#454: 10 Facts That STILL Answer: “Was Jesus Married?”

Once again the mainstream media has given wide coverage to the "new news" about the wife of Jesus, as Harvard's Karen King finally expressed her belief that the document which began the controversy is probably a fake. This induces me to revisit what I wrote 4 years ago, when the story broke. My aim is to demonstrate why this was ALWAYS much ado about nothing.

In the face of this week's ignorant media hype about a new discovery, let’s set the record straight…

Any talk of Jesus being married always stirs needless controversy, so this week’s news out of Harvard--about an ancient text in which Jesus speaks of “my wife”--poses the kind of teachable moment that calls for some serious fact checking.

Fact #1:  The belief that “Jesus never married” is not Catholic doctrine.  It is true that generations of Christians have assumed that Jesus was single, and passed on that assumption as a kind of pious tradition, part of our popular image of Jesus, like long hair and a beard.  But this popular belief is not in our creeds or our catechism; at most it is an informal, unofficial “teaching” commonly communicated to believers.  But Catholics are not required to believe this, and they never have been.

Fact #2: Believing that Jesus was married is not heresy.  The September 19 Boston Globe claimed that “The notion that Jesus may have been married” is “considered heretical by the Catholic Church.” This is just ignorant reporting.  To be heresy an idea must contradict an “orthodox” doctrine.  But since there is no official Catholic doctrine (one way or another) about Jesus’ marital status, then there is nothing to contradict. Hence heresy on this question is impossible.  Claiming Jesus married does clash with the popular tradition I mentioned above, but disagreeing with popular tradition is not heresy.

Fact #3: The Roman Catholic Church DOES allow married men to be priests.  That same Globe article claimed with similar ignorance that “These issues remain intensely relevant in Christianity today, particularly in the Roman Catholic Church, which allows only celibate men to be priests.” Not true!

Catholicism embraces five different “rites ” or worship styles, and four of the five (often refer to collectively as the “Eastern Rites”) ordain married man as priests.  Only the “Latin Rite” requires celibacy of all candidates for the priesthood--and even that is changing, since former Anglican priests may now be accepted as Latin Rite priests even if they are married. The confusion is based on numbers: more than 90% of all Catholic priests belong to the Latin Rite, so celibate priests do outnumber married priests. But the Catholic Church allows both.

Fact #4: Priestly celibacy is not a doctrine.  History rather than doctrine explains why Latin Rite priests must be celibate while Eastern Rite priests may marry in.  Long ago all priests (except members of all-male religious communities) could be married, but in the 11^th century a general rule of mandatory celibacy was adopted for Latin Rite priests. That rule was never adopted for the Eastern Rites.  So the fact here is simple: priestly celibacy is just a rule; there were married priests before this rule was adopted, they are still married priests outside that rule’s jurisdiction, and there will be married priests again whenever the rule is dropped.

Fact #5: We do not actually know if Jesus was married or single.  Our best source is the books of the New Testament, and these books are totally silent on the question.  In fact, they’re totally silent about Jesus from the age of 12 to the beginning of his public life at about 30.  We know virtually nothing of the adolescence and early adulthood of Jesus--the very period when his own culture would have expected him to marry.  If, as a hypothetical argument, Jesus had been widowed in his mid-twenties, his married life would be invisible. It would have fallen into that huge gap in the gospel narratives--a gap that no other source can fill.  The fact is, we just do not know.

Fact #6: We will probably never know.  Harvard’s Karen King, who announced the new fragment, told reporters “It’s not saying we got the smoking gun that Jesus was married.” After all, just because one person writing long after the death of Jesus puts the words “my wife” in the mouth of Jesus does not mean we have discovered a new fact, or even that many others believed it to be so.  And it certainly does not mean these were Jesus’ own words. It just means one person wrote it, true or not, for reasons we cannot know. 

The fragment probably dates from the late fourth century, and may be based on a text from the mid-too-late second century--that is, more than a century after Jesus’ death.  All of the New Testament books are closer to Jesus’ lifetime.  There is nothing in the new discovery that can penetrate the silence of the New Testament.  That silence is definitive, and I can think of no way anyone could penetrate that silence.

Fact #7: The old evidence trumps any new discoveries.  All of the other ancient texts and alternative “gospels” that have fueled books like The DaVinci Code are also further from Jesus time than the authentic Biblical texts.  Most of these alternative texts were specifically rejected as less than reliable during the process of forming the Christian Bible as we know it today.

