In the Catholic League’s latest press release, Bill Donohue argues that the major divinity schools are ignoring Christmas because they don’t have Christmas pictures on their websites and list few if any Christmas services on their calendars. He mentions Harvard, Yale, Chicago, Emory, Duke, and Vanderbilt. Ah, one thinks at first, a very good point—but it’s not. It’s grossly unfair.
One ought to be skeptical just from the inclusion of Duke in his list, Duke the home of Paul Griffiths, Reinhard Huetter, Kavin Row, Stanley Hauerwas, Richard Hays, and Geoffrey Wainwright, all of whom have written for First Things, among many other good people. It’s absurd to think that the divinity school is ignoring Christmas, with the imputation of secularist commitments that is supposed to imply.
And indeed, the two criteria don’t prove anything of the sort. Like the websites of almost every similar institution, seminary websites have a set form that they don’t change from season to season. They’re not decorated with pictures. They’re not creative enterprises. That’s not what they’re for. Look, for example, at the websites of Gordon-Conwell and St. Vladimir’s. They’re no more Christmasy than those of Duke etc.
December 13th, 2012 | 4:49 pm
Thanks, David! I’m an alumnus of Yale Divinity School, and unless things have changed dramatically since my day, I can assure Bill Donohue and the Catholic League that there’s no shortage of Christmas spirit. A tree in the common room, departmental wine and cheese receptions, decorations in the offices, cards and gifts for the housekeeping and buildings and ground staff, and so on.
But it’s a school! Pretty much everything shuts down for the week or so between Christmas and New Year’s! There are no Christmas services because the students are gone and the faculty and staff have their own parishes to go to.
I’m a Magisterial Catholic, and I’m happy to criticize liberal Protestantism when it goes astray. But in this case, Bill Donohue has missed the point.
December 13th, 2012 | 5:28 pm
Good grief, why is Mr. Mills carrying water for the divinity schools? Mr. Donahue is entirely correct, at last when it comes to Harvard Divinity School. Their calendar of all events in the next month show seminars on Sanskrit (12/13) and Science & Religion (12/13), then nothing until January 10th, and that has nothing to do with Christmas or even Epiphany either. Sanskrit but nothing scheduled about Jesus Christ. How is that possible? Mr. Mills rationalization that divinity-school websites have a set form and are not creative enterprises is simultaneously lame and risible i the face of such indifference. Plus, he’s pretty much wrong as to the facts as well. Please, visit the HDS website and observe the very fancy videography heralding an upcoming lecture by—wait for it—Toni Morrison. Someone had to put that thing and numerous other bells and whistles together. Mr. Donahue, you will remember, is “unfair.” Also, a December calendar is displayed for the visitor’s convenience, but Christmas Day is in no way marked, highlighted, or distinguished. The sole information with regard to the date available therein is that December 25th is a Tuesday. But Mr. Donahue is “unfair.” Just to be sure, I used the HDS search tool, typed in Christmas events and received the bald-faced reply “No such events.” The exact same situation is in evidence at Yale Divinity School the situation is somewhat improved: on December 6th, it seems, there was an hour-and-a-half Advent Service. That was pretty much it. And Mr. Donahue is unfair.
What explains Mr. Mills’ need to stand up in defense—indignant defense, mind you—for a place like HDS, the staff and faculty of which in all likelihood regard “First Things” with utter indifference and possibly worse? I confess that I’m baffled. It puts me in mind of battered-wife syndrome, if that is not to be disallowed as “unfair.” I have not looked at the other divinity-school sites, but what is on offer at HDS and YDS is more than enough to support Mr. Donahue’s overall point: The enthusiasm of elite divinity schools regarding the birth of Jesus Christ stinks.
