Belief can be nurtured by family, friends, religious and cultural institutions, but the moment of revelation - of claiming a significant personal relationship with one's Creator - remains a radical event.
A hush descends on the world. A cold night, shepherds huddled together near their flocks on the hill. Suddenly a dazzling black angel carrying an urban African-American girl too ill with a fever to attend the Christmas pageant appears and breaks the silence with the words, "Fear not!" The shepherds, who had been terrified and cowering, now lower their arms and look up as they hear "ten million angels the sizes of children" sing "Glory to God in the highest!" These familiar words and associations evoke the timeless Christmas story, here told with fresh ideas and a new spirit.
Well, why not?
Is this a perversion of the traditional Nativity story or a newly inspired vision that we are blessed to have shared with us? Is a beautiful angel "as tall as the night" appearing at an apartment house window believable or laughable, a convincing apparition or the figment of the foolish imagination of its author, Walter Wangerin Jr. ("Probity Jones and the Fear Not Angel," Augsburg, Illustrated, 32 pages, $17.95)?
Why are there so many religious institutions in every village in America rereading the Christmas story at this time of year and making it the focus of special pageants, concerts and services? Why do we hear carols and hymns composed for sacred use wafting through secular malls and supermarkets? And when did Santa Claus, with the promise of presents for all, get attached to the unlikely story of an unwed Jewish mother birthing the "Son of God" in a small town in the Middle East?
Start with Santa Claus. The intriguing story of his entrance on the scene of American culture is wonderfully chronicled in Stephen Nissenbaum's new book "The Battle for Christmas" (Alfred A. Knopf/Random House, Illustrated, 381 pages, $30).
Nissenbaum, who grew up in an Orthodox Jewish household, had a childhood fascination with the idea of Christmas. In the preface, he recounts a Christmas when he gathered some of his toys in a sack and tried to give them to other children, although this ritual was outside his religious and family experience.
Nissenbaum connects the pagan roots of the solstice festival with European Christmas celebrations, both associated with feasting and the momentary inversion of the established social order. Despite Puritan attempts to outlaw Christmas in America, by the early 19th century the secular nature of its revelry had become problematic in sprawling New York City.