We are often told history is written by the winners, and the simple fact is the winners are the texts that made it into the New Testament “canon,” which means literally the “yardstick” by which we measure the value of any text about Jesus.  All the alternative texts were the losers, simply because they failed to measure up.  As sources go, the New Testament trumps any other source we can realistically imagine

Fact #8: The New Testament evidence is not clear.  What does the New Testament’s silence mean?  Some argue it means Jesus was single, or his wife would have been mentioned along with his mother, father, and brothers.  Others argue the silence means Jesus had been married, since his culture saw a celibate adult male as abnormal, and we would expect the Gospels to mention someone challenging him, and Jesus offering a response and defense.

Both arguments are logically coherent, but neither one has much evidence to support it.

In other words, the Gospels’ silence cannot really settle the question.  We can speculate: what if, for example, Jesus were widowed before his public life began? His wife might not be mentioned simply because she was no longer present. But any such answer is just speculation.  We know the texts are silent, but we cannot tell for sure what that silence means.

Fact #9: If Jesus was married, our core Christian beliefs remain unchanged.  Nothing in our creeds, are catechisms or our theological principles about Jesus Christ is based on the premise of Jesus’ celibacy.  If Jesus was married, then the popular devotion about his single state would be inaccurate--but nothing else would change.  My Catholicism does not hang on this question, and yours should not either.  For me, the question of Jesus’ marital status is nothing more than idle curiosity.  It is not a deal breaker--or even a game-changer--for my faith. It clearly did not matter enough (one way or the other) to the authors of the Gospels, or to St. Paul, or to the other New Testament authors, to include any mention in their texts.

Fact #10: But it might change some attitudes.  Clearly much of Christian history has been ambivalent or even negative about marriage and sexuality (see CrossCurrents #359).  In the New Testament, St. Paul essentially regards marriage as a last resort so those who cannot hack celibacy do not fall into adultery.  And the assumption of Jesus as life-long celibate has often fueled the double standard by which celibates are superior to married people.  Many modern Christians would like to see that double standard fall, and see a golden opportunity in debunking the celibacy of Jesus.  More broadly, people who disparage the place of sexuality in Christian history might love the opportunity, with the leverage of a new “revelation,” to reboot Christianity over again and get it right this time.  Controversy over minor matters advances the cause and makes good newspaper copy--but such controversy does not fit the facts.

On this score, ironically, our Christian faith is rooted much more firmly in fact than most of the media coverage.

© Bernard F. Swain PhD 2012

#369 Revisited: “Was Jesus Married?” 10 Facts

Harvard's Karen King once again made headlines (New York Times, Boston Globe) last week when the fragment concerning the "wife of Jesus" was certified as no modern forgery, but an ancient text---though it is now dated from the 8th century. But the issues around Jesus' marriage remain as they were when the story first broke in 2012, so I am re-posting my blog from September 2012.

In the face of this week's ignorant media hype about a new discovery, let’s set the record straight…

Any talk of Jesus being married always stirs needless controversy, so this week’s news out of Harvard--about an ancient text in which Jesus speaks of “my wife”--poses the kind of teachable moment that calls for some serious fact checking.

Fact #1:  The belief that “Jesus never married” is not Catholic doctrine.  It is true that generations of Christians have assumed that Jesus was single, and passed on that assumption as a kind of pious tradition, part of our popular image of Jesus, like long hair and a beard.  But this popular belief is not in our creeds or our catechism; at most it is an informal, unofficial “teaching” commonly communicated to believers.  But Catholics are not required to believe this, and they never have been.

Fact #2: Believing that Jesus was married is not heresy.  The September 19 Boston Globe claimed that “The notion that Jesus may have been married” is “considered heretical by the Catholic Church.” This is just ignorant reporting.  To be heresy an idea must contradict an “orthodox” doctrine.  But since there is no official Catholic doctrine (one way or another) about Jesus’ marital status, then there is nothing to contradict. Hence heresy on this question is impossible.  Claiming Jesus married does clash with the popular tradition I mentioned above, but disagreeing with popular tradition is not heresy.

Fact #3: The Roman Catholic Church DOES allow married men to be priests.  That same Globe article claimed with similar ignorance that “These issues remain intensely relevant in Christianity today, particularly in the Roman Catholic Church, which allows only celibate men to be priests.” Not true!

