It’s Time to Take the Christ Out of Christmas :: Argumentative Persuasive Argument Essays

Its Time to Take the Christ Out of Christmas Christmas in America is an exuberant display of human ingenuity, capitalist productivity, and the usage of life. Yet all of these are castigated as materialistic the real meaning of the pass, we are told, is assorted Nativity tales and altruist injunctions (e.g., love thy neighbor) that no one takes seriously.In fact, Christmas as we celebrate it today is a 19th-century American invention. The freedom and prosperity of post Civil War America created the happiest nation in history. The result was the impulse to celebrate, to revel in the goods and pleasures of life on earth. Christmas (which was non a federal holiday until 1870) became the in the lead American outlet for this feeling.Historically, people have always illustrious the winter solstice as the time when the days begin to lengthen, indicating the earths return to life. Ancient Romans feasted and reveled during the festival of Saturnalia. Early Christians condemned these Roma n celebrations--they were waiting for the end of the world and had only detest for earthly pleasures. By the fourth century the pagans were worshipping the god of the sun on December 25, and the Christians came to a decision if you cant stop em, join em. They claimed (contrary to known fact) that the date was Jesus rescueday, and usurped the solstice holiday for their Church.Even after the Christians stole Christmas, they were ambivalent about it. The holiday was inherently a pro-life festival of earthly renewal, but the Christians preached renunciation, sacrifice, and concern for the next world, not this one. As Cotton Mather, an 18th-century clergyman, put it Can you in your consciences think that our Holy Savior is honored by mirth? . . . Shall it be said that at the birth of our Savior . . . we take time . . . to do actions that have much more of hell than of heaven in them?Then came the major developments of 19th-century capitalism industrialization, urbanization, the triumph of science--all of it leading to easy transportation, efficient mail delivery, the widespread publishing of books and magazines, new inventions making life comfortable and exciting, and the rise of entrepreneurs who understood that the way to make a receipts was to produce something good and sell it to a mass market.For the first time, the giving of gifts became a major feature of Christmas. Early Christians denounced gift-giving as a Roman practice, and Puritans called it diabolical.