20 December 2005
“‘It is kind of heartening, I think, for Christians to see this, all this outrage, all this fear at Christmastime.'” Conservative MSNBC host Tucker Carlson lauds the ability of Christianity to “‘still give people the creeps'” — his words — and the religious ire raised during the season of peace as proof that the religion of love isn’t dead. All snark aside, in a refreshingly smart piece, Washington Post reporter Neely Tucker looks into a couple of the much-ballyhooed “attacks” on Christmas and, within two phone calls, finds that they tend to be mistaken, false, or taken grossly out of context. (I.e., the playwright responsible for “The Little Christmas Tree” controversy — the elementary school play in which the persecution-rumor chain claimed that the song “Silent Night” had been de-Christianized — was the music director of the Reagans’ church for decades, and the reworded song — reworded because it’s sung by the little tree — is accompanied by other Christian carols.) What’s motivating the war-talk then? The same misplaced nostalgia and frustration with multiculturalism, Tucker writes, that drives most culture sniping: an idyllic idea of a past that never really existed, though the idea itself — that things used to be better — has always been with us.