Praise and protest: Christmas carols have a long history of being 'woke' | Opinion

When I got my license plate in the mail I couldn’t help but notice that the first three letters were BLM, the hashtag for Black Lives Matter. I guess the government knows I’m woke.

Being woke isn’t popular everywhere. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has said, “Florida is the state where woke goes to die.” I suppose that makes Tennessee a better place to retire, with longer life expectancy, four milder seasons and less intense heat in the summer.

In Georgia there is a congregation with a billboard that reads: “Where Jesus Ain’t Woke.” If Jesus fell asleep in my church I probably wouldn’t advertise the fact. As a minister, I am inclined to forgive those who doze during my sermons. Even so, I am not going to build our PR campaign around them.

In Sunday school many of us heard the story of when Jesus was asleep in a boat during a storm. The disciples woke him and pleaded for him to intervene. Jesus said, “Peace! Be still!” The wind died down and the waters became calm. I wish there was someone who could have a similar effect on America’s politics. We could use the calming influence.

Although the word “woke” wasn’t coined in the 19th century, the Christmas carol “O, Holy Night” was banned from many churches for its antislavery message. Abolitionists embraced the hymn at both worship services and anti-slavery conventions.

"Truly He taught us to love one another;

His law is love and His gospel is peace.

Chains shall He break for the slave is our brother;

And in His name all oppression shall cease."

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The Christmas carol “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear” also has origins as both a church hymn and a protest song against the Mexican War. Congressman Abraham Lincoln, who would later become our first Republican president, denounced this war because he felt it was based on deception for the purposes of extending and perpetuating the institution of slavery. The Rev. Edmund Sears wrote the lyrics to express the same concerns, creating both a Christmas carol and an anti-war song.

"It came upon a midnight clear,

That glorious song of old,

From angels bending near the earth,

To touch their harps of gold:

Peace on the earth, goodwill to men,

From heaven’s all-gracious King.

The world in solemn stillness lay,

To hear the angels sing."

Sears drove his point home later in the song:

"And man, at war with man, hears not

The love-song which they bring;

O hush the noise, ye men of strife,

And hear the angels sing."

Unfortunately, we live in an age when a public school teacher sharing the history of a Christmas carol might get accused of spreading critical race theory, a theory officially banned by our state in 2021 (as was the theory of evolution in 1925). The agitators on cable news and social media love to pounce on such stories to polarize us and divide us.

On the other hand, we may all have more in common than we readily admit. There is a cartoon by Will McPhail circulating on the internet. A parent is speaking to a child, saying, “Listen to me. Gender is a construct. Society is a construct. Money is a construct. But bedtime is very, very, real.” The cartoonist reminds us there is one word that describes many children on Christmas Eve. Woke.

Chris Buice is minister of the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church

This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Opinion: Christmas carols have a long history of being 'woke'