Christmas in the Crosshairs Quotes

“The Glasgow kirk in 1583 ordered excommunication for those who kept Christmas, and in 1593 the minister at Errol equated carol singing with fornication. The commission of such sins at Christmas need not even have been public. In a number of Scottish towns ministers were known to go door-to-door on Christmas Day to ensure that families were not feasting.”
― Gerry Bowler, Christmas in the Crosshairs: Two Thousand Years of Denouncing and Defending the World's Most Celebrated Holiday

“Worship Fully, Spend Less, Give More, and Love All.”
― Gerry Bowler, Christmas in the Crosshairs: Two Thousand Years of Denouncing and Defending the World's Most Celebrated Holiday

“the “advertising lords” of Madison Avenue who “had reduced Christmas to a carnival of mass marketing.”
― Gerry Bowler, Christmas in the Crosshairs: Two Thousand Years of Denouncing and Defending the World's Most Celebrated Holiday

“the motto “Shop less, live more, save the earth,” the team at Operation Noah, anxious about climate change, is promoting a series of events throughout Advent encouraging people to experience Advent in its traditional sense—as a period of “quiet reflection and eager anticipation for the birth of Christ” rather than a time to buy and consume.”
― Gerry Bowler, Christmas in the Crosshairs: Two Thousand Years of Denouncing and Defending the World's Most Celebrated Holiday

“Why is it that liquor flows more freely at this time of year than any other? Why is it that there are more automobile accidents during the “holiday season” than at any other time?”
― Gerry Bowler, Christmas in the Crosshairs: Two Thousand Years of Denouncing and Defending the World's Most Celebrated Holiday

“versions of popular Christmas carols that one James Dodson produced in the 1990s. Take, for example, “God Keep of All You Protestants” (sung to the tune of “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen”): God keep all of you Protestants From walking in the way Of heathens and idolaters To celebrate this day. You resurrect this Romish mass, for you have gone astray. Chorus: O, I know that its just a popish ploy, popish ploy Yes, I know that its just a popish ploy. You celebrate the birth of Christ Though God did not command This service of idolatry Is not part of His plan You wed the devil to the Son, when Christ-Mass you demand.”
― Gerry Bowler, Christmas in the Crosshairs: Two Thousand Years of Denouncing and Defending the World's Most Celebrated Holiday

“In New England, prejudice against marking the birth of Jesus either in church or in the family lingered until the late nineteenth century: Christmas was an ordinary working day in Boston until 1856, and schools in that city did not close for a Christmas holiday until 1870.”
― Gerry Bowler, Christmas in the Crosshairs: Two Thousand Years of Denouncing and Defending the World's Most Celebrated Holiday

“reforms to Christmas behaviors were in part driven by fear of class conflict and a desire to tame customs that, despite their connection to the birth of the Prince of Peace, had become violent, confrontational, and an excuse for manifesting divisions of religion, ethnic origin, and social status.”
― Gerry Bowler, Christmas in the Crosshairs: Two Thousand Years of Denouncing and Defending the World's Most Celebrated Holiday

“The Gift-Bringer has ceased to be Dutch or Catholic or, indeed, of any particular ethnic or religious affiliation, owing no allegiance to Europe, the pope, or the past.”
― Gerry Bowler, Christmas in the Crosshairs: Two Thousand Years of Denouncing and Defending the World's Most Celebrated Holiday

“In the Christmas season of 1822, Clement Clarke Moore, a prosperous New York scholar and landowner, wrote a series of verses in a lively anapestic rhythm for the amusement of his daughters.13 Legend has it that they were inspired by the portly figure of his fur-clad sleigh driver as he returned home from a shopping trip through the snowy streets. The poem appeared anonymously in the Troy Sentinel a year later under the title “Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas”:”
― Gerry Bowler, Christmas in the Crosshairs: Two Thousand Years of Denouncing and Defending the World's Most Celebrated Holiday

“Puritans had sought to eliminate Christmas mince pies as “idolatry in crust”; the minions of the French Revolution came down hard on bakers who dared term their Epiphany treats “Galette des rois” in honor of the Three Kings. Didn’t they know France was now a regicide nation with no time for royalty? “King Cakes” perforce became “Liberty Cakes”
― Gerry Bowler, Christmas in the Crosshairs: Two Thousand Years of Denouncing and Defending the World's Most Celebrated Holiday

“What the defenders of Christmas were doing was not keeping harmless old customs but rather perpetuating paganism and idolatry.”
― Gerry Bowler, Christmas in the Crosshairs: Two Thousand Years of Denouncing and Defending the World's Most Celebrated Holiday

“One of the chief spiritual lessons of Christmas for Christian believers is the notion of social inversion, the world turned upside down. We can see this in the appearance of the incarnated God in a manger—an animal feeding trough—rather than a palace, and in the angelic first announcement of this miraculous birth to lowly shepherds rather than princes. The”
― Gerry Bowler, Christmas in the Crosshairs: Two Thousand Years of Denouncing and Defending the World's Most Celebrated Holiday

“Though the Church authorities were clearly interested in trying to impose a tighter moral discipline on society, they were never completely successful in extinguishing popular culture’s hold on Christmas celebrations.44”
― Gerry Bowler, Christmas in the Crosshairs: Two Thousand Years of Denouncing and Defending the World's Most Celebrated Holiday