According to a recent poll, four out of ten Americans believe there is War on Christmas.[1] This idea is gaining traction beyond the original cohort of Trump supporters and has become yet another cudgel in these politically combative times.  Supply-chain disruptions, inflation, omicron, and the furious debates over mask and vaccine mandates are enough to make Christmas 2021 feel not very merry.  I believe, however, that there is way for us to come together over what “Merry Christmas” can mean to all Americans.  It will always be an expression of religious belief for Christians, but it can also be viewed as a positive and hopeful value statement for all Americans.  Call this a Merry Christmas compromise.

The American founders knew about the importance of compromise.  High school students learn that our Constitution would not have been written if the delegates at the Convention had been unable to compromise.  Unfortunately, compromise has become a weak sounding word. To compromise means to concede; to lose ground and let the other side gain some points.  The founders knew, however, that compromise was not about losing.  It was about rising above differences, finding the place where we all share the same cardinal values, and moving forward. Americans will never be in lockstep on every point, but there is a greater good to which we can all agree.  In 1789 it was “to create a more perfect Union.”   With some help from Thomas Jefferson, who thought deeply about more topics than just about anyone, I would like to focus on the central message of Jesus that transcends religion.  Saying “Merry Christmas” can be about celebrating the birth of a man who knew a lot about what it takes to form a more perfect union.  

These are the facts that are generally agreed to by historians.  Sometime between 6-4 BCE Jesus was born.  He was a devout Jew who traveled and preached lessons of love and peace around the hinterlands of Galilee between roughly  27 and 33 CE.  He got on the wrong side of the law and was executed.  Other details of his story, to say the least, have been up for debate.  Jefferson is well known for the parts of the story that he rejected, but he believed in Jesus’s message. Jefferson wrote:

His moral doctrines, relating to kindred and friends, were more pure and perfect than those of the most correct of the philosophers… and they went far beyond… inculcating universal philanthropy, not only to kindred and friends, to neighbors and countrymen; but to all mankind, gathering all into one family, under the bonds of love, charity, peace, and common wants and common aids.[2] 

That’s a pretty good Merry Christmas message for 2021 to which we could all agree!

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[1] https://www.fdu.edu/news/belief-in-war-on-christmas-bigger-than-ever-nationally/

[2] Doctrines of Jesus Compared with Others, 21 April 1803 (archives.gov)