Catholicism embraces five different “rites ” or worship styles, and four of the five (often refer to collectively as the “Eastern Rites”) ordain married man as priests.  Only the “Latin Rite” requires celibacy of all candidates for the priesthood--and even that is changing, since former Anglican priests may now be accepted as Latin Rite priests even if they are married. The confusion is based on numbers: more than 90% of all Catholic priests belong to the Latin Rite, so celibate priests do outnumber married priests. But the Catholic Church allows both.

Fact #4: Priestly celibacy is not a doctrine.  History rather than doctrine explains why Latin Rite priests must be celibate while Eastern Rite priests may marry in.  Long ago all priests (except members of all-male religious communities) could be married, but in the 11^th century a general rule of mandatory celibacy was adopted for Latin Rite priests. That rule was never adopted for the Eastern Rites.  So the fact here is simple: priestly celibacy is just a rule; there were married priests before this rule was adopted, they are still married priests outside that rule’s jurisdiction, and there will be married priests again whenever the rule is dropped.

Fact #5: We do not actually know if Jesus was married or single.  Our best source is the books of the New Testament, and these books are totally silent on the question.  In fact, they’re totally silent about Jesus from the age of 12 to the beginning of his public life at about 30.  We know virtually nothing of the adolescence and early adulthood of Jesus--the very period when his own culture would have expected him to marry.  If, as a hypothetical argument, Jesus had been widowed in his mid-twenties, his married life would be invisible. It would have fallen into that huge gap in the gospel narratives--a gap that no other source can fill.  The fact is, we just do not know.

Fact #6: We will probably never know.  Harvard’s Karen King, who announced the new fragment, told reporters “It’s not saying we got the smoking gun that Jesus was married.” After all, just because one person writing long after the death of Jesus puts the words “my wife” in the mouth of Jesus does not mean we have discovered a new fact, or even that many others believed it to be so.  And it certainly does not mean these were Jesus’ own words. It just means one person wrote it, true or not, for reasons we cannot know. 

The fragment probably dates from the late fourth century, and may be based on a text from the mid-too-late second century--that is, more than a century after Jesus’ death.  All of the New Testament books are closer to Jesus’ lifetime.  There is nothing in the new discovery that can penetrate the silence of the New Testament.  That silence is definitive, and I can think of no way anyone could penetrate that silence.

Fact #7: The old evidence trumps any new discoveries.  All of the other ancient texts and alternative “gospels” that have fueled books like The DaVinci Code are also further from Jesus time than the authentic Biblical texts.  Most of these alternative texts were specifically rejected as less than reliable during the process of forming the Christian Bible as we know it today.

We are often told history is written by the winners, and the simple fact is the winners are the texts that made it into the New Testament “canon,” which means literally the “yardstick” by which we measure the value of any text about Jesus.  All the alternative texts were the losers, simply because they failed to measure up.  As sources go, the New Testament trumps any other source we can realistically imagine

Fact #8: The New Testament evidence is not clear.  What does the New Testament’s silence mean?  Some argue it means Jesus was single, or his wife would have been mentioned along with his mother, father, and brothers.  Others argue the silence means Jesus had been married, since his culture saw a celibate adult male as abnormal, and we would expect the Gospels to mention someone challenging him, and Jesus offering a response and defense.

Both arguments are logically coherent, but neither one has much evidence to support it.

In other words, the Gospels’ silence cannot really settle the question.  We can speculate: what if, for example, Jesus were widowed before his public life began? His wife might not be mentioned simply because she was no longer present. But any such answer is just speculation.  We know the texts are silent, but we cannot tell for sure what that silence means.

Fact #9: If Jesus was married, our core Christian beliefs remain unchanged.  Nothing in our creeds, are catechisms or our theological principles about Jesus Christ is based on the premise of Jesus’ celibacy.  If Jesus was married, then the popular devotion about his single state would be inaccurate--but nothing else would change.  My Catholicism does not hang on this question, and yours should not either.  For me, the question of Jesus’ marital status is nothing more than idle curiosity.  It is not a deal breaker--or even a game-changer--for my faith. It clearly did not matter enough (one way or the other) to the authors of the Gospels, or to St. Paul, or to the other New Testament authors, to include any mention in their texts.

