Christmas legends

I haven't been officially 'working' since semester finished towards the end of October, and I've found that the relative loss of structure in the week has made me much less efficient. The regularity of my blog posts has certainly suffered! But here I am, 3 days before Christmas, determined to make at least one more post before the year is out (actually I have a few more ideas up my sleeve so I might just get another one out before the end of the year!).

I've been doing a lot of carol-singing in the lead-up to Christmas this year, which is rather fun. Last night I sang in the foyer of a local RSL club with the choir I've been singing with for years. After we sang the song 'Little Donkey', I heard one of the tenors objecting that there was no mention of a donkey in Luke's gospel (which is true) but "they were all legends anyway so it doesn't matter". My hackles rose, and at that point I was struck by the combination of songs that we hear around us at Christmas, in every shopping centre and public place. There is such a mingling of truth and fiction that it's no wonder people are confused between legend and history.

From the songs we sang last night, 'Frosty the Snowman', Santa Claus' (at least the concept originating from a Coca Cola campaign of the 30s), 'Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer' - all these are fictitious characters. And yet there are attempts in the lyrics of the songs to lend historical validity to them. 'Rudolph' is sung about in past tense as if the story is being told by an eyewitness: 'Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer had a very shiny nose, and if you ever saw it, you would even say it glows. All of the other reindeer used to laugh and call him names...'. In 'Frosty the Snowman', an attempt is made to downplay they mythical sense of the story, and to invoke children as the true 'knowers': 'Frosty the snowman was a fairytale, they say. He was made of snow, but the children know how he came to life one day'. In 'Santa Claus is Coming to Town'.

Interestingly, all these songs were written in the twentieth century driven by a commercial imperative. The Wikipedia entry for Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer has this telling sentence: 'Although the story and song are not public domain, Rudolph has become a figure of Christmas folklore.' The story is 'owned' by a company, 'The Rudolph Company'! 'Frosty the Snowman' was written in 1950 and recorded by the same person who released the first recording of 'Rudolph', who, according to Wikipedia, was "in search of another seasonal hit". Frosty even has a MySpace page, which lists friends such as 'Santa' and 'SNOW', 'where children of all ages from all over the world can write to their favorite snowman' (Wikipedia)! 'Santa Claus is coming to town', after being released in November 1934, "became an instant hit with orders for 100,000 copies of sheet music the next day and more than 400,000 copies sold by Christmas".

Whatever the motivation, these and other Christmas songs (like this incredibly cheesy one I heard a while ago - Here Comes Suzy Snowflake!) have certainly captured the imagination of children in many English-speaking countries. But I worry that as the public imagination is engaged by these clearly fictional songs, the Christmas songs, both old and new, that relate the true story of Jesus (e.g. Hark the Herald Angels Sing, The First Nowell, Silent Night, Holy Lamb of God) are increasingly lumped in with the fictional 'Christmas folklore'.

There may be few historical records beyond the gospel of Luke that record and give evidence of the circumstances of Jesus' birth in Bethlehem. But there are plenty of historical records to substantiate the gospel claims of Jesus' earthly works, his death, and his resurrection (see e.g. historical surveys in Morison's 'Who Moved the Stone?', Dickson's 'The Christ Files'). And by these and the Spirit of God in me, I am convinced that Jesus is the Son of God. I am therefore inclined to believe that what Luke's gospel says about Jesus' birth is more than just legend. A God who can raise someone from the dead can surely make a virgin birth happen. And A God who can do all that and who gave His Son as a gift to all people, none of whom had been 'good', is much more worthy of my attention than a snowman who dissolves when the temperature goes up, a reindeer with a glowing red nose, or an old chubby guy with a beard who gives gifts once a year to children who have been good.

Lots of ex-CITE-ment

Last week I had the pleasure of attending the Cite Jesus conference for the third time (see posts about the previous Cite conferences). Cite is the annual national conference for Christians working in academia (the Simeon Network), whether as lecturers/professors, researchers or postgraduate students. Around 35 academics, researchers and postgraduate students met alongside the 1500 undergraduate students at the AFES National Training Event in Canberra. The Cite delegates came from universities in Sydney, Bathurst, Wollongong, Newcastle, Brisbane, Melbourne, and Canberra. Hopefully next year we'll have people from all the other states and territories, too.

The 5-day Cite conference was focused around 3 strands: Doctrine, Public Christianity and Overseas Mission. In the 'overseas mission' strand, we heard from a number of academics working (or preparing to work) as missionaries in universities around the world. In particular, we heard from three Australian academics - Dr Neville Carr and his wife Elspeth, and Dr Judy Lund - who have been working at St Johns University in Tanzania - a new Christian university, only 4 years old, which was set up by the Anglican church in Tanzania. The Carrs and Dr Lund helped us think through what a 'Christian' university might look like in practice and what our disciplines might look like through a gospel lens.

 They also impressed on us the great needs at the university, operating as it does in a developing country where material resources are scarce (think Internet cable, library books, classrooms, money for field trips), locals with PhDs are extremely rare, and the immediate material needs of the students often mean that attending classes (which is beneficial in the longer term) has to be sacrificed in order to work or harvest or care for family members in rural villages (which is absolutely necessary in the short term). But the need for higher education is great, particularly in teacher education, agriculture and other fields that will help provide for and improve the lives of the Tanzanian people in the longer term. The Carrs and Dr Lund estimate that it could be another 10 years before the university can achieve some stability in terms of staffing, resources and student attendance.

So what can be done? There are some Tanzanian students currently completing doctoral studies overseas with a view to returning to St Johns as academic staff, but this obviously takes time. So there is a great need for foreigners with PhDs to go to Tanzania to teach and help build up the curriculum (see e.g. Malcolm Buchanan and his family who went there with CMS last year). If you don't have a PhD, you could help out by purchasing a length of broadband cable (1m or 5m)! The Tanzanian government is apparently setting up a fibre optic internet backbone for universities around the country, which is great, but the university needs to purchase fibre optic cable to establish a network on campus which can link up to the backbone outside the campus boundaries. Maybe it would make a thoughtful gift for someone you know who is an internet addict!