Now, there is certainly no pressing reason for anyone, off his own bat as it were, to go out of his way to criticize Harvard Divinity School for its celebration of Christmas as the fourth Tuesday of December this year; but that is not what Mr. Mills has done. He DID go out of his way to rebut Mr. Donahue’s reasonable and, in my opinion, accurate characterization of the attitudes, de haut en bas, of influential divinity schools, towards the birth of the man whose mission on earth is the reason such places exist to begin with. Mr. Donohue, in my opinion, is neither unfair nor is he the problem here.
December 13th, 2012 | 6:13 pm
Because, Mr. Sansonese, the criticism is unfair, as I showed, I think, with the examples of thoroughly conservative seminaries who could just as easily be accused of the same thing on the same evidence. I was not implying any general endorsement of Harvard Divinity School.
Christians need to be punctiliously careful in their criticisms of others, both because truthfulness and charity require it — which should by itself be sufficient reason — and because unfair criticisms weaken their effect when they do have something important to say. And other conservatives need to comment when their allies are not so careful.
One word about the evidence. Of course the HDS website includes, within its set form, something on an upcoming lecture. That’s one of the things the website is for, advancing the school’s events. But that’s different from putting up pictures of Christmas, which, again, perfectly orthodox schools didn’t do.
December 13th, 2012 | 6:57 pm
Joe Sansonese:
I graduated from Yale Divinity School several years ago, and I’m now pursuing further graduate study at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit–which by anyone’s definition is an orthodox Roman Catholic institution. I just followed your search methodology at the Sacred Heart methodology, and got ONE return for 2012. And that was the institutional calendar noting that offices are closed for Christmas on December 24. Yet no one could reasonably say “the enthusiasm of [of this reputable Catholic seminary] regarding the birth of Jesus Christ stinks.”
Rather, I’d suggest that criticizing a place because its website lists no holiday observances during a holiday recess is a flawed critique!
December 13th, 2012 | 7:34 pm
Joe Sansonese,
You say:
However, no “upcoming lecture” is being heralded. The site is reporting on an event that took place earlier this month:
See Wikipedia for more on the Ingersoll Lectures, which have taken place annually since 1896.
Are you suggesting that Toni Morrison is somehow not good enough to deliver a lecture at Harvard Divinity School?
December 14th, 2012 | 7:14 am
I don’t know about Duke, Yale, and Harvard, but here is my post about the e-holiday card from Vanderbilt Divinity School: http://frbaker.blogspot.com/2012/12/i-hope-this-post-is-not-too-snarky.html
December 14th, 2012 | 8:39 am
Are there still people around who take Bill Donohue seriously?
December 14th, 2012 | 8:45 am
FWIW, here’s the front page of the calendar that I find when googling “Duke Divinity School:”
http://divinity.duke.edu/calendar
It lists:
- a christmas concert
- a candlelight open house at Duke Chapel
- a note that field education students are excused for Christmas break.
- a Christmas Eve children’s service
- a Christmas Eve service of carols and Holy Communion
- a Christmas Eve worship service
December 14th, 2012 | 9:37 am
“However, no ‘upcoming lecture’ is being heralded.”
A distinction without a difference. If you believe that the inclusion of that one word has any bearing on the point I was making, then you obviously are capable of believing anything.
“Are you suggesting that Toni Morrison is somehow not good enough to deliver a lecture at Harvard Divinity School?”
You are obtuse. I am suggesting—no—I am flat out stating that they are a perfect fit: one more impostor among hundreds.
By the way, two weeks ago you suggested that if I thought your posts were “laughably dishonest” we should stop addressing each other’s writings. Sell, I still think they are, but you keep posting to me. That was YOUR suggestion and, for a change, an excellent one. I had completely stopped reading your postings and, remarkably enough, seem none the worse for it (though I miss the belly laughs).
Now, for the second time, you have decided to address me. I’ll make one, FINAL suggestion: Take your own advice if that is not too much trouble.
December 14th, 2012 | 6:33 pm
Christmas is a pretty secular holiday at this point with Christian, capitalist, and pagan undertones.
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