It looks to me as if by far the best explanation for the Dec. 25 date is NOT Roman holidays, but that it’s 9 months after the estimated date of the Crucifixion. Thus, it is not a good argument against Christmas that it is pagan,tho one might argue that it’s papist.

That’s… that’s putting it lightly. But, I think we’re both citing him more for rhetorical effect than for biographical accuracy (seriously, how could you really describe the man?). For what it’s worth, I can think of no better way to honor our mutual acquaintance than to use him to add force to argument.

Thank you for your generous well-wishes. We have had a peaceful Advent, and have had much occasion to think of you and yours. Your host was especially impressed with your lovely wife, and spoke of her glowingly to us. A friend also lent us a copy of an interview you did with Mars Hill, and we listened to it just last night. Certainly brought back memories.

Blessings and peace.

As to the substance of your comments, Matthew Milliner has an interesting post that ties in nicely to your comments: http://millinerd.com/2009/12/christendoms-ghost.html

I, personally, would argue that the essence of Christmas is, and has always been, its emphasis on common sacramentality. That is, not an emphasis on the final union of God and man, or the perfection of Christ in heaven, but the quiet intimations of God’s presence that can be found in the basic, the ordinary, and the human.

Thus, the young man’s contrarian theological position belies a deep, underlying sympathy for what Christmas is meant to celebrate. He recognizes the goodness of children and the goodness of beer. He spends his days working passionately at St. Joseph’s profession. The joy in these things is meant to be illuminated by the Christmas season as intimations of God’s goodness and His presence.

Nonetheless, I remember growing up in the 70s and 80s when the church, allegedly post-Vatican II, was trying to update itself to the democratizing and modernizing and Americanizing tendencies of divine worship. To be sure, I never experienced the stereotypical singing nun (but I did have Sister Peggy who decided t take us on a “trip” one time in our minds), but my experience was close enough in that I was taught by a nun (the same Sister Peggy) that Bob Dylan was a spiritual singer–and indeed he is so and even more.

being a neophyte in such matters at the time, I didn’t know what all the fuss was all about. I had no basis from which to discriminate. I simply liked good music, for instance, that spoke to my soul. I remember singing songs like “Go Tell It on the Mountain” which Peter reminds us is an old “Negro” Christmas spiritual song. I suspect that this experience, as well as as singing “Were You There When They Nailed Him to the Tree” at Easter, made me amenable to arguments defending an immensely particular version of the universal message of Christmas (and Easter too).

The strange thing is that this was a school mostly white, with a lot of Hispanic kids, and a few black kids, singing old Negro spirituals. I would like to think that I am sophisticated enough to give an account regarding why I sing what and what is good music.

I can’t do this. I only know that “Go Tell it On the Mountain” is a beautiful tune. And if it is laden with the 400 years of oppression and violence, than I must say that when it was introduced to me, it was a song of joy and liberation which spoke to my childlike soul. I still think this to be the case.