Fact #10: But it might change some attitudes.  Clearly much of Christian history has been ambivalent or even negative about marriage and sexuality (see CrossCurrents #359).  In the New Testament, St. Paul essentially regards marriage as a last resort so those who cannot hack celibacy do not fall into adultery.  And the assumption of Jesus as life-long celibate has often fueled the double standard by which celibates are superior to married people.  Many modern Christians would like to see that double standard fall, and see a golden opportunity in debunking the celibacy of Jesus.  More broadly, people who disparage the place of sexuality in Christian history might love the opportunity, with the leverage of a new “revelation,” to reboot Christianity over again and get it right this time.  Controversy over minor matters advances the cause and makes good newspaper copy--but such controversy does not fit the facts.

On this score, ironically, our Christian faith is rooted much more firmly in fact than most of the media coverage.

© Bernard F. Swain PhD 2012

#341: An “Encore!” for Renewal

As we continue observing the 50th anniversary of Vatican II, I am retrieving a post from the beginning of 2011. The first Baby Boomers began retiring that year, but the challenge they face continues now...

The New Year 2011 marks the beginning of a new phase for my generation. 

I turned 62 last month -- the same age when my father retired.  Thirty years later, he is still going strong, and has now earned more from his pension than he ever did in 39 years on the job at General Electric! 

It wasn't supposed to be that way.  His grandfather's generation never retired at all--they simply died in the saddle.  And while his father retired, he never fully adjusted to being permanently on vacation; he died within a few years, as was typical of his generation, when life expectancy with shorter than today.  My father had no way of knowing  his retirement would last more than 3 decades.

Yet from the start, my father attacked retirement as an active role, performing do-it-yourself projects on his home and property, helping his grown children with their own projects, joining other seniors for community lunches, mall-walking to keep active, and taking his new electronic keyboard to local nursing homes to lead sing-alongs for the "old folks" well into his 80s. 

Those 30 active years reflect a new profile of retired life, when gainful employment gives way to what Marc Freedman has called an "encore career" of other active pursuits.  So retirement has already gone through two phases, shifting from a "permanent vacation until you die" to a second career. 

Now comes the threshold of the third phase.  That's because 2011 is the year when the first “Baby Boomers” (born between 1946 and 1964) turn 65.  The “60s Generation” is in its 60s, and it figures that retirement, like everything else we touched, will never be the same. 

My father, after all, was the exception to the rule.  Not many of his peers lasted 30 years after working, and most did not carve out so many new active roles.  But since the boomers can expect to live to 80 and beyond, long retirements like my father’s will become commonplace. Boomers were the largest generation in US history; now they will become the largest post-employment workforce ever: the population of retired Americans is expected to reach 66 million by 2025. 

It's been called the "longevity revolution," the "third wave," and even "gerontocracy"--the idea that elder baby boomers will be the most powerful shapers of American life, and the first elder generation to dominate a society. 

All of which makes me wonder: how is the Church affected by this? 

Catholic baby boomers, after all, occupy a unique place in recent Church history.  Their parents grew up, got married, and started families in a Catholic Church largely shaped by the immigrant experience, the Council of Trent, and the First Vatican Council.  That Church spoke only Latin and commanded compliance to a complex set of strict rules and regulations; it offered sure advancement for those who entered seminaries and convents, but consigned everyone else to the passive roles “Pray, Pay, and Obey.” It enjoyed an abundance of clergy and religious communities and the massive support of its members, who took their passive role for granted in an age when Church was more about authority than faith and authority was the monopoly of the ordained. 

Baby Boomers were born into that Church.  All of them were baptized in Latin, and most boomers (those born 1946- 1958) received their First Holy Communion in Latin.  But then the work of Vatican II (1962-1965) began to take hold, and the boomers came to maturity in a changing Church.  By the time they settled down to marriage and family, the face of the Church--its liturgy, its sacraments, its devotional life, its public image, its relations with other religions and with the world at large--had all been transformed into something their grandparents could not have recognized and their parents often struggled to embrace. 

Not all boomers embraced that transformed Church either, but most did, and they raised a new generation who (ironically, like their great-grandparents) knew no Church but the one they were born in. 

This made the boomers the threshold generation, with one foot in pre-conciliar Catholicism and another in post-conciliar Catholicism.  By default, they became the custodians of a Church renewal they never chose but only inherited.  That custodianship was radically new in one major respect, compared to previous generations: there were never enough ordained boomers to do the job alone.  So following through on renewal has eventually passed from a generation (the "greatest generation") of aging clergy and religious women and men to a new generation of laypeople. 

And now those laypeople, the boomer custodians of renewal, are themselves feeling their age.  It raises the question: what will happen now to the Church's ongoing renewal? 

