Mystery of Christmas?

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Of course TV isn't reality. Thank God!

But two things I've seen lately have struck a chord.

The first was the Christmas episode of 7th Heaven, where a character - a college student even - demonstrates an almost chilling lack of knowledge about the roots of Christmas. To the point that when the 6 year old twins ask her if she knows the difference between Santa Claus and the Christ Child, she is befuddled. If it hadn't been so plausible it would have been sad. Wait ... it was sad!

Everyone gets the commercialism, but there's a whole chunk of civilization out there that doesn't get the roots.

It seems that Maureen Maher on CBS's 48 Hours Special last night "The Mystery of Christmas" either falls into that category of ignorance, or came at the subject from a decidedly skewed point of view. Or maybe, she was just narrating what was written for her without any critical analysis. In either case, the contents of that program were absolutely inexcusable coming from the news division of a major [US] network.

One would think that this kind of reporting would approach the subject matter from the majority scholar view and then counterbalance with fringe elements like John Dominic Crossan. Instead, as usual in TV "journalism" they go for the colorful & photogenic and then perhaps sprinkle in some actual facts. Crossan is "cute" and has a wonderful accent. Never mind that his "scholarship" has been repeatedly discredited and that he ALWAYS comes out of left field.

Sorry CBS ... but you've given me one more reason to not trust the media.

I know there are elements of the nativity story that aren't easy to digest. There are indeed parts that don't hold up to the scrutiny of the [current] historical knowledge of the subject. But guess what ... the Gospels have been "harmonised" more times than you can count (most "scholarly" objections do not honestly look at explanations which don't fit their prejudices), and the more we discover about history, the more it tends to confirm, rather than refute, scripture.

Why not report that?

I can deal with balance. I can't deal with analysis - especially journalistic analysis - that deliberately hides parts of a story which don't fit the spin.