"...and in his name, all oppression shall cease."

Dear Bob, 

The other day, I was listening to nonstop Christmas music on the radio, featuring songs like “Frosty the Snowman,” “Jingle Bells,” “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” and such. I was about to turn the radio off when, suddenly, “Oh Holy Night” came on. Listening to the classic Christmas hymn, the above verse caught my attention.

For that is what the Christmas story was about! A joyous announcement of a radical change in human history, when the creator intervened by entering into a sinful world governed by evil, oppressive power structures, injustice, and greed in order to announce a whole new paradigm and usher in the kingdom of God.

This is a kingdom with radically different values and dynamics: a world where the ideal is not power and domination over others, but of service and sacrifice; where, as prophesied of old, “every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain shall be laid low.” This is to be a new reality, modeled by Christ as the “humble servant,” the one whose triumphal entry into Jerusalem was on a donkey and not atop the conqueror's white horse.

Christ's change was so radical that most of his disciples had a hard time accepting it, as have many Christians throughout the ages. Christians, especially these days, continue to have a hard time with it. Yet, one cannot read the New Testament without leaving with a clear vision that the Kingdom of God is indeed radically different, that it is not governed by the so-called “normal” standards of the kingdoms of this world, which are directed by self-interest, realpolitik, and powerful actors.

Mennonite writer Donald Kraybill speaks of it as “an upside down kingdom”: to be a leader, one must be a servant, and to save one’s soul you must sacrifice it. We are called upon to love our enemies, and seek their salvation and their conversion into friends, NOT their annihilation and destruction Since the time of Emperor Constantine, however, many Christians moved away from the radical model of Christ and have reverted to the old ways.

Constantine, after his conversion, had an empire to run after all, complete with a massive standing army. It also required oppressive laws and measures to keep this “Holy Roman Empire” in power, as well as an elaborate bureaucracy, with the Church working hand in hand with the Empire to maintain its power and dominance.

In the process, the radical message proclaimed at Christmas seems to have been lost. Since that time, a majority of Christians decided to be “realistic” and live according to the prevailing norms of the world. To their shame, many Christians not only took up the sword but often found theological justifications for their militancy, often exceeding non-Christians in the ferocity and cruelty of their warmongering.

In the Middle East, Muslims often recall the atrocities of the Crusades, the cruelty of western colonialism, and the current military campaigns of the US and its complicity in the atrocities of Zionism, marveling at how these activities can be carried out by followers of the “Prince of Peace.”

To be sure, there has always been a faithful minority that insists on rejecting violence and refusing to lift weapons to kill other human beings. I am pleased that a majority of Palestinian Christians, from all denominations, are pacifist and follow the example of Christ, as they refuse to succumb to armed resistance and instead seek non-violent methods in their struggle for justice.

There are also other Christians who have been moved by their faith to pioneer such institutions as hospitals, orphanages, and schools, and who have been very active in movements to change society and bring it closer in line with the Kingdom values preached by Christ.

Christians have been active in a wide variety of charitable and socially responsible institutions: they worked for the abolition of slavery, apartheid, child labor, and inhuman labor conditions. They worked against hunger, poverty, ignorance, and diseases.

The true message of Christmas is that followers of the newborn Jesus will dedicate themselves to fighting all forms of oppression, whether the oppression of enslaved people, migrants and refugees, women, children, the poor and the downtrodden.

This Christmas, we must, together with others, do all we can to bring about the newly proclaimed reality where all forms of oppression shall cease.

Wishing you and your communities the peace of Christ,