CHESTERTON HOUSE:
A CENTER FOR CHRISTIAN STUDIES
"daring to discuss the important and the amusing"
NEWSLETTER #38
FALL 2010
Chesterton House exists to encourage students to think carefully and Christianly about all areas of life and learning. In this season of Advent, we turn to the wit and wisdom of G.K. Chesterton to help us think carefully about Christmas.
Once a year, the world turns upside down. Strangers act friendly, music sounds happy, and even grown-ups go sledding while trees come in from the cold. In remembrance of the First Cause of Festivity, we dust off figurines of mother and child, shepherds and sheep, asses and angels. But why? What’s the connection between the figurines and the festivity?
Some say that what really matters is “the spirit of Christmas.” They value vacation, gift-giving, and “quality time” –in short, the festivity without those religious figurines. But as Chesterton pointed out a century ago, this accomplishes the very opposite of what is intended: “So far from preserving the essentials without the externals, it is rather preserving the externals where there cannot be the essentials.”
Consider weddings. The merry-making, Chesterton says, “is subordinate to the marriage; because it is in honour of the marriage. People came there to be married and not to be merry.” So too with Christmas. Singing and dancing follow from the fact that something actually happened. "The more we are proud that the Bethlehem story is plain enough to be understood by the shepherds, and almost by the sheep, the more do we let ourselves go, in dark and gorgeous imaginative frescoes or pageants about the mystery and majesty of the Three Magian Kings."
Those who invoke reason over religion, by contrast, are left with no reason for festivity. “People are losing the power to enjoy Christmas through identifying it with enjoyment,” Chesterton writes, for “you cannot suddenly be frivolous unless you believe there is a serious reason for being frivolous.” This is a problem for the religion of rationalism: “Mr. Swinburne does not hang up his stocking on the eve of the birthday of Victor Hugo. Mr. William Archer does not sing carols descriptive of the infancy of Ibsen outside people's doors in the snow.”
When it comes to mangers and pageants, of course, most are sanitized and sentimentalized. The problem is not primarily the absence of miniature manure, but the lack of context. The Magi did not inquire after a cute baby under a big star, but after “the one who has been born king of the Jews.” In the time of King Herod, these were fighting words.
To re-contextualize such scenes, we might consider adding a King Herod action figure behind the stable. This may not help Precious Moments' manger marketing, but it would contrast the serenity of the stable with the warfare of the world. Advent, in the words of Fleming Rutledge, “is primarily about the rending of the heavens and the coming of the Lord in power and glory to take the creation back for himself.”
In this context, we see more clearly why mangers matter, and why discarding divinity decreases enjoyment. “The result of dismissing the divine side of Christmas and demanding only the human,” as Chesterton put it, “is that . . . you are asking men to illuminate the town for a victory that has not taken place.” Mangers matter because they signify battle victory.
Of course, figurines do not guarantee festivity, much less faithfulness. Christmas rituals, like all rituals, can be hollow forms. But just as the institution of marriage exists to sustain love, religious rituals exist to sustain faith. Like liturgy and other forms of the faith, those figurines are for facilitating faithfulness and festivity. Chesterton: “The great majority of people will go on observing forms that cannot be explained; they will keep Christmas Day with Christmas gifts and Christmas benedictions; they will continue to do it; and some day suddenly wake up and discover why.” Indeed, the world turns upside down once a year for the simple reason that God became man.
Our own Advent festivities will begin with an open house this Friday afternoon. We hope that those of you who can will join us. You'll find more information on this and other events and ministry developments below. Thanks as always for your interest and support!
Karl E. Johnson
Director
UPCOMING EVENTS
Friday, December 3, 2010, 4:00 - 6:00pm
OPEN HOUSE
See below for details
Friday-Sunday, February 4-6, 2011
"The Way It's Supposed To Be: A Breviary of Christian Virtue"
Rev. Dr. Cornelius Plantinga, Calvin Seminary
Institute of Biblical Studies
Saturday, April 9, 2011
Title: TBA
Dr. Ted Davis, Messiah College
Upstate NY Christian Grad/ Faculty Conference
OPEN HOUSE
Do you not know? Have you not heard? Chesterton House is now a house, and we invite you to come see it on Friday, December 3rd, 4:00-6:00pm. We are now located in a large, old English Tudor residence (a former Greek house) located at 115 The Knoll. The house has large common areas, a library on the second floor, and views of downtown Ithaca and Cayuga Lake. It also serves as home to 17 young men living in intentional Christian community. Please come by to see the facility, to meet some of the residents, and to join us in celebrating God's gracious provision. Directions: www.chestertonhouse.org. Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=180629425284388
ANNUAL FUND
Our annual report is in the mail. Thanks to the generous assistance of Rachel Staver '10, it looks splendid. It will provide you with a helpful update on the past year's events, as well as a one-page summary of the last ten years of ministry. We thank you for your support, which has enabled us to come this far, and ask that you again consider Chesterton House in your year-end giving. Your support makes many things possible that otherwise would not be possible at Cornell, from visiting Christian scholars and various discussion groups to residential Christian housing and the many, many informal, Christ-centered conversations that happen as a byproduct of all this programming. To support this work, please go to http://www.chestertonhouse.org/donate. Thank you!
ANDY CROUCH ON CHRISTIAN STUDY CENTERS
Because study centers are a new kind of campus ministry, we find ourselves continually articulating the vision and rationale. Every once in a while, somebody not formally affiliated with the movement gets it so well that they also provide a very helpful articulation of the vision and movement. The following is from an interview with Andy Crouch '90:
Actually, the most effective presence of Christians within secular institutions happens when Christians find a way to create lasting patterns of presence, which is to say mini-institutions. . . .
You have to make a multigenerational commitment to Christian presence. Probably the most encouraging movement in our time is our Christian study centers that operate in parallel with the university, with deep relational connections to the faculty and administration of the university. They are intended to exist for a long time, accompanying the university in its own quests of teaching, research and service, but in a Christian way.
We have one that is quite robust at the University of Virginia. Cornell, my alma mater, has a great one called Chesterton House. These are relatively recent. They come from the return of evangelical Christians to serious engagement with the academy in the last two generations. They’re very hopeful models of institutional interaction that may be more effective over time than chaplaincies have been.
The full interview may be found at Faith & Leadership.
Let us make room this blessed Christmas Day,
And keep the Christ Child in our hearts alway,
Let each soul bring to Him love’s diadem,
That every heart may be a Bethlehem.
-Harold Gwynne