In past generations of parish life, of course, Catholics reaching their "golden years" routinely passed the torch of parish leadership to the next generation, usually their own grown children, people in their 20s, 30s, and 40s.  But in too many places today, that is simply not happening. The fact is the next generation does not show the emotional attachment to Church that keeps so many boomers active in Catholic life.

  Thus many of my generation wonder how to preserve parish vitality in the years ahead.  Many boomer Catholics are beginning to sense that they are not yet "off the hook," since no one else is available to do the job. Moreover, many boomers believe that the renewal of Vatican II has been hijacked in recent years, and are discouraged and fearful that Catholicism will backslide into a style of Catholic life they've already rejected. 

To me, these feelings frame the next challenge facing Catholic boomers: to enter our retirement years committed to persevere in the great historic task of renewing our church.  We were not renewal’s pioneers, but we may have to be its protectors.

This will require great determination.  Do we believe the work of Vatican II is unfinished?  So be it.  Is the next generation unready to carry renewal’s torch into the future?  So be it.  Has renewal been undermined from within?  So be it.  These are the givens of the challenge we must face.

Columnist (retired!) Ellen Goodman, referring to the place of boomers in American society at large, aptly described the decision facing boomer Catholics:

How will we shape the longevity revolution?  I have the sense that if we don't use this gift of time to open up new possibilities, we may go into a long anxious crouch.  If we aren’t the change agents of aging, we'll be the change resisters...This is a moment to redefine aging...it's not a time to be tired. 

It's true we are arriving at our senior status.  It's true that past generations have taken that as their cue to "retire" from active duty and let the younger generation of clergy and laity take charge of the future.  But times have changed, and anyway our generation has never accepted past ways as a divine mandate.  Rather, we have always regarded inherited routines as something to question and revise. 

If we remain young in spirit, our longstanding desire to make a difference will not flag.  And now that difference may well be this: to become the key players in ensuring that renewal does not die.  Just when others might judge that the renewal promised by Vatican II is either finished (in the sense of completed) or else finished (in the sense of failed), we can be the ones who stand up clapping our hands and call out “Encore!  Encore!” to make renewal live again. 

Indeed, meeting this challenge could mean an encore career for us as Catholics, and could prove to be our biggest contribution of all.  We may not have created renewal, but we can save it.

 Bernard F. Swain PhD 2011

#248: Does Christmas Have a Future?

This reflection on Christmas in our culture comes from 2008:

The “Second Battle of Lexington” rages on in 2008.

More than two decades ago the ACLU launched a campaign to remove nativity scenes from public property, and in 1998 that movement reached the very town green in Lexington, Massachusetts where the "shot heard round the world" opened the American Revolution.

For nearly 30 years, the local Knights of Columbus had placed in nativity scene on Lexington Green, but now some town officials were threatening to revoke the K of C’s permit. The K of C countered with a threat to sue, and a diverse group of religious leaders invited me to help them build a consensus proposal to resolve the dispute.

Early on, this group--including a Mason, a Catholic priest, three Protestant ministers, and a K of C member--agreed to stand firm on the K of C’s First Amendment right to display Christmas symbols on public land. Their logic: to restrict religious observances and activities to private land would exclude even religious processions--including funeral corteges traveling public roads from church to cemetery!

Their final plan offered the compromise of restricting the nativity display to a shorter period, while acknowledging that other displays (Menorahs, Kwanzaa symbols, even Santa and snowmen) might claim equal rights.

The Lexington Selectman ignored the offer and dodged the First Amendment issue by claiming a security problem with the permit, and requiring the K of C to post guards 24/7 throughout the display period. The K of C, unable to manage this, settled for a "Nativity Pageant" held on a single day.

At stake in this “Second Battle of Lexington,” of course, was the erosion of Christmas as a public event--erosion that has continued since 1998 as similar battles have erupted around the country, reaching a new intensity and range in 2008. As USA today reported just last week:

Christians and traditionalists across the nation, fed up with what they view as the de-emphasizing of Christmas as a religious holiday, are filing lawsuits, promoting boycotts and launching campaigns aimed at restoring references to Christ in seasonal celebrations.

From New Jersey to California, Christians are moving to counter years of lawsuits that have made governments wary about putting Nativity scenes on public property, and that occasionally have led schools to drop Christmas carols from holiday programs.

