The Dark Side of Christmas
Amy Welborn re-posted her link to this awesome piece published last year on NRO. And Rachel on her own blog pulled out this money quote
This brought to mind a play that was staged at my college years ago, The Butterfingers Angel, Mary and Joseph, Herod the Nut, and the Slaughter of 12 Hit Carols in a Pear Tree. I had to email pd to get the title right. This play by William Gibson is sometimes maligned for the usual reasons a "re-imagining" of the Christian story would be, except obviously this play was never meant to be a substitute for truth. But Amy's essay, re-reading it this year, brought back memories of this play, in which my lao peng you and sometime-commenter pd was cast as the Angel sent to earth to convince Mary to have this baby. At the very end, if my memory is correct, the Butterfingers Angel conceals himself as a tree. I think it is from Herod's Men. One of them sees the tree and comment that someday it might make a good cross. And the play ended with the Angel posed as that Cross. Chilling.
Glad tidings of comfort and joy, and Merry Christmas indeed. But without awareness of the risk of discipleship, and the reality that the baby in the manger ends up hanging on a cross, those words have about as little power to change the world as "Happy Holidays."
This brought to mind a play that was staged at my college years ago, The Butterfingers Angel, Mary and Joseph, Herod the Nut, and the Slaughter of 12 Hit Carols in a Pear Tree. I had to email pd to get the title right. This play by William Gibson is sometimes maligned for the usual reasons a "re-imagining" of the Christian story would be, except obviously this play was never meant to be a substitute for truth. But Amy's essay, re-reading it this year, brought back memories of this play, in which my lao peng you and sometime-commenter pd was cast as the Angel sent to earth to convince Mary to have this baby. At the very end, if my memory is correct, the Butterfingers Angel conceals himself as a tree. I think it is from Herod's Men. One of them sees the tree and comment that someday it might make a good cross. And the play ended with the Angel posed as that Cross. Chilling.
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