{"id":1755,"date":"2004-12-15T22:40:37","date_gmt":"2004-12-16T03:40:37","guid":{"rendered":"\/?p=1755"},"modified":"2004-12-16T08:58:08","modified_gmt":"2004-12-16T13:58:08","slug":"a-mormon-reinterpretation-of-a-christmas-carol","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2004\/12\/a-mormon-reinterpretation-of-a-christmas-carol\/","title":{"rendered":"A Mormon Reinterpretation of a Christmas Carol"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today I heard a well-known Christmas carol, and it occurred to me that the carol’s underlying story was incredibly ahistorical. In fact, it is roughly the opposite of what we know happened. Or rather, it is roughly the opposite of what most<\/em> Christians know happened.<\/p>\n

The carol is “Do You Hear What I Hear?” It’s a popular tune, with some nice-sounding recordings. It is also exactly the opposite of the Biblical Christmas story; the major problem is the fourth verse, which goes:<\/a><\/p>\n

Said the king to the people everywhere,
\nlisten to what I say
\nPray for peace, people everywhere!
\nlisten to what I say
\nThe Child, the Child, sleeping in the night
\nHe will bring us goodness and light
\nHe will bring us goodness and light.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Of course, the opposite occurred. The king didn’t say “pray for peace, the child will bring us goodness and light.” Instead, he said “that child is a threat to me! Kill him! And put to death every child of that age, just to be sure!” A pretty depressing plot for a Christmas carol, I know, but it does have the advantage of being part of the scriptural record<\/a>. <\/p>\n

But it turns out that, as Mormons, we have the unique advantage of being able to enjoy this song without having to resort to dubious history. That’s because we can offer a plausible alternative explanation: The “King” in the song is actually the leader of the Nephite people. And recall that the Nephite people did<\/em> know of Christ, and did<\/em> (with some exceptions) become peaceful, and look forward to Christ’s role as Saviour<\/a>. Exactly as laid out in the popular song<\/em>. So, unlike the rest of Christianity, we don’t need to trouble ourselves with any inconsistency, and we can rest content in our (foolish?) consistency.*<\/p>\n

Ain’t it great to be a Mormon?<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

*If foolish, it is, after all, the hobgoblin of little minds<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today I heard a well-known Christmas carol, and it occurred to me that the carol’s underlying story was incredibly ahistorical. In fact, it is roughly the opposite of what we know happened. Or rather, it is roughly the opposite of what most Christians know happened.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-corn"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1755","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1755"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1755\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}