Examples abound. A Federal judge ordered Bay Harbor Islands (Florida) to allow a nativity scene next to a menorah following a discrimination lawsuit. In Denver, church members picketed the holiday parade after their Christmas-themed float was rejected. A California group boycotted Macy's stores, claiming their parent organization had forbidden clerks from saying "Merry Christmas." The Maplewood (New Jersey) school board face protests for dropping even instrumental Christmas music from school programs. Parents in Mustang (Oklahoma) defeated a school bond referendum after nativity scenes were dropped from school holiday programs. Members of a church in Kansas City (Kansas) protested the secularization of Christmas by dressing like Jesus at their jobs, malls and restaurants.

What's going on here?

This battle is hardly new. In fact, disputes over Christmas predate the First Battle of Lexington. In puritan Massachusetts, the General Court banned Christmas observances in 1659 lest they compete with the Sunday Sabbath. Even taking the day off work was punishable:

Whosoever shall be found observing any such day as Christmas or the like, either by forbearing of labor, feasting or any other way . . . shall pay for every such offense five shillings, as a fine to the county.

Of course, while this ban was anti-Christmas, it was not anti-Christian; ironically, Lexington's first parish church was, in fact, originally built on the very Town Green where a crèche is now banned.

But over the centuries much has changed, and in recent years Christmas has become a lightning rod for the Americans who differ about the place of Christianity in American life.

Moreover this history of US conflicts over Christmas fits into a larger, longer history: the long-term evolution of Christmas in Christian tradition itself.

Early Christians did not have a feast day for Jesus’ birthday, until the need to compete with the Roman winter solstice festival "Sol Invictus" ("Unconquered Sun") required a distinctively Christian symbol for winter’s shifting from darkness to light. Designating December 25 as Jesus’ birthday fit the bill perfectly.

Subsequent centuries saw a modest feastday gradually expanded by the medieval period’s devotion to Mary, by Saint Francis of Assisi’s introduction of crèche and animals to the Christian imagination, by the focus on Saint Nicholas (later Santa Claus) and the custom of gift-giving that opened the door to today’s “Christmas Capitalism.” German, English, and French customs all melted into the Christmas we know now, replete with trees, wreaths, stockings, and carols. And the dominance of Europe in this evolution led to Christmas as a winter festival, though most Christians today live--as the first Christians did—in lands where Christmas falls amid mild weather or even during summer .

So unlike Easter, which has anchored Christian faith from the beginning, Christmas has not been a constant or essential fixture in Christian history. Generations of Christians managed quite well without any Christmas at all.

Yet for many American Christians, Christmas has come to overshadow Easter.

Children clearly anticipate Christmas stockings and presents more than Easter clothes and candies. Grownups spend weeks or even months in shopping and decorating. "Baby Jesus meek and mild" has more popular sentimental appeal then Jesus the itinerant preacher, Jesus the suffering victim, or even Jesus the Risen Lord. Many Christians confuse the birth of Jesus with the Incarnation of God into human form (more properly linked with Jesus’ conception, and officially observed on March 25). Santa has become such an object of faith that speaking the truth--that Jesus is the real part of Christmas, and Santa is the fun make-believe part--is a public taboo, to the point that many people link the loss of Santa with a loss of innocence or even a loss of faith.

And the marketplace's frenzy over Christmas has made Christmas more about “giving” than about embracing the Peace Jesus promised. Thus Christmas season has become so exhausting that, since many Americans are so tired of celebrating by Christmas Day, we often see trashed Christmas trees on the curb as early as December 26th.

In other words, we have largely lost the wise psychic rhythm of the Christmas liturgical tradition, which used Advent for quiet preparation and then celebrated Christmas beginning December 24th. For most, Christmas Day now ends the Christmas season rather than beginning it, and most Americans hear “The Twelve Days of Christmas” without knowing when they are.

Is this kind of Christmas really worth saving for the future? And is that even possible? For me, a few things seem evident.

One: “Christmas” in America will become increasingly detached from the cultural customs the protestors are trying to protect. Millions of Americans will celebrate Christmas with little or no reference to the birth of Jesus, and even the number of “Christmas Catholics” will dwindle.

Two: Ironically enough, Christmas Day will remain a legal holiday, simply because our economy cannot survive without it. Even during boom times, this season brings 40% of retail sales and nearly 80% of toys and entertainment sales. Without Christmas, American capitalism collapses.

Three: The “holiday season” will continue to evolve toward a generic celebration of winter’s shift from darkness to light, embracing symbols from Christmas to Chanukah to Kwanzaa to other symbolic traditions.

