Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. Matthew 1:18, ESV
Christmas is not merely a good story. It is the true story of the world. As C.S. Lewis once observed, “Now the story of Christ is simply a true myth: a myth working on us the same way as others, but with this tremendous difference that it really happened.”
McLaughlin concludes her wonderful book with a poignant question, “Why does Christmas matter? She rightly argues, “if the story of Jesus isn’t true, —if he’s just a story in some people’s heads—we don’t just lose the magic of Christmas, we lose everything. Good and evil. Even you and me.” She is disturbingly correct.
Her first insight is this—if we lose Christmas, we lose all values. She writes, “Whether or not you believe in God, my guess is that you believe in human rights. You probably believe that…rape is evil and that the rich should not oppress the poor. But ask yourself this question: why? If there is no God, these claims aren’t moral facts; they’re opinions.”
Citing best-selling author, Yuval Harari, a man who rejects Christianity, she points out, “Our deepest moral beliefs are not self-evident facts, they are biblical beliefs.” Christians should be the first to recognize this but often don’t. We have assumed, wrongly, that many of the morals we cherish are self-evident.
We have forgotten how much biblical Christianity has shaped the cultural values of the West. Lose Christ, and you will soon discover that the values you assumed inviolable evaporate inside any other worldview. In fact, as Mclaughlin goes on to observe, values we’ve assumed were self-evident would have been mocked by the ancient Romans and Greeks.
So, first, to lose the Christian story is to destroy the moral foundation upon which the values of the West were built. Lose the Christian story, and America is, as Francis Schaeffer once noted, a “cut flower.”
Furthermore, if we lose the true story of the world—the Christ of Christmas—we forfeit the very idea of meaning. If, as atheistic evolutionists argue, the world has no meaning as interpreted from a purely scientific viewpoint, then humans are nothing more than an outcome of blind evolutionary processes that operate without purpose. Consequently, our lives are not a part of a divine plan. In this interpretation, all design is merely apparent, and all meaning is entirely fictional.
Increasingly, atheistic philosophers are arguing you and I have no identity. Our sense of self, in their interpretation, is nothing more than chemical processes of the brain. According to them, the search for meaning is a delusion. Hence, the title of Dawkins’ book—The God Delusion.
For some, this warning might feel like you are reading Chicken Little. Is her final chapter nothing more than a false alarm? Sadly, in this cultural moment, the values with which you have become accustomed are all under assault.
The world that Fredrich Nietzsche predicted has arrived. He envisioned a world where “God is dead.” His was a world constructed on the deep resolve of nihilism (literally meaning, no meaning).
If the West is to flourish again, we must recover the true story of the world—the story of Christmas. Nietzsche wins if and only if the story of Christmas is false. Thank God! Christmas is the true story of the whole world!
—
Dennis Darville
Published December 17, 2021
Copyright © 2021 Links Players International
The Links Daily Devotional appears Monday-Friday at www.linksplayers.com.
Click here to subscribe to our emailing list for your Daily Devotions.