Christmas. These songs were not written by scholars, but were the tunes of the people. The history of this form of music is fascinating, and I recommend the reading of that whole preface as a great introduction.
When we demand complete faithfulness to gospel accounts (and which one, by the way?) and church doctrine, we are trying to make them do a job they were never meant to do . Sweet stories, merry tales, and dancing rhythms are what carols are for. Joseph has a dream. A star flies across the sky. Shepherds leave their flocks, wise men their homes. Angels sing glorias unending. A baby is born.
“Nowell sing we with mirth! Christ is come well, with us to dwell, by his most noble birth.”