Four: Christians who maintain “the reason for the season” will find themselves increasingly a minority whose observance of Jesus’ birthday is the exception to the cultural rule—but Christians will also find that asserting their right to celebrate Christmas publicly will gain respect as a key proof that America is evolving a new identity as a nation simultaneously religious and pluralized.
In that sense, we will have won the battle for the future of Christmas.

© Bernard F. Swain PhD 2008

# 154: Spooked by the Season

My reflections on the place of Christmas in our culture have become a nearly annual tradition in CrossCurrents, so during the Advent season I am re-issuing several pieces from past years before posting my latest thoughts. This first selection is from 2006:

Christmas …has evolved: what began as a pagan feast was later “baptized” and adapted to a Christian world view, giving new meaning to the observance while obscuring its non-Christian origins. But a third stage has now emerged, whereby “baptized” celebrations get “commercialized” by consumer/capitalist culture in a way that obliterates both their pagan roots and their Christian meaning.

Like much of pagan religion, the original observance celebrated a seasonal fact – namely, the winter solstice. Thus the Roman feast of “Sol Invictus” (the invincible sun) marked the late-December phenomenon of days beginning to grow longer, celebrating their promise of spring and renewed life.

Christians chose December 25th to celebrate the birthday of Jesus, not because they had some historical record of the actual date of his birth (they did not), but because it seemed a perfect substitute: in place of “the invincible son,” Christians offered “the eternal Son of God.”

Of course, it’s no secret that modern America has totally transformed formed Christmas into the major commercial event of the year. Our culture has become so dependent on the “holidays” spending orgy that our economy would collapse without it.

…

This is one more example of the dumbing down of our popular culture: something that was rich in historical and human symbols has been reduced now mainly to one more spending spree. Could it be history’s revenge: what Christianity once did to paganism, Capitalism has now done to Christianity?

When I started out in Church work, troubled by the trend to commercialize Christmas, I wrote an article for parish catechists proposing that we “Give Christmas Back to the Pagans.” Now I think it’s too late for that, because I don’t think Christians really control Christmas anymore.

Perhaps it’s time for Christians to acknowledge that we no longer control the symbols of popular culture. If so, we must face up to the responsibility of celebrating our own symbols as a richer, more meaningful alternative to the newly dominant ones.

© Bernard F. Swain PhD 2006

#369 “Was Jesus Married?” 10 Facts

In the face of this week's ignorant media hype about a new discovery, let’s set the record straight…

Any talk of Jesus being married always stirs needless controversy, so this week’s news out of Harvard--about an ancient text in which Jesus speaks of “my wife”--poses the kind of teachable moment that calls for some serious fact checking.

Fact #1:  The belief that “Jesus never married” is not Catholic doctrine.  It is true that generations of Christians have assumed that Jesus was single, and passed on that assumption as a kind of pious tradition, part of our popular image of Jesus, like long hair and a beard.  But this popular belief is not in our creeds or our catechism; at most it is an informal, unofficial “teaching” commonly communicated to believers.  But Catholics are not required to believe this, and they never have been.

Fact #2: Believing that Jesus was married is not heresy.  The September 19 Boston Globe claimed that “The notion that Jesus may have been married” is “considered heretical by the Catholic Church.” This is just ignorant reporting.  To be heresy an idea must contradict an “orthodox” doctrine.  But since there is no official Catholic doctrine (one way or another) about Jesus’ marital status, then there is nothing to contradict. Hence heresy on this question is impossible.  Claiming Jesus married does clash with the popular tradition I mentioned above, but disagreeing with popular tradition is not heresy.

Fact #3: The Roman Catholic Church DOES allow married men to be priests.  That same Globe article claimed with similar ignorance that “These issues remain intensely relevant in Christianity today, particularly in the Roman Catholic Church, which allows only celibate men to be priests.” Not true!

Catholicism embraces five different “rites ” or worship styles, and four of the five (often refer to collectively as the “Eastern Rites”) ordain married man as priests.  Only the “Latin Rite” requires celibacy of all candidates for the priesthood--and even that is changing, since former Anglican priests may now be accepted as Latin Rite priests even if they are married. The confusion is based on numbers: more than 90% of all Catholic priests belong to the Latin Rite, so celibate priests do outnumber married priests. But the Catholic Church allows both.

