Kristos
26th March 2007, 11:32 AM
After church this past Sunday I was thinking - dangerous passtime, indeed. Never the less, it's stuck in my mind until this morning, so I decided to write it out.
How does our view/celebration of the Navity versus the Annuciation reflect on out view of life? More specifically, the beginning of life and conception of a child. When most people think of the Incarnation - they think of Christmas - Bethleham, the manger, the ass and the ox, etc, etc. BUT, when did the Incarnation really take place? If we correctly call the Virgin, Theotokos, then we must also recognize that the miracle took place at the Annuciation - not at Christmas.
So, what is the message we send to society and our youth? What is implied by the seemingly, over-emphasis on the birth of Christ and in most churches, the under-emphasis or complete ommission of the Annunciation? I'm mainly speaking of Protestant america here. It would seem to be ironic that possibly the most powerful weapon in the "fight" for LIFE is more or less ignored. By this I don't mean that the story should be directly used to advocate Life, but rather that our subconscious is being conditions from the beginning of our lives. It's being conditioned to accept birth as the beginning of life and the greatest proponents of this conditioning are the same ones outspokenly against abortion. Maybe they shouldn't be so surprised...
How does our view/celebration of the Navity versus the Annuciation reflect on out view of life? More specifically, the beginning of life and conception of a child. When most people think of the Incarnation - they think of Christmas - Bethleham, the manger, the ass and the ox, etc, etc. BUT, when did the Incarnation really take place? If we correctly call the Virgin, Theotokos, then we must also recognize that the miracle took place at the Annuciation - not at Christmas.
So, what is the message we send to society and our youth? What is implied by the seemingly, over-emphasis on the birth of Christ and in most churches, the under-emphasis or complete ommission of the Annunciation? I'm mainly speaking of Protestant america here. It would seem to be ironic that possibly the most powerful weapon in the "fight" for LIFE is more or less ignored. By this I don't mean that the story should be directly used to advocate Life, but rather that our subconscious is being conditions from the beginning of our lives. It's being conditioned to accept birth as the beginning of life and the greatest proponents of this conditioning are the same ones outspokenly against abortion. Maybe they shouldn't be so surprised...