In Hoc Anno Hominis?

In the past I have enjoyed the fact that The Wall Street Journal annually runs its traditional Christmas editorial "In Hoc Anno Domini."  I suppose that is because traditions have a cumulative effect, and I like that the editors of the paper have not bowed to contemporary pressure to diminish the significance of the holiday by reducing it to consumption or mere family time.

This year, however, I am finally able to give explicit expression to what has never sat completely well with me about the traditional editorial (reproduced in full below).

What bothers me is that, while the editorial does not completely strip the Christian holiday of its saving significance, the editorial nevertheless frames the saving significance of the advent of Jesus in secular terms.

The year of our Lord really becomes the year of our human.  Liberation is heralded, but it is a liberation fully at home within the tradition of classical political liberalism.  That political ideal of formal political equality may be associated with John Locke, but here in the Wall Street Journal editorial it is read in both Jesus and Paul.  Put differently, the autonomy of the individual as a Kantian end rather than as someone else's means is affirmed, as is liberty of conscience.  Bondage is viewed in these ways:  being a political means and not possessing power to think for oneself.  

Here is the editorial.  Read it (it's not that long), and then consider a few relevant points that come to mind.

REVIEW & OUTLOOK 

In Hoc Anno Domini

Our traditional Christmas editorial. 

When Saul of Tarsus set out on his journey to Damascus, the whole of the known world lay in bondage. There was one state, and it was Rome. There was one master for it all, and he was Tiberius Caesar.

Everywhere there was civil order, for the arm of the Roman law was long. Everywhere there was stability, in government and in society, for the centurions saw that it was so.

But everywhere there was something else, too. There was oppression—for those who were not the friends of Tiberius Caesar. There was the tax gatherer to take the grain from the fields and the flax from the spindle to feed the legions or to fill the hungry treasury from which divine Caesar gave largess to the people. There was the impressor to find recruits for the circuses. There were executioners to quiet those whom the Emperor proscribed. What was a man for but to serve Caesar?

There was the persecution of men who dared think differently, who heard strange voices or read strange manuscripts. There was enslavement of men whose tribes came not from Rome, disdain for those who did not have the familiar visage. And most of all, there was everywhere a contempt for human life. What, to the strong, was one man more or less in a crowded world?

Then, of a sudden, there was a light in the world, and a man from Galilee saying, Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's and unto God the things that are God's.

And the voice from Galilee, which would defy Caesar, offered a new Kingdom in which each man could walk upright and bow to none but his God. Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. And he sent this gospel of the Kingdom of Man into the uttermost ends of the earth.

So the light came into the world and the men who lived in darkness were afraid, and they tried to lower a curtain so that man would still believe salvation lay with the leaders.

But it came to pass for a while in diverse places that the truth did set man free, although the men of darkness were offended and they tried to put out the light. The voice said, Haste ye. Walk while you have the light, lest darkness come upon you, for he that walketh in darkness knoweth not whither he goeth.

Along the road to Damascus the light shone brightly. But afterward Paul of Tarsus, too, was sore afraid. He feared that other Caesars, other prophets, might one day persuade men that man was nothing save a servant unto them, that men might yield up their birthright from God for pottage and walk no more in freedom.

Then might it come to pass that darkness would settle again over the lands and there would be a burning of books and men would think only of what they should eat and what they should wear, and would give heed only to new Caesars and to false prophets. Then might it come to pass that men would not look upward to see even a winter's star in the East, and once more, there would be no light at all in the darkness.

And so Paul, the apostle of the Son of Man, spoke to his brethren, the Galatians, the words he would have us remember afterward in each of the years of his Lord:

Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.

This editorial was written in 1949 by the late Vermont Roysterand has been published annually since.

A version of this article appeared December 24, 2012, on page A12 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: In Hoc Anno Domini.

It is possible to read this through Christian eyes and to fill in the theological assumptions sympathetically.  The "truth" and "light" would be, on this reading, be understanding that all humans without exception have rebelled against God, stand equally culpable before him, and yet may receive God's demerited favor without distinction.  That favor is a free and freeing gift:  God the Father's monergistic securing through Jesus, and applying through the Spirit, redemption from slavery to sin and its attending wrath-filled consequences; it is transfer from the domain ruled by sin and death to the dominion of the beloved Son.  The new life proclaimed and contended for is a sharing in the resurrection life of Jesus, the light of truth that ultimately removed the scales of darkness from Paul's eyes on that road to Damascus.

But that is not how the editorial envisions slavery and salvation.  Darkness is censorship ("burning of books"), absence of liberty of conscience ("persecution of men who dared think differently, who heard strange voices or read strange manuscripts"), lack of formal equality ("enslavement of men whose tribes came not from Rome, disdain for those who did not have the familiar visage"), and void of humane concern for others ("everywhere a contempt for human life").

The new kingdom of light would be one "in which each man could walk upright and bow to none but his God," now with the dignity of formal equality, a right to pursue life without untoward government interference, liberty to find self-fulfillment and one's own religion, whatever that may be.

When the editorial is explicit about freedom, liberty, slavery, and bondage, it has all the earmarks of classical liberalism.  It does not necessarily characterize the centrality of Christian orthodoxy.

Now, I like classical liberalism.  Locke and Hume and Smith -- these men helped to make tremendous political strides.  And the world, my world, would be greatly impoverished if they had not had the courage to promulgate their views and to defend the rights of others to do the same.

But classical liberalism is not equivalent to orthodox Christianity.  The two may share similarities, and the one may help to provide warrant for the other.  The two, however, should not be confused -- as I think that they are in this otherwise helpful editorial.  Christians and classical liberals should be concerned to maintain this distinction.

If classical liberalism and orthodox Christianity are confused, then celebration of the occasion that marks "in this year of the Lord" may end up being a festival for "in this year of a man" after all.  Indeed, the editorial seems to have replaced Jesus' kingdom of God with its view of "this gospel of the Kingdom of Man."

If the two are confused, in other words, then Christmas would be a celebration of the formal equality of persons and of their ability to find individual meaning in life along whatever path provides them self-respect.  These individual pursuits would be unhindered by political or personal tyranny and free from deceptive influences.  These are noble pursuits, wonderful freedoms, and true liberation from many sorts of bondage.  But they are not, so far as I can tell, the reasons for, or meaning of, Jesus' birth, death, and resurrection.

In hoc anno domini.  Jesus' nativity -- as well as his life, suffering, and glories that followed -- began to mark the temporal turning of the ages because of something much more profound.