The War On Christmas - The Candy Cane Battle
It appears this year Christians have made a strategic attack in the War on Christmas - trying to claim the non-religious candy cane as a religious symbol.
At The Mayor's Christmas Parade in Baltimore yesterday, the devout were out en masse, distributing all sorts of religious literature of varying sects, cults, beliefs, what have you.
Hampden United Methodist Church (3449 Falls Rd.) was handing out candy canes with the above message attached on a flier.
It's nice of them to hand out the candy canes, and it's cute that their religious message rhymes. But sadly, it's not true. While there is nothing wrong with anyone attempting to recontextualize a symbol, the area where they are actually being dishonest is when they claim their poem is "The True Meaning of the Candy Cane."
The True Meaning of Candy Cane, at least according to expert urban legend debunker Snopes.com:
About 1847, August Imgard of Ohio managed to decorate his Christmas tree with candy canes to entertain his nephews and nieces. Many who saw his canes went home to boil sugar and experiment with canes of their own. It took nearly another half century before someone added stripes to the canes ... Christmas cards produced before 1900 show plain white cains, while striped ones appear on many cards printed early in the 20th century.
In fact, the strongest connection one can make between the origins of the candy cane and intentional Christian symbolism is to note that legend says someone took an existing form of candy which was already being used as a Christmas decoration and produced bent versions which represented a shepherd's crook and were handed out to children at church to ensure good behavior.
Soon after Europeans adopted the use of Christmas trees, they began making special decorations for them. Food items predominated, with cookies and candy heavily represnted. That is when straight, white sticks of suger candy came into use at Christmas, probably during the seventeenth century.
Tradition has it that some of these candies were put to use in Cologne Cathedral about 1670 while restless youngsters were attending ceremonies around the living creche. To keep them quiet, the choirmaster persuaded craftsmen to make sticks of candy bent at the end to represent shepherds' crooks, then he passed them out to boys and girls who came to the cathedral.
Tradition has it that some of these candies were put to use in Cologne Cathedral about 1670 while restless youngsters were attending ceremonies around the living creche. To keep them quiet, the choirmaster persuaded craftsmen to make sticks of candy bent at the end to represent shepherds' crooks, then he passed them out to boys and girls who came to the cathedral.
Claims made about the candy's religious symbolism have become increasingly widespread as religious leaders have assured their congregations that these mythologies are factual, the press have published these claims as authoritative answers to readers' inquiries about the confections' meaning, and several lavishly illustrated books purport to tell the "true story" of the candy cane's origins. This is charming folklore at best... the story of the candy cane's origins is, like Santa Claus, a myth and not a 'true story.'
So, the candy cane was developed as an ornament for a Christmas tree. The symbolism of the candy cane as we've come to know it is nothing more than a tasty ornament for a Christmas Tree created for the enjoyment of children. If one chooses to see the red as the blood of Christ or white as a symbol of purity, or the cane as symbol of a shepherd or even an upside down "J" to represent Jesus, hey, that's fine. Enjoy. But do so knowing you are ascribing symbolism where none was intended - in fact, it is an exercise in cultural revisionism.
But to claim this to be "The True Meaning of the Candy Cane," well, that's just deceitful if not an outright lie.
Source.
What's even better is that even if the candy cane were originally Christian in origin, who cares? With all of the things going on in the world, this is what they worry about? Talk about a persecution complex.
What I want to know is why we've taken Christ out of elementary mathematics. Clearly, addition is Christ-related ('+').
Posted by: fordprefectajt | December 09, 2008 at 12:24 PM
Well, I'll tell you why. My son't TEACHER in public school told the students that candy canes were a symbol of Christ.
I don't know why she was teaching about Jesus and the candy cane in school, but she was! It is REDICULOUS..
Posted by: Leigh | December 19, 2008 at 08:01 AM