A Sure Fire Way To Make People Angry Every Christmas

So I recently wrote about 5 of the theologically worst Christmas carols ever. Interestingly, I was not the only person thinking about this topic.

Peter Leithart wrote, “How N.T. Wright Stole Christmas” to help us see that if we take the Bible’s Jesus on his own first-century terms, we have to throw out many of our Christmas songs.

Leithart concludes:

I suggest a moratorium on new Christmas hymns, until we all learn the Magnificat and the Benedictus and the Nunc Dimittis so much by heart that they seep out our fingers at the keyboard, until we instinctively sing of Jesus’ birth like Mary, like Zecharias, like Simeon.

Then Chaplain Mike, filling in for the iMonk, piggybacked off Leithart’s article to ask whether this was indeed the case.

Mike asks:

Are we missing the fullness of the Gospel in our Christmas hymnody?

There you have it, folks. Asking questions like Mike’s and making statements like Peter’s are sure fire ways to get people angry at Christmas time. We don’t like to have our traditions examined or challenged.

Granted, I might be wrong about the Christmas carol thing. I might be overstating my case to make a point. But I might be right, too. We won’t know if we refuse to examine our traditions–even our most cherished ones.

So in the Spirit of making friends instead of enemies, let me offer some Christmas songs you should consider using next year:

• “Rejoice,” from the Sovereign Grace Christmas CD, Savior
• “Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence,” a good text from the 5th century, and the Picardy tune isn’t too bad either
• “Jesus Is Coming (Sing Alleluia),” a new song for me this year, by Bruce Benedict: PDF
• In fact, most of the songs here.