Binding: Hardcover
Description: An Anglican priest hands out brass knuckles to his congregation to guard his church from anti - Christmas fanatics. Fascists insist that the real Christmas is the Winter Solstice while Communists stage atheist musicals outside of churches on Christmas Eve. Activists vandalize shops that set out holiday advertising in October and anti - consumerists sing parody carols in shopping malls. Is there such a thing as a War on Christmas? As Gerry Bowler demonstrates in this entertaining book there is and always has been a War or rather several wars on Christmas. Christmas a global phenomenon adored by billions and a backbone of international trade is the biggest single event on the planet. For Christians it is the second - most sacred date on the calendar. But whether one celebrates it or not it engages billions of people who are caught up in its commercialism music sentiment travel and frenetic busyness. Since its controversial invention in the Roman Empire Christmas has struggled with paganism popular culture fierce Christian opposition to its celebration its abolition in Scotland and New England and its neglect and near - death experience in the 1700s only to be miraculously reinvented in the 1800s. The twentieth century saw it opposed by Bolsheviks twisted by Hitler and appropriated by every special interest group in the industrialized world. Lately it has been caught up in the cultural struggles between the left and the right in America often misinterpreted as a war on Christmas when the fight is really over whether religion in general will be allowed a public face. Gerry Bowler tells the fascinating story of the tug - of - war over Christmas replete with cross - dressing priests ranting Puritans atheist witches the League of the Militant Godless aesthetic terrorists in Quebec and rap - singing Santa killers in Spain.
Title: Christmas In The Crosshairs Two Thousand Years Of Denouncing And Defending The World's Most Celebrated Holiday
Author(s): Bowler Gerry (Professor Of History Professor Of History University Of Manitoba)
Publisher: Oxford University Press Inc
Barcode: 9780190499006
Pages: 312 Pages, 21
Publication Date: 10/13/2016
Category: Cultural Studies