The winter holidays may verge on overload, with their frantic errands and taxing traditions–at least for many subscribers to the season in the US, where a “Merry Christmas” or “Happy Holidays” precedes a hasting away to the next to-do. Wherever be the origins of such perfectly unseasonal demands for hurry and unnecessary stress (brr!), they are no reason to deny a moment for pondering the Christ in Christmas, and in due course the broader and more syncretical implications. Miracle and mystery define the Advent and Christmas seasons. The occasion is the birth of God on Earth–of a virgin mother! This allegorical event is inherently revolutionary, as well as offering an axis on which more ample discussions may turn.*
Conveniently enough, I embarked on Richard Norman’s The Moral Philosophers (1998) as Advent began this year. Norman’s opening explanations on Conventions and Nature in the context of the Sophists–Socrates notwithstanding–could not have found me at a better time. In short, Conventions are social norms. They are important and useful, but may beget moral relativism† and other shortcomings, owing to their potential, if not habitual, dissonance with that which may be described Nature. Nature here refers to metamoral examinations of the ironies and imperfections of ethics as applied by human beings in real situations. Frustrating or even impossible though they may be, the ethics and morals of Nature aim for reason and universal truth. They do not settle for the nominal authority of cultural comforts. It occurred to me, Jesus lives for exactly this occasion.
He is born in a most improbable way, jolting one’s expectation. Not only in birth but in life, death, and resurrection He evokes all that is new, even inexplicable. Therefore Christmas is the beginning of a break with convention. Jesus was a devout Jew before he was the Messiah. He inspired over 2,000 years of Biblical exegesis and inquiry both ecumenical and interfaith. Injustices notwithstanding, it is no daring statement to call the history of Christianity complex, colorful, or collaborative.
Society evolves and debate brings new views on old principles. As a symbol, the virgin birth of Jesus breaks one’s expectations of that which is possible and necessary, signaling freshness and purity of spirit. Following this miraculous birth, God is now among us. In other words, we are in the immediate company of that which unites us all–truth, beauty, the greater good. Thus Christianity is, at its best, an eagerness to confront the problematic situations our Conventions may pose, and invite all that is just and lovesome into our lives on all levels–individual, joint, and collective.
It only follows that diversity and plurality are part and parcel of this continuing conversation. There is no demand for tradition to fall; this is rather an invitation to live metamorally and in ways that encourage learning and growth. No miracles for miracles’ sake or in order to drag on with the customary. We need teaching tools and a willingness to learn.
* As a cursory reference to religions besides Christianity, the following Wikipedia page offers some points of departure. As should always be the case with Wikipedia, the following citation is not to be taken as the final word on a given question. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miraculous_births
† Moral relativism is a view, on questions of right and wrong, that does not go beyond comparisons. For example, to deem something evil is nearly impossible, owing to such a thing’s acceptability in a certain context. One may only state that this thing seems evil to someone unacquainted with the sociocultural context in which the apparently evil act is right at home.