It’s almost Christmas.
At least, it’s almost Christmas if you are one of those strange people who think “Christmas” is the same thing as the feast of the Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ. However, thinking about this holy day in those terms requires negotiating a maze created by school calendars, travel, office parties, family traditions and, yes, worship services. And then there is the cultural steamroller called “The Holidays,” led by the powers that be in government, shopping malls and mass media.
I bring this up because of that New York Times story that ran a few days ago: “O Come All Ye Faithful, Except When Christmas Falls on a Sunday.” It’s a story well worth reading and we will get to it shortly.
However, if you follow the GetReligion podcast, you know that I’ve been expecting the hot social-media debates about the whole “Christmas on Sunday” kerfuffle to eventually bleed over into the mainstream press. Check out this “Crossroads” episode: “Is Christmas 'news'? Not really, unless it is a case of 'Christmas AND ...' “
Before that, I wrote an “On Religion” column hooked to a new study by Lifeway Research. Here’s that headline: “When is Christmas? That depends on the person asking.” If you dig into those numbers, you’ll see a bright red line running between two different brands of Protestantism — those with roots in traditions that include some form of liturgical calendar and those that do not, especially the rapidly growing world of nondenominational evangelical and charismatic/Pentecostal churches. He’s a key chunk of that column:
In churches with centuries of liturgical traditions, the Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ is Dec. 25, following the quiet season of Advent (Latin for "toward the coming"). This year, Christmas falls on Sunday and, for Catholics, Anglicans and others, the Christmas Eve Midnight Mass is one of the year's most popular rites. This opens a festive season that continues through Jan. 6, the Feast of the Epiphany. Many Eastern Orthodox Christians follow the ancient Julian calendar and celebrate Christmas on Jan. 7, after Nativity Lent.
In the United States, some kind of Christmas Eve service remains the big draw, according to almost half (48%) of Protestant pastors contacted in a new study by Lifeway Research. The frequency of high-attendance church events builds until Christmas Eve, then declines sharply.
In this survey, mainline Protestant clergy (60%) were more likely than evangelicals (44%) to say Christmas Eve rites drew the most people, with Lutherans (84%) being the most likely to worship on Christmas Eve. In general, evangelical pastors (30%) said their high-attendance events came during the third week of December (30%).
Here’s a question I am still wondering about: How many Protestant churches, this year, will have services — late-night rites, even — on Christmas Eve and then come back hours later for a smaller service on Sunday morning?
This brings us to the Times piece. Here is the overture:
StoneBridge Christian Church in eastern Nebraska is known locally for hosting a big annual fireworks event, which this fall included 15 food trucks and portable firepits for making s’mores. But it’s the Christmas season that is “our Super Bowl,” said the church’s executive pastor, Mitch Chitwood. This year, the church’s four locations in the Omaha area will host four “Jingle Jam” family parties in December and nine services on Christmas Eve, complete with classic carols, Christmas-themed coffee drinks and a festive photo booth in the lobby.
What they will not have is church on Sunday, Dec. 25. On Christmas Day, StoneBridge will offer a simple community breakfast, but no religious services.
“We still believe in the Sunday morning experience, but we have to meet people where they are,” Mr. Chitwood said.
And where they are on Christmas Day is usually at home, in their pajamas.
This leads us to the thesis statement. Read this material closely:
Christmas is considered by most Christians to be the second-most significant religious holiday of the year, behind Easter. But most Protestants do not attend church services on Christmas Day when it falls on a weekday. If everyone from the pews to the pulpit would rather stay home, what is a practical house of worship to do? This year, some Protestant churches are deciding to skip Sunday services completely.
I have questions. First of all, I assume that “most Christians” includes the world’s two largest communions, as in the Roman Catholic Church and the various branches of Eastern Orthodoxy. The Anglican Communion remains quite large, especially in the growing churches of the Global South. In those traditions, the feast day is celebrated — no matter what.
Now, where things get interesting is with this sentence: “But most Protestants do not attend church services on Christmas Day when it falls on a weekday.” I’d like to know more about the source of that information.
Does the word “Protestant,” in that case, include Anglicans, Lutherans, Presbyterians and others with strong ties to the traditional Christian liturgical calendar? In my experience, those flocks — often joined by Methodists — there is some kind of Christmas Day service. Also, some would say that a service that begins at midnight or shortly before, and ends in the early hours of Dec. 25th, is a Christmas Day rite.
