The Nativity

Logos and Mythos

We’ve got a regular discussion group with a network of friends who live all across the country. In this season of Advent, our leader for the December session opened with a confession.

“These past few years, as I’ve grown more comfortable with my own beliefs, I’ve had no problem viewing the Old Testament as a collection of stories. You know… I feel no need to affirm a seven-day Creation six thousand years ago or that Jonah survived three days in the belly of a big fish…”

She continued, “This Christmas, I’ve been intentional in preparing for Advent, with devotional readings all around the Nativity - the birth of Jesus, the manger scene, the young mother Mary and her partner Joseph there surrounded by shepherds and camels and sheep and Kings and Wise, uh… Men. In my church world for most all my life, I’ve assumed all this to be a literal historical event. And worse - if I don’t accept that, I can no longer consider myself a Christian - a true believer. I feel conflicted. To be honest, it’s kind of ruining the whole spirit of the season for me.”

With that, she asked us all to weigh in. “So… what do you guys think? The Nativity Story - An historical event? A myth? A legend? … Let’s talk.”

And we did.

One chimed in, “Yes, I get that. But to doubt the story of Jesus’ birth is pretty cynical.”

Another confessed, “I grew up in a hyper-fundamentalist tradition. The day I let go of my need to believe in the Virgin Birth was truly liberating for me.”

Our hour-long conversation underscored nothing less than the power and bewilderment around the Nativity Story. Most of us grew up in a church that decried materialism, the pagan roots (The Romans and the Winter Solstice), the mistaken dating (“Everyone knows that Jesus was not born on December the 25th!”), the distress and distractions and alcohol-fueled merriment; the folk tales around Santa and Mrs. Claus, reindeer and sleigh; the commercialism of Black Friday and excessive credit card debt.

We learned it from day one: the “True Meaning of Christmas” is the arrival of the Savior of the World back in Bethlehem 2,024 years ago (as of this year).

It’s OK, in fact expected, to say, “I don’t believe in Santa Claus.” But it’s quite another to suggest that the Nativity Scene is anything less than God’s invasion into human history in real time.

It’s a heavy burden for a thinking person.

* * * * * * * *

Author Karen Armstrong draws a meaningful distinction for me. Two Greek words identify two different ways we humans have understood the world: Logos and Mythos.

Logos is logic. Science gathers data, organizing into meaningful categories, labeling and designing, making formulas that explain and predict. Logos is the world of facts and verifiability and catalogs and problem-solving and learning how things work.

Mythos is story. It’s an exploration of the transcendent. It’s the search for meaning. It’s the experience of beauty and love and wonder. It’s the aspiration to comprehend the purpose of it all. It takes us to infinity and beyond. With mythos, we don’t ask, “is it literal?”

Up until the Enlightenment, logos, and mythos lived together in harmony. And with the birth of the scientific method, according to Armstrong, mythos took a back seat. Logos took over.

When I went to the university, I chose a major. I could earn either a B.A. (Bachelor of Arts) or a B.S. (Bachelor of Science). The Sciences were biology and chemistry and engineering and math and physics. The Arts were literature, history, music, theater, and philosophy. They represent two different ways of viewing and understanding the world. When I stumbled over the theories of left-brain/right-brain, as a lefty, I developed a theory about which students chose which side of the campus: Arts or Sciences. Which side of the brain was dominant?

Armstrong’s theory of mythos made sense to me. In a world that gives primacy to logos, myth is discounted, even dismissed. If it isn’t provable, or verifiable, it’s “just a myth.” Armstrong agrees, if something can be contradicted by proof, then it ought to be dismissed. But there’s a whole world of story and art and beauty and wonder that can not be reduced to a scientific formula - to logos. It’s mythos.

In her book* on the history of fundamentalism, Armstrong argues that fundamentalism occurs when mythos becomes logos. Back in Bible School, when they told me that Systematic Theology was the “Queen of the Sciences,” I knew something was amiss. Now I know. They made mythos into logos. If anything, theology is an art - not a science.

I grew up in the white, American, evangelical version of fundamentalism. But fundamentalism happens in most every religion. It also appears in political parties and other social groupings. Armstrong’s book is an exploration of fundamentalism in Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. Her book opens with the terror attack on 9/11. The terrorists piloting those airplanes were all fundamentalist Muslims.

When we begin to believe that our myths are absolute, verifiable, undeniable facts, those myths have become logos. And that’s when our beliefs become toxic. Toxic to ourselves. Toxic to our neighbors. Toxic to our world. We become obsessed with us versus them. They are the enemy. They are out to destroy us. We must defend ourselves - by whatever means necessary, even violence. We have become hard-core fundamentalists - open to all manner of conspiracy theories.

Just over a hundred years ago, at the First Presbyterian Church of New York, Harry Emerson Fosdick preached a sermon entitled, “Shall the Fundamentalists Win?” Three years before the Scopes Trial of 1925, Fosdick sounded the warning: Fundamentalist Christians who claimed to be the sole protectors of Orthodoxy demanded that anyone who disagreed must be banished from the Kingdom. Sound familiar? His sermon is as relevant today as it was a century ago.

Armstrong argues that in a world where fundamentalists seek to take control, we need to recover the power of mythos.

* * * * * * * *

I believe in the Nativity Story.

I don’t feel any compulsion to prove anything about it. It just doesn’t matter to me. It’s not about logos.

For centuries, the wonder of childbirth is celebrated all over the world this time of year. The Notre Dame Cathedral is dedicated to “Our Lady;” the universal mother, Mary. She is (too) young. She welcomes her child. She believes in her heart that her baby boy is a child of promise. She sings a song of wonder at the way in which her baby will impact the world for good. She is surrounded by folks who celebrate with her, knowing that while the child will encounter resistance, even rejection, he will not be forgotten. She treasures the moments somewhere deep in her heart.

It’s a sad contemplation when a woman delivers a baby she does not want, or cannot support. We all lament that.

But I’ve been a first-person witness in the company of women (Carolyn, our daughters, and our daughter-in-law) for whom that baby is a dream come true. An answer to a deep longing, a prayer. The realization of a transcendent purpose. A reason for being. The intense pain and physical trauma of delivery is the cost - but the reward is indescribable.

If you’ve been there, you know.

The Nativity is a universal archetype. There are all manner of religious accouterments attached to the scene. No matter. And what a perfect time to celebrate the birth of a child - the longest, darkest night of the year. There’s divinity present. Miracle. Our imaginations take flight. A heavenly choir sings. The stars hold their place in the sky. Shepherds leave their sheep. Dignitaries show up, too.

It’s a gift that prompts us to give. To sacrifice. To hold. To hug. To sing along with that heavenly choir.

Peace on earth, goodwill to humankind.

Silent night. Holy night. All is calm. All is bright.

Sleep in heavenly peace.

Sleep in heavenly peace.

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*Karen Armstrong, The Battle for God: A History of Fundamentalism