Friday, December 23, 2011
Keeping X in CHRISTMAS
History is not a cage, but it does give shape and structure to the future.
Linus would be the first to shake his head at all the fuss over "Xmas".
Xmas isn't secular in origin, its Christian.
All the rhetorical bar fights over this stem from the bigger problem within Christendom: poor, ineffective discipleship.
Important bits of knowledge have fallen off the wagon.
That's understandable. It's been a long journey. A lot of things got picked up along the way, squeezing more and more things off to the side and some things right onto the road.
Xmas. It's an acceptable abbreviation for Christmas used by Christians for more than 1,000 years. The hated "X" comes from the Greek letter Chi, which is the first letter of the Greek word Χριστός translated "Christ" - anointed one.
Xp or Xt were commonly used for CHRIST.
Xn is still found in the dictionary as an abbreviation for Christian.
As a GenX Christian, Xn is attractive to me.
It's a brand I can get behind. It speaks to a generation of Christians reclaiming primitive Christian thinking and lifestyle. A clear statement is made about the connection of those first generations of Christians who didn't presume to have it all figured out. Their dialogue had not yet been constricted by a double elimination bracket of winners.
Orthodoxy, for them, gravitated around the cross.
The Christ.
"Who do you say that I am?" Jesus infamously asked his disciple Peter.
Fisherman Simon. Disciple Peter. Apostle Peter. Saint Peter.
This kind of personal, spiritual journey begins with the answer to that question.
Gen X is boxed in at the center of the information age. Overwhelmed by data and hypothetical answers that change with every new text book as new discoveries pour in on us exponentially, this is a generation more comfortable living in the questions than pretending to have the answers.
That's why this Christmastide, this Xn will be keeping the X in Christmas.
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