I suspect, again, that the word “Protestant” in this story primarily points toward evangelicals and charismatics in churches that all but shun the ancient Christian calendar. If that is the case, readers need to know that. The Lifeway study — which is referenced in the Times report — points to quite a divide between these two different “Protestant” worlds.
Here’s the surprise: The Times story includes lots of nuanced information on that point. So my questions is essentially about clarifying some of the language in those sweeping thesis paragraphs. It’s a solid story — please read it all.
I’ll end by noting that there is really no way to avoid theology in this story — once one spots the line created by the liturgical calendar, as opposed to a more flexible, “low church,” even “seeker” friendly model. The more one digs into that subject, the more the Protestant divide emerges. Check out these two passages:
“Christmas morning and Sunday morning are sort of in tension with each other,” said Timothy Beal, a professor of religious studies at Case Western Reserve University. “Most people who are churchgoers think of Christmas morning not as a religious time but as a family time: stockings and brunches and staying in your pajamas until midday or later.”
Hang on, because there’s more:
For some critics of this flexible spirit, having Christmas fall on a Sunday presents a stark example of something many Christians have heard about countless times over the years: the choice between the spiritually thin cultural Christianity of stockings and eggnog and the “true meaning of Christmas” — a day to celebrate Jesus’ birth 2,000 years ago in a stable in Bethlehem.
“We’ve all heard sermons on ‘Jesus is the reason for the season,’” said Kevin DeYoung, the pastor of Christ Covenant Church in Matthews, N.C., which belongs to the Presbyterian Church in America. When churches cancel their services, he hears that message as something more like: “Hey, it’s Christmas, and Jesus may not be the reason for the season.”
As an Eastern Orthodox Christian (in a North American branch that begins Christmas celebrations on Dec. 25) who grew up Southern Baptist, I have experienced this whole drama on both the practical and theological levels. Is this “news”? I don’t know, but the theology is soaked into these debates.
There is much I could say, but I don’t really have to because Rod Dreher, a friend for several decades, has already said it on his weblog, via a post with this title: “Why You Should Go To Church This Christmas Sunday.” A key passage centers on discussions with an American — a Pentecostal believer — during a press trip through ancient Christian sites in Turkey:
Our arguments always went back to him thinking that 21st-century Pentecostalism was normative. We squabbled over lunch about whether or not church in the Metaverse was the future of Christianity. He said yes, as he was an enthusiast of it. I told him it was impossible for sacramental Christians. He refused to accept that. I quickly realized that he simply did not understand what worship is for Catholics and Orthodox. For him, worship is about elevating one's feelings in a pious way -- and if you can get that emotional high in the Metaverse, it's no different from getting it at the megachurch, in meatspace. He truly could not comprehend why this doesn't work for Catholics and Orthodox, and thought that I was some kind of, well, Pharisee.
It ticked me off, because this guy didn't know what he didn't know. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that it's probably the case that more American Christians understand the faith more or less as that guy does than how I do. The worship service is fundamentally different for non-sacramental Protestants than for us sacramental Christians, for which there is no substitute for being physically present. For Protestants like him -- and by no means do I mean all Protestants! -- worship is about coming together to receive information and to experience emotional uplift. That's it. He has never conceived of it being anything else. That's why he rolled his eyes, literally, when I told him that during Covid, we Orthodox Christians who had to satisfy ourselves with watching the liturgy on video did not see this as in any way the equivalent of being present in church for the liturgy. Unsurprisingly, this man's theology of the Christian life had no respect for traditional modes of prayer. For him, everything was liquid. Whatever one did to feel the presence of God was sufficient. This is why he considered "going to church" in the Metaverse to be no different than going to church in real life.
Dreher wrote a follow-up with some interesting reactions from readers: “More ‘Church On Christmas’ Talk.”
Meanwhile, here is my takeaway from that, which I hope will underline what I see as the vague language in Times feature thesis statement.
Note that Dreher stresses, “and by no means do I mean all Protestants!”, when describing this divide. There’s the tricky bottom line: There are many different forms of Protestantism (to say the least) and journalists need to be careful to let readers know some of the differences, which in this case can shape Christmas worship or non-worship. And that’s the story, here.
That’s all for now. Here comes Christmas and my calendar is about to be full of worship services (if the coming winter storm allows us to gather as often as the liturgical calendar asks us to gather).
FIRST IMAGE: “Christmas Sunday” graphic featured at AmericanLutheran.Net
MAIN IMAGE: Illustration featured with the “Draped Christmas” page at the Church Stage Design Ideas website.