Ethics

The Real War on Christmas

By Ed Brayton

Bruce Wilson has an article at the Huffington Post that details the history of the real war on Christmas - the one perpetrated by Christians. And not just Christians, but the very Protestant reformers that form the intellectual ancestry of most of the fundamentalist movements that cry about the alleged war on Christmas today.

But how did the "War on Christmas", as a concept, originate ? As it happens, once upon a time there was a real "War on Christmas" and it was initiated by the theocratic Christian right of its day, Swiss Calvinists and Scottish Presbyterians. Here's a short overview:

The "war on Christmas" traces back, historically, to Calvinist bans on the celebration of Christmas which began in Geneva and then migrated, with the spread of Calvinist theological views, to Scotland, where Christmas was banned in 1583.

Full post as published by Dispatches from the Culture Wars on November 27, 2008 (boomark / email).