Gene Veith over at World Magazine reminds us that the source for today's Santa was anything but a jolly fat man. In addition to his habit of dropping gold into the stockings of the deserving , St. Nicholas of Myra was also a staunch defender of Christ.
Veith writes:
"He was also a delegate to the Council of Nicea in a.d. 325, which battled the heretics who denied the deity of Christ. He was thus one of the authors of the Nicene Creed, which affirms that Jesus Christ is both true God and true man. And unlike his later manifestation, Nicholas was particularly zealous in standing up for Christ.
During the Council of Nicea, jolly old St. Nicholas got so fed up with Arius, who taught that Jesus was just a man, that he walked up and slapped him! That unbishoplike behavior got him in trouble. The council almost stripped him of his office, but Nicholas said he was sorry, so he was forgiven.
The point is, the original Santa Claus was someone who flew off the handle when he heard someone minimizing Christ. Perhaps we can battle our culture's increasingly Christ-less Christmas by enlisting Santa in his original cause. The poor girls' stockings have become part of our Christmas imagery. So should the St. Nicholas slap.
Not a violent hit of the kind that got the good bishop in trouble, just a gentle, admonitory tap on the cheek. This should be reserved not for out-and-out nonbelievers, but for heretics (that is, people in the church who deny its teachings), Christians who forget about Jesus, and people who try to take Christ out of Christmas."
Veith is on to something here. So in the spirit of the True Saint Nick...
ACLU (Slap)
Mega Church Closers (Slap)
Holiday Tree-ers (Slap)
Silent Night Re-Writers (Slap)
Nativity Nay-sayers (Slap)
Anyone else?
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