I love Jesus.

I say this, as a largely agnostic man of science, with a slight air of playful irreverence but also with total sincerity. I say this like I would say “I love Bilbo Baggins” or “I love Luke Skywalker”; that is, the values, the imagery, the pop culture impact and significance that these characters and their stories represent is profoundly appealing to me. They’re all “real” in that they have influenced and inspired countless people who in turn do real things. They’re also all, to me, just cool, timeless fictional characters, each helping to tell their part of a great story.

I use the term “agnostic” for lack of a better description. Even that term I think can carry with it some different connotations that I don't fully subscribe to, but for our purposes here let’s roll with it. What I’m not is a member of the Christian faith (or any other specific religion, or even, for that matter, the curious branch of atheism that explicitly believes with certainty that there couldn't be some empyrean consciousness afoot).

My point being, I feel the need to justify or at least try to explain this unabashedly Jesus-y Christmas album. This affinity of mine can probably be explained at least in part by the fact that I just love Christmas and, especially, Christmas music. I find that, musically, the classic Jesus holiday songs are amongst the great, simple modern(ish) pop song structures and melodies ever written. And beyond that, while I’m really not all that well versed in the specific non-secular details, I love the story and the imagery of Jesus, at least in the Western pop culture sense that I know - he’s a gentle man with long hair who wants us all to be nice to each other, who (so the story goes) was brutally killed. It’s powerful stuff. And then all the baby Jesus nativity business with the manger, the wise men and the frankincense, the farm animals… it’s just fantastic, I adore it. Again, in the same way that I might say I love the imagery and characters that populate Tatooine or Hogwarts.

So that’s what I mean when I say that these are secular songs about Jesus… yeah, even the old public domain numbers with clearly non-secular origins… when I sing them, there’s no explicitly religious intent – they’re just songs telling a story about a deeply sympathetic character who represents some lofty, impossible ideal of infinite compassion. The story might not be true or realistic or believable even, but it’s good enough for me to pretend for a few days a year and bask in the idealistic glow. And hey, stereo sleigh bells don’t hurt.

Peace, love and nog,
Arlen