[NorthMountain]

I generally give an artist credit for deliberately intending to produce the most obvious effect of his work. The most obvious effect of producing secular songs to celebrating the secular aspects of what is primarily a religious holiday is to obscure the religious aspects thereof. I believe that he deserves credit for intending that effect. He was promoting his point of view, and it sold like hotcakes. Neither he nor his customers are blameless.

The notion of writing songs to which scantily clad women dance around obscenely and suggestively with men on a stage is really anathema to both Judaism and Christianity. The notion of writing a Broadway melody that reflects faith in anything remotely Christian or Jewish is almost impossible to imagine.

LOL. Well put.

[Eleutheria5]

The obvious effect of Irving Berlin’s work was to bring in big crowds to watch shows with his lyrics. The secularization of Christmas took place over an extended period, perhaps going back to the 18th Century, and did not abruptly start with Irving Berlin. His songs were not a lone voice in a devoutly religious world, either. Miracle On 34th Street was part of the process, too, with Christmas taken over by Santa Clause. So was It’s a Wonderful Life, showing an angel with no angelical aura. So was A Christmas Carrol, with ghosts showing up to rub the protagonist’s nose in his own mean-spiritedness. So was Thomas Jefferson, who encouraged his state to defund their established, government-sponsored church, which promptly went bankrupt.