{"id":12779,"date":"2011-12-19T15:42:48","date_gmt":"2011-12-19T21:42:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/?p=12779"},"modified":"2011-12-27T00:40:23","modified_gmt":"2011-12-27T06:40:23","slug":"whacky-nativity-sets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/2011\/12\/19\/whacky-nativity-sets\/","title":{"rendered":"Whacky nativity sets"},"content":{"rendered":"

What would St. Francis of Assisi say?<\/p>\n

The originator of the Christmas cr\u00e8che, if only he could have copyrighted the idea, clearly would have made a fortune. Using figures to meditate on the mysteries of the nativity is just a great, great idea. It works for so many people, young and old! You can\u2019t beat it for encouraging imaginative\u00a0engagement with\u00a0the\u00a0story of Christ\u2019s birth.<\/p>\n

Like any religious devotion that makes its way into truly popular culture though, there\u2019s no saying how far it may get pushed over the edge into\u2026 well, tasteless trash.<\/p>\n

A friend of mine shared this website post of whacky nativity sets<\/a>. He found it hilarious.<\/p>\n

I have to admit, however, that seeing this collection of the world\u2019s worst nativity sets (and reading that the list is growing) made me grimace rather than smile.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t get me wrong. It’s not that I think there is only one way to do this. In fact, I\u2019m all for inculturation. I think it\u2019s wonderful, for instance, to see the Holy Family depicted as members of all races and peoples. It can be a beautiful witness to how Christian believers around the globe own the story \u2014 it\u2019s our story, wherever and whoever we may be.<\/p>\n

I think there\u2019s a place for anachronism in engaging with the Christmas story. There\u2019s a way of putting our contemporary world around the Christmas crib, thus symbolizing the coming of Christ into our everyday life\u2014a popular motif in Italian cr\u00e8ches. The idea behind that sort of thing is grand.<\/p>\n

Let me hasten to add that not all religious art is fine art, and that\u2019s perfectly, well, fine. Folk art is genuinely valuable. I\u2019m even OK with sentimental art or \u201creligious kitsch\u201d in the home. Placing, say, the little drummer boy or a kneeling Santa into the nativity scene under someone\u2019s Christmas tree may not be to my taste, but I respect the devotional impulse behind it.<\/p>\n

But a Holy Family made out of rubber ducks? The Savior in sausage? A cr\u00e8che of kitty cats? Here\u2019s my question: Is there a point at which the point of the cr\u00e8che is lost? Or can anything be dressed as the Holy Family, and it still works? In other words, is it impossible to evacuate the meaning from the symbols (the figures and their arrangement), and therefore it really doesn\u2019t matter?<\/p>\n

Maybe a Holy Family made up of dogs is just a bit of foolishness, and we should all have a good laugh. Maybe we should even admire all the novelties people have thought up. On the other hand, we are heading into a post-Christian culture, in which images that made sense in a Christian context are losing that context. Maybe frivolous treatment of the Christmas cr\u00e8che is not a laughing matter.<\/p>\n

What would St. Francis think?<\/p>\n

What do you <\/em>think?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Is there a point at which the point of the cr\u00e8che is lost? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[8,12,14],"tags":[1751,1753,1752],"class_list":["post-12779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art-and-architecture","category-devotions-and-sacramentals","category-inculturation","tag-creche","tag-kitsch","tag-nativity-set"],"yoast_head":"\nWhacky nativity sets - Home<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/2011\/12\/19\/whacky-nativity-sets\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Whacky nativity sets - 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