Christmas is always one of my favorite times of the year.  It seems for a brief period, the whole world (or at least the United States) pauses from their fears and friction with others and their stinginess and generosity increases, even if it is just toward family and friends.  That’s probably why the Charles Dickens’ classic A Christmas Carol resonates.  Ebeneezer Scrooge’s miserly treatment of his employee seems particularly inappropriate at this time of year.  The brief period of giving and good will that happens at this time of year is but one of the many legacies we enjoy from the coming of Jesus into the world, whether one is a believer or not. 

My wife Diana really makes Christmas happen for us.  She gives careful and loving attention to the gift selection, the food preparation and decorations for house and table.  She has always been gifted as a communicator to children, first as a school teacher and later as an administrator at our Christian private school.  These gifts shine at this time of year, as she has brought wonderful traditions for our children and now grandchildren into the holidays.  As they say, ‘Christmas is about children.’

In my book Modern Paganism, I devote an entire chapter to how paganism and Christianity affect children differently.  Christianity was birthed out of ancient paganism, present in the Roman empire, and to our good, it replaced it.  My opening line in this chapter about children reads simply, “Paganism has always been cruel to children” (Chapter 8).  Children were property in ancient Rome, and could be disposed of at will.  I go into a good bit of detail in the chapter of the horrific moral environment children had to experience then, which makes us shudder even today.  The complete lack of moral boundaries brought the most suffering to women and children, as it does today when the guardrails are torn down that Christianity erected.  The weakest in society were given very little status and rights in a culture that praised physical strength, cunning, and self-fulfillment above all else.  The Advent of Christ, celebrated during the Christmas season, brought hope and light to humanity at large, and children in particular, that they could grow up in a home that was both morally and physically safe.  Christianity, as it replaced paganism, called men to the same standard of faithfulness in marriage that was required of women, bringing stability and an elevated moral quality to the home. 

The greatest gift we can give our children is stability and a moral standard that inspires them. 

As modern entertainment and later our school systems have sought to tear down the moral standards that Christianity has erected in our society, the first to receive the benefits of Christianity in ancient times, the children, are the first to suffer when modern paganism attempts to take its place as a moral system.  The moral boundaries that guarded the innocence and moral development of children are absent in a revived pagan society, not only defiling them but many times traumatizing them as they become victims of abuse.  Modern pagans, whose lives are governed by a philosophy of self-fulfillment and self-indulgence above everything else, justify the pain children have to endure in such a system as the inevitable result of having ‘personal freedom.’  Personal freedom has indeed become their god. 

Study after study has shown that children in two parent homes do better emotionally, academically, morally, and later economically.  Add to that the clear moral teachings of Christianity that are lived out in the home, and their chances of drug use, sexual activity, and depression dramatically decrease as well.  Christianity brought high moral standards to personal behavior in general, and to marriage in particular, thus creating the cement that binds families together.  We are aware that many one parent homes exist today through no fault of the parent, who themselves are victims of selfishness and unfaithfulness.  And there are many single parents who are setting noble examples of Christian faith and behavior.   But they themselves will tell you it is an uphill struggle and they have to do the work of two parents. 

There are great rewards to replacing selfishness with the self-denial required to obey the teachings of scripture, not the least of which is seeing the effect in our children.  The pagan definition of love is ‘whatever makes me feel good.’  The Biblical definition is doing that which is in someone else’s best interest in spite of the inconvenience and even sacrifice that may be required on my part.  The strength of our nation has been the strength of numberless multitudes of families who have replaced convenience with covenant, first toward God, and then toward each other, not just in random acts of kindness, but where it counts, in committed relationships.  This sense of covenant, which is a commitment to the other based on eternal values, creates a warm nurturing security blanket for children like nothing else.  A child is always watching, listening, observing.  When they see a parent who is committed to eternal truths and values that transcend not only a selfish culture, but the fickleness of even their own human emotions and human nature in general, it gives them a north star of guidance like nothing else.

Blessed are those children, not just at Christmas, but all year round.