Fact #4: Priestly celibacy is not a doctrine.  History rather than doctrine explains why Latin Rite priests must be celibate while Eastern Rite priests may marry in.  Long ago all priests (except members of all-male religious communities) could be married, but in the 11^th century a general rule of mandatory celibacy was adopted for Latin Rite priests. That rule was never adopted for the Eastern Rites.  So the fact here is simple: priestly celibacy is just a rule; there were married priests before this rule was adopted, they are still married priests outside that rule’s jurisdiction, and there will be married priests again whenever the rule is dropped.

Fact #5: We do not actually know if Jesus was married or single.  Our best source is the books of the New Testament, and these books are totally silent on the question.  In fact, they’re totally silent about Jesus from the age of 12 to the beginning of his public life at about 30.  We know virtually nothing of the adolescence and early adulthood of Jesus--the very period when his own culture would have expected him to marry.  If, as a hypothetical argument, Jesus had been widowed in his mid-twenties, his married life would be invisible. It would have fallen into that huge gap in the gospel narratives--a gap that no other source can fill.  The fact is, we just do not know.

Fact #6: We will probably never know.  Harvard’s Karen King, who announced the new fragment, told reporters “It’s not saying we got the smoking gun that Jesus was married.” After all, just because one person writing long after the death of Jesus puts the words “my wife” in the mouth of Jesus does not mean we have discovered a new fact, or even that many others believed it to be so.  And it certainly does not mean these were Jesus’ own words. It just means one person wrote it, true or not, for reasons we cannot know. 

The fragment probably dates from the late fourth century, and may be based on a text from the mid-too-late second century--that is, more than a century after Jesus’ death.  All of the New Testament books are closer to Jesus’ lifetime.  There is nothing in the new discovery that can penetrate the silence of the New Testament.  That silence is definitive, and I can think of no way anyone could penetrate that silence.

Fact #7: The old evidence trumps any new discoveries.  All of the other ancient texts and alternative “gospels” that have fueled books like The DaVinci Code are also further from Jesus time than the authentic Biblical texts.  Most of these alternative texts were specifically rejected as less than reliable during the process of forming the Christian Bible as we know it today.

We are often told history is written by the winners, and the simple fact is the winners are the texts that made it into the New Testament “canon,” which means literally the “yardstick” by which we measure the value of any text about Jesus.  All the alternative texts were the losers, simply because they failed to measure up.  As sources go, the New Testament trumps any other source we can realistically imagine

Fact #8: The New Testament evidence is not clear.  What does the New Testament’s silence mean?  Some argue it means Jesus was single, or his wife would have been mentioned along with his mother, father, and brothers.  Others argue the silence means Jesus had been married, since his culture saw a celibate adult male as abnormal, and we would expect the Gospels to mention someone challenging him, and Jesus offering a response and defense.

Both arguments are logically coherent, but neither one has much evidence to support it.

In other words, the Gospels’ silence cannot really settle the question.  We can speculate: what if, for example, Jesus were widowed before his public life began? His wife might not be mentioned simply because she was no longer present. But any such answer is just speculation.  We know the texts are silent, but we cannot tell for sure what that silence means.

Fact #9: If Jesus was married, our core Christian beliefs remain unchanged.  Nothing in our creeds, are catechisms or our theological principles about Jesus Christ is based on the premise of Jesus’ celibacy.  If Jesus was married, then the popular devotion about his single state would be inaccurate--but nothing else would change.  My Catholicism does not hang on this question, and yours should not either.  For me, the question of Jesus’ marital status is nothing more than idle curiosity.  It is not a deal breaker--or even a game-changer--for my faith. It clearly did not matter enough (one way or the other) to the authors of the Gospels, or to St. Paul, or to the other New Testament authors, to include any mention in their texts.

Fact #10: But it might change some attitudes.  Clearly much of Christian history has been ambivalent or even negative about marriage and sexuality (see CrossCurrents #359).  In the New Testament, St. Paul essentially regards marriage as a last resort so those who cannot hack celibacy do not fall into adultery.  And the assumption of Jesus as life-long celibate has often fueled the double standard by which celibates are superior to married people.  Many modern Christians would like to see that double standard fall, and see a golden opportunity in debunking the celibacy of Jesus.  More broadly, people who disparage the place of sexuality in Christian history might love the opportunity, with the leverage of a new “revelation,” to reboot Christianity over again and get it right this time.  Controversy over minor matters advances the cause and makes good newspaper copy--but such controversy does not fit the facts.

On this score, ironically, our Christian faith is rooted much more firmly in fact than most of the media coverage.

© Bernard F. Swain PhD 2012