Three Views From the Nativity Scene
THE NEW YORK TIMES
By Ross Douthat
Pause for a moment....to glance at one of the manger scenes you pass along the way. Cast your eyes across the shepherds and animals, the infant and the kings. Then try to see the scene this way: not just as a pious set-piece, but as a complete world picture — intimate, miniature and comprehensive. It’s about the vertical link between God and man — the angels, the star, the creator stooping to enter his creation. But it’s also about the horizontal relationships of society, because it locates transcendence in the ordinary, the commonplace, the low. [link]
Three versions summarized, via @alphaomegaarts
By Ross Douthat
Pause for a moment....to glance at one of the manger scenes you pass along the way. Cast your eyes across the shepherds and animals, the infant and the kings. Then try to see the scene this way: not just as a pious set-piece, but as a complete world picture — intimate, miniature and comprehensive. It’s about the vertical link between God and man — the angels, the star, the creator stooping to enter his creation. But it’s also about the horizontal relationships of society, because it locates transcendence in the ordinary, the commonplace, the low. [link]
Three versions summarized, via @alphaomegaarts
- Biblical view: accepts the manger scene as literal, and that this is exactly how it happened;
- Spiritual view: embraces the symbolic idea that the divine is active in human affairs; and the
- Secular view: eliminates the divine and puts the individual's dreams at the center of the world.
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