Yes, Virginia, There Is a Santa Claus

This well-known sentence appeared in the late, great New York Sun as an editorial response to a letter from an eight-year-old girl asking whether there really was a Santa Claus. Since its publication in 1897 the editorial has become a classic year-end repeat along with other sub-Christian Christmas paraphernalia. Religiously, however, the writer was years ahead of himself. Consider this excerpt:

Not believe in Santa Claus? You might as well not believe in fairies. You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on that lawn? Of course not, but that’s no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders that are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You tear apart the baby’s rattle to see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest men, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance can push aside the curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

No Santa Claus! Thank God, he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the hearts of children.

With slight adaptation this “Christmas” story could approximate much of the New Testament theology prominent in seminaries of the major denominations under the influence of Rudolph Bultmann and his fellow-traveling existentialists. Let’s “Christianize” some of the above sentences to prove the point.

On Easter Sunday you could have hired all the television cameramen and the news reporters to watch the tomb where the dead body of Jesus lay; but even if they did not see Jesus come out or even if his body was there, what would that prove? Nobody sees the Risen Christ but that is no sign that there is no Risen Christ. Only faith can push aside the curtain and view and picture that supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, dear Christians, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

No Risen Christ! Thank God, he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the hearts of Christians with good news.

The editor of the Sun and the existentially oriented exegetical scholars operate from the same philosophical base: they divide their area of concern—Santa Claus or religion—from history. Like Spinoza several centuries before, these scholars give science undisputed reign over fact and religion undisputed reign over piety. By comparison the old liberal theology, à la Adolf von Harnack and Harry Emerson Fosdick, was quite conservative. Its picture of Jesus might have been warped—the tolerant rabbi from Nazareth who taught brotherhood and whose religious moralisms resemble politicians’ speeches at prayer breakfasts—but the old liberalism did not contest the historical existence of Jesus or doubt that his message (though distorted by Paul and others) could be known. But beginning with Barth and going right down through Bultmann, Fuchs, Ebeling, Bornkamm, Käsemann, Marxsen, and their offspring in both Europe and America, theology and history have been practiced in two different and opposing fields.

For an analogy, let’s go back to Virginia and Santa Claus. Barth would say:

Yes, there is a Santa Claus, but I will not guard the chimney. In fact, I will ignore entirely the question of whether or not there is a chimney. Let’s get on with the story.

Bultmann would say:

Yes, there is a Santa Claus, and I will guard the chimney all night. My research—and you can be assured it was “objective and scholarly”—has convinced me that Santa Claus has never come down the chimney and never could. And not only that, the scientific mind set of the twentieth century has ruled out the possibilities of fat men coming down the small exhaust gas pipes on most homes. Most homes with advanced construction are capable of supporting a sleigh and eight reindeer (tiny variety), but aeronautical science finds “flying sleighs” impossible. Let’s forget about the empirical evidence. “No Santa Claus! Thank God, he lives, and he lives forever.”

Marxsen would say:

Nothing would be more destructive of Santa Claus than if we really discovered that there really was one. A real Santa Claus would destroy the dynamic quality of faith. The more our historical research rules out the possibility of Santa Claus, the more our faith will grow. Nobody sees (or can see) Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. Our growing ignorance of Santa Claus will only strengthen our faith in him.

Both Bultmann and Marxsen could say with the Sun editor: “Only faith … can push aside the curtain.”

What the editor and the scholars do is not necessarily deny history but ignore it. The stories of Santa Claus and Jesus Christ are told completely but without concern for the questions of what really happened and if it happened.

The existential theologians are not the first to flee from history into the realm of “faith”; the disease appeared in a benign form in the old “warm faith” of Pietism, in which the response to embarrassing historical questions was, “What does it matter? Only believe!” In fact, whenever history has become difficult because of the intellectual laziness of the Church or the offense of the cross, the Church has fled from history into faith. But whoever flees history flees from the virgin birth of Jesus, the incarnation, the atonement, the resurrection, and the ascension. To forsake history, even in the name of faith, is to flee Jesus.

