Jesus vs. Santa

I have a confession to make: I still celebrate Santa bringing me gifts. I'm in if it's got my name on it, even if it's from Santa. And I prefer to build bridges, when possible, rather than torch them. So I don't think we need an icicle in hand, looking to kill Santa! 🥶

But Santa is so pervasive, flexible, and adaptable that it can take time to understand what Santa stands for. Is he celebrating a new Lexus? The nuclear family? Building snowmen?

We need clarity about how our culture celebrates Christmas. Then we can make intelligent choices to follow God within our context. And we are better prepared for respectful, spiritual conversations. 

The first point is that some argue for a close comparison between Santa and Jesus. As Derek Mathias wrote for The Atheist Republic, 

Christians perform rituals for Jesus, like prayer, baptism, and communion…but then children perform rituals for Santa, like writing him letters, hanging stockings, and setting out milk and cookies.

Christians claim Jesus answers their prayers by helping them find lost items and giving them guidance…but then children claim Santa answers their letters by giving them toys every Christmas morning.

Christians believe Jesus used to perform miracles, such as healing the sick, turning water into wine and resurrecting after his death…but children believe Santa also performs miracles, such as being all-knowing whether children are good or bad, visiting the homes of all the children on Earth in a single night and fitting through even the smallest of chimneys.

Jesus walked on water. Santa can fly through the air.

He concludes his argument, "So what IS the difference between believing in Jesus Christ and believing in Santa Claus? Apparently not much. Jesus is just Santa for adults."

You might feel this is strained, but one of our day's more charming and famous atheists, Dr. Richard Dawkins, has expressed the same thought. He once wrote, "Fairy tales, as well as charming, can be good training in critical thinking. Children learn to see through a certain class of falsehoods. For the same reason, Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy might be positively beneficial (though odd that the lesson doesn't generalise to God?)."

Are Jesus and Santa both fairy tales? Or is there more to the story?

The first significant difference is that Santa affirms our cultural norms.

It's strange, but the wealthiest zip codes get far more love from Santa than the poorest neighborhoods. Even if you're on the naughty list, it turns out that Santa can be bribed. By contrast, good but poor people sometimes don't even have coal to heat their homes. 

We know that Jesus overturns these expectations. As Cheryl Bridges Johns explains, the birth narrative honors Mary, a poor peasant woman:

When Mary was filled with the Spirit and conceived the Son of God, her body became the inner court of the Holy of Holies. Never before had a woman entered this sacred space, but in the incarnation, the Holy of Holies came into her space.

When Jesus spoke in the synagogue at Nazareth, he said, “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor” (Luke 4:18-19).

'Santa' proclaims good news to the rich. Jesus proclaims good news to the poor. 

Another critical difference is the legitimacy of these stories.

Dr. Andy Bannister observes,

I've long been fascinated how many Christians came to faith in Jesus Christ as adults, not because they were brain-washed into it by their parents. I often ask Christian audiences "Who here became a Christian after the age of 15?" and frequently over half the hands shoot up. I then follow up with "How many people here came to believe in Santa Claus as adults?" The point is obvious: belief in God is not like belief in Santa Claus, on any conceivable level.

Dr. John Lennox put it nicely: "Stephen Hawking said, "religion is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark." Lennox's reply? "Atheism is a fairy story for people afraid of the light. Neither of those statements proves anything at all. They're all reversible. What lies behind all these delusion claims is the Freudian idea of wish fulfilment [that we believe what we hope to be true.] This works brilliantly providing there is no god. But if there is a god, then atheism is wish fulfilment."

The point is, don't try this at your next holiday party. "You believe in a bunch of fairy tale nonsense" is more of an attack than an argument. Brilliant people affirm both atheism and Christianity. But no serious thinker argues that Santa Claus is real. 

Third, Santa Claus is no help for the hardships of life.

Santa visits once a year to drop off some gifts. But Jesus came to live among us. He was a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief; he walks with us in our pain. 

Jesus told us, "Come to me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, because I am lowly and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."

Finally, Santa is designed to be bland and non-offensive.

There's no one - but Grinches - who don't like Santa. The last thing a big brand wants is a controversial Santa. No. They want us to go "ho ho ho" so we will buy buy buy. The difference could not be more tremendous. When Jesus came, he stirred controversy. Consider Matthew 2:1-3,

After Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of King Herod, wise men from the east arrived in Jerusalem, saying, "Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star at its rising and have come to worship him." When King Herod heard this, he was deeply disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him.

Within the simmering conflict between Rome's oppression and Israel's messianic hopes, the arrival of a Messiah meant one thing: revolution. Consequently, Herod took every measure to snuff out the problem:

Then Herod, when he realized that he had been outwitted by the wise men, flew into a rage. He gave orders to massacre all the boys in and around Bethlehem who were two years old and under, in keeping with the time he had learned from the wise men" (Matthew 2:16).

How are you following Jesus this Christmas?

Does your life challenge the status quo? The Heidelberg Catechism famously begins, "What is your only comfort in life and in death?" Can you answer, "That I am not my own, but belong—body and soul, in life and in death—to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ"?

Santa is a lot of fun. There’s no need to be a killjoy. Yet following Christ is a controversial decision. May our lives have integrity, and may our words be wise.

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