The Christmas Words that Nobody Has Heard

In 1847, French composer Adolphe Adam wrote the music that we know as O Holy Night, using the words of a poem by Placide Cappeau.

I suppose everyone has heard the first verse. But what about the last one? Very few people realize that the poem was an abolitionist message, directed specifically at the remaining pockets of slavery in the world, especially in the United States. I think you should hear them.

The original French:

Le Rédempteur a brisé toute entrave:

La terre est libre, et le ciel est ouvert.

Il voit un frère où n'était qu'un esclave,

L'amour unit ceux qu'enchaînait le fer.

Qui lui dira notre reconnaissance,

C'est pour nous tous qu'il naît, qu'il souffre et meurt.

The English translation by John Sullivan Dwight in 1855:

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.

Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we,

Let all within us praise His holy name.

But an exact translation is:

The Redeemer has broken every bond:

The Earth is free, and Heaven is open.

He sees a brother where there was only a slave,

Love unites those that iron had chained.

Who will tell Him of our gratitude,

For all of us He is born, He suffers and dies.

Sometimes it seems like most Christians actually celebrate the oppressive power of the conservatives, rather than the spirit of liberation. Some, like Bill O’Reilley, actually celebrate the happiness of slaves in the old days. It seems that only agnostics really appreciate the message of liberation from slavery.

The work of liberation in the world is not finished!

The Terrorist Attack in Strasbourg

Last night, a terrorist attack in Strasbourg left two dead, one brain-dead, and twelve injured. This attack has shocked people around the world. French police responded immediately and are looking diligently for the shooter, whose identity is known and whose face has been broadcast everywhere.

Very quickly les citoyens strasbourgeoises created memorials to the slain.

This was the same response that I saw in July 2016 when the citizens of Strasbourg created memorials for the victims of the terrorist attack in Nice.

While the horror of this attack cannot be ignored, I must remind my readers that there were more people killed, thirteen in all, on October 27 at a bar in Thousand Oaks, California. That was the 307^th mass shooting in America. America has so many mass shootings that people here and around the world quickly forget them.

Mix Together Religious Zeal and Scientific Ignorance, and What Do You Get?

You all already know the answer to this question. I want to give you a particularly vivid example.

In eighteenth-century France, as in other places in Europe, Catholics massacred a lot of Protestants, and the reverse was often true as well. One of the worst massacres was in August, 1572, when French Catholic mobs murdered thousands of Protestant Huguenots in the St. Bartholomew’s Massacre. Historical summaries generally say the triggering event of the massacre was the attempted assassination of the Admiral de Coligny. But there was more to the story. I cannot find this information online, but I distinctly remember reading in a book in 1976 (written by Henri Noguères) that one of the triggering events was the flowering of a crabapple tree. Crabapple trees usually bloom in spring. When some of them bloomed in late summer in Paris, many people, already stirred up by religious zeal, took this to be a miracle; if a miracle, then a message; if a message, then from God; if from God, it meant that they were supposed to go kill Huguenots.

This event, however, was all based on ignorance—in this case, botanical ignorance. If crabapple (or Bradford pear) trees experience a summer drought, and then rain begins to fall, the rain serves as a trigger that makes the trees bloom. This is because the trees do not have heat and cold sensors; to a tree, winter is dry (because the water is frozen) and spring is wet. Therefore, many trees will respond to a dry midsummer followed by a wet late summer as being winter followed by spring. This is why the crabapple trees bloomed in Paris in August 1572.

When the trees bloomed, the religious zealots did not know why. And if they do not know why, then it must be a miracle. This was their religiously deluded line of reasoning. Who knows how many people lost their lives because some religious zealots did not know enough botany!

I also posted this on my science blog.

This is my 401st essay.