Faith is not the most important element in the Christian religion. History—here defined as what really happened—is more important than faith. The Christian message starts in history and is participating in history till that history comes to an end. The story of Jesus begins with these familiar words: “In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be enrolled. This was the first enrollment when Quirinius was governor of Syria.” Those words anchor Jesus Christ in history, making him as much a part of that history as Caesar Augustus, Quirinius, or the other persons mentioned in Luke 3—Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate, Herod the Tetrarch, Philip the Tetrarch, Lysanias the Tetrarch, Annas and Caiaphas, the high priests. Christmas for a Christian means that at one particular time and no other, God appeared as a Man, Jesus Christ. God was Jewish! This appearance was unique, incapable of repetition. Even the indwelling of God, Christ, or the Spirit in the believer hardly comes close to being analogous to the incarnation. The very scandal or offense of the cross is that God was acting in ordinary history. Not even faith can erase the fact that God’s mighty acts are not timeless in the sense that they can take place at any time under a variety of circumstances but can be dated sometime between 6 B.C. and A.D. 27–29.

What happened in Palestine in the first half of the first century in our calendar time (Jesus’ life, death, resurrection) gave birth to the Word. This Word (the news about what happened) gives birth to individual Faith (one’s awareness of what happened in History and understanding of how this History benefits him eternally). History, Word, Faith is the correct order.

For the existentially oriented theologians the only components of Christianity are Word and Faith. The Faith of the first-century Christian community, say these New Testament scholars, gave us Jesus, Bible, apostles, sacraments, and even God (along with hope, love, joy, and peace). That Faith produced the Word (some message that just sits in the Bible without any explanation of how it got there) that in turn produces Faith (one becomes aware of this Word’s meaning in a particular situation without knowing what really happened or caring if anything happened in history at all). But Faith, despite all the glories attached to it, cannot live without the historical Jesus. Just as Virginia must one day have grown up and found out that while there might be peace, joy, and happiness in the world, there was really no Santa Claus, so also the Christian whose faith has depended on a Jesus amputated from history will discover that his “Jesus” really does not exist and never did.

For the Church to live by faith alone, without confronting hard historical and scientific questions, might be comfortable and undemanding if it were possible. This type of religion may be called “Christianity,” but it isn’t that. When religious truth (I don’t know how to express this better) supersedes historical truth, “God talk” becomes only a symbol for greater religious realities, and such basic Christian mysteries as incarnation, angels, miracles, and resurrection become realities that exist in the human mind without ties to specific happenings and people. In short, Christianity becomes dependent on such traits as joy, faith, hope, love, and beauty, and Jesus begins to look like Virginia’s Santa Claus:

Your mother, father, grandparents are all “Santa Claus.” He can be found where people are moved by the Christmas spirit to help their fellow men. The countless charities cause Santa Claus to become “incarnate” in the hearts of people all over the world.

At that point, the Church might as well switch religious symbols. After all, the story of Santa presents fewer difficulties than the one about Jesus. For one thing, we are only one century removed from the latest manuscript on the life of Santa Claus and nineteen centuries from ones about Jesus. For another, Santa’s sphere is global—he comes down from the North Pole and flies through the earth’s atmosphere—while Christ’s is universal—he comes down to earth from heaven. In the story of Santa Claus there is no mention of sin, wrath, persecution, or death. Santa Claus is good to all people and gives gifts to all people. (Universalism at its finest!) He makes no hard demands on anyone: a little goodness in December will be richly rewarded.

The story of Jesus, on the other hand, mentions human sin and God’s judgment of it and includes a horrible death scene. The miracle in Santa’s story—flying reindeer—could probably be reproduced today by making a sled airborne, one way or another. And reindeer on roofs and a man sliding down chimneys are less difficult to demonstrate. Not so with Jesus’ story. Modern science has yet to demonstrate how a virgin can have a child, how angels can talk and sing (and even what they are), and how God could become a man.

With Santa’s story established as a convenient and acceptable vehicle for religious truth, the New York Sun editorial would become important source material for the Christmas Eve sermon. For the sake of traditionalists in his congregation, the minister might want to substitute the words “Jesus Christ” for “Santa Claus.” Same number of syllables. No great problem.

George M. Marsden is associate professor of history at Calvin College, Grand Rapids, Michigan. He has the Ph.D. (Yale University) and has written “The Evangelical Mind and the New School Presbyterian Experience.”

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