Jeff, as for the lawyer thing, I usually give fair warning, as I have a tendency to slip into cross-examination mode. I’ve been told that’s a bit off-putting.

Of course, I’ve met Catholic students who, bless their little hearts, couldn’t distinguish between “venerating” and “worshipping”, so I suppose that’s part of the problem too.

New York is not a godless town! Not at all! I love New York! In my mind, if one cannot find God in New York City, then one is avoiding God.

Plus, I’m a lawyer, so I *will* bug the crap out of you if you don’t provide a straight answer.

I, too, am a lawyer. Well, that is one of my occupations anyway. I try to leave a lot of the lawyer stuff out of blogging and commenting, though. That’s just my personal preference.

Jeff JP

Hello.

I can’t answer for Hugo, but the distinction you mention has always struck me as rather odd. I have heard–and read–some strange explanations for the purported distinction, but I have yet to find one that is not rooted in some deep anti-Catholic prejudice.

I suppose one could point to the ecclesiastical abuses that led to the Reformation, but that’s a rather specious argument IMHO. The Roman Catholic Church today is very different from the Roman Catholic Church of Martin Luther’s day. Moreover, the same people who claim that Catholics are not Christians almost always discard the Orthodox branch of Christianity, too.

Perhaps Hugo can shed some light on the issue, but the “Christian vs. Catholic” issue has always been rooted in bigotry that is the antithesis of what Jesus taught. Those who claim Catholics are not Christians tend to follow some rather extreme interpretations of the Bible. The problem with such interpetations is that they allow for no historical or cultural context that accounts for the language chosen and the ideas emphasized in the scriptures. Furthermore, the extremist interpretations can be used to justify all kinds of hatred and abuses.

I remember noticing a sign on a (presumably) Baptist church in Brooklyn stating that this was a “Bible-believing Church” and being baffled that any church that considered itself tethered to either the Old or New Testaments would consider itself NOT a “Bible-believing Church.”

I don’t know for sure, but I think they were referring to the “sola scriptura” maxim of Martin Luther, which rejected “sacred tradition” as a form of divine revelation. The “tradition” persists in Roman Catholic teaching to this day. However, in the churches that broke away from the Catholic hierarchy in the days of Martin Luther and John Calvin, scripture was considered to be *the* revelation and “tradition” had no place in church teachings. That approach was not unreasonable, given that traditions had been used to justify practices like the indulgences that drove Martin Luther to the point of exasperation. Indulgences, once intended to be a form of spiritual reward for pious and charitable practices, had, by Luther’s time, degenerated into a form of church-sanctioned extortion whereby one could effective purchase “salvation” by donating money to their local priest or church.

Today, when churches claim to be “Bible-believing” or “Bible-teaching,” I’m fairly sure they mean that they reject extra-scriptural forms of divine revelation and focus strictly on the Bible as “the word of God.”

From an intellectual perspective, I have many problems with that approach. Given human nature as it is, it’s very hard for me to countenance a “god” who could create humanity–supposedly in his “image and likeness”–and who could impose so very many restrictions on his own revelation! That doesn’t make sense to me.

The most striking example I know of is the “creation vs. evolution” controversy. Many, if not most, of the strict “Bible-believing” groups deny that evolution is even possible. They reject Charles Darwin’s hypotheses about variation within species and natural selection and substitute the Genesis account of creation for Darwin’s theory. The problem, of course, is that the real world must become an illusion, if the Genesis account is to be literally true.

Moreover, instead of asking honest questions about whether natural selection operates over very long periods of time (as opposed to what we see today in bacteria that become resistant to even the most powerful antibiotics), the literalists reject the entire possibility of evolution and end up alienating the very people they hope to convert. Literalists of any religion make me crazy.

HTH

Jeff JP

But, again, I asked a serious question, lest you all think that New York is a godless town (heck, we probably have more places of worship than the rest of the US put together).

Plus, I’m a lawyer, so I *will* bug the crap out of you if you don’t provide a straight answer.

I’m so disappointed.

I asked you a legitimate question (actually, a couple). I understand more about how Christmas has become a secular holiday (I just finished “The Namesake,” by Jhumpa Lahiri, which features an immigrant Indian family who embraces secular Christmas as a way of assimilating, even without believing in Christ.

But. I don’t get how someone at least nominally, and currently, Christian can make distinctions. Exactly what I asked was how “Christians,” whoever they may be (and I really, honestly don’t know whoever they may be) can exclude Catholics from their definition of “Christian.” I remember noticing a sign on a (presumably) Baptist church in Brooklyn stating that this was a “Bible-believing Church” and being baffled that any church that considered itself tethered to either the Old or New Testaments would consider itself NOT a “Bible-believing Church.”

I mean, if’n you got a coherent ideology/justification, please do articulate. If’n you don’t, well, what’s your basis?

Hello.

It sounds like your dear mother is one of the best persons from whom to learn about Christmas and, indeed, about Jesus Himself.

(She read Bertrand Russell in college and that did it.)

YMMV. I read Bertrand Russell in college and I felt my faith to be even stronger after the experience. Nevertheless, perhaps reading Mr. Russell’s writing was just the tip of the iceberg. In any event, you can learn all manner of things about Christ from the mother you call a “non-believer.” Actually, I’m quite confident that she’s a believer. She just believes in a different way. May she always know her blessing and be happy.

For us, Christmas was about lights, about carols, about gifts, about chocolate, and of course, the tree.

Indeed. Christmas is about all of these things.

As a child and indeed, even as a Christian adult, “Christmas” is the tree.

It’s interesting that you appear to draw a distinction between a “child” and a “Christian adult.”

We are a “Douglas fir with small white non-blinking lights” family. In my childhood, one knew of families with noble firs and colored lights (or, worst of all, flocked trees), but it was understood that they were Not Our Kind of People (NOKOP). One of my cousins actually married a woman from a colored light family, and this was considered far more controversial than a mere interracial union.

Sounds like people with WAY too much time on their hands. :)

My mother’s Christmas tree is a veritable work of art, with well over 1000 ornaments and seven or eight strands of lights.

Please post photos, if you can. It sounds like quite an impressive decoration.

Though I have found none, I still hope to have chinchilla-themed Christmas ornaments; if anyone has seen such on the ‘net, let me know!

Here’s one:

http://www.cafepress.com/chinchillapet/19187

I’m not going to get into the tiresome “Catholic/Christian” argument.

Good, because there’s really no good argument worth happening about it.

I’m always amazed by how many folks see these as an authentic dyad.

What they see is a way to justify their own refusal to let go of some very un-Christlike prejudices.

In my ancient history classes, we always do remedial work around the issue. Tangentially, one of my students once asked me if “catholic” had anything do with “alcoholic”; she had looked at the last five letters and were convinced that a relationship had to exist.

Please tell me this was not a college student.

Jeff JP