From a Christian perspective, God’s act of creation is an expression of love. God made the world because He wants an abundance of beings and sensibilities to love, to be with, to share life with, and to make happy.

A little more than two thousand years after the first Christmas, Christianity is both more universal and “cosmopolitan” than ever, and yet it is also more deeply rooted in more cultures than ever before in its past.

It is a terrible scandal, but there is no way to separate the Trinity from Christmas. God is One; God is Three; the baby Jesus is the Second Person of the Trinity, come to earth to save sinners and open the door to a new kind of relationship between human beings and God

Love doesn’t just exist, Christians believe. It rules. That baby in the manger isn’t just the center of a circle of affection that includes his family and the adoring shepherds; He is the King and Lord of the universe.

We need to know what Christians mean by God, why they think God had a Son, and what they think God’s Son was doing being born at all, much less being born in Bethlehem.

Church calendars mark December 28 as Holy Innocents’ Day, the day we remember the deaths of the babies in Bethlehem who were murdered at Herod’s command.

Conventional manger scenes don’t show it, but besides the ox, the ass, the sheep, and the camels, there was another animal in the room at Christmas: an elephant. And the elephant in the room was the idea that Jesus’ mother was a virgin when He was born.

The documentary sources for the Christmas story are pretty good by the standards of the ancient world, but are few and short by the standards of our time.

There’s an old family custom that when two friends or relations greet one another on Christmas morning, the first one who says “Christmas gift!” gets to select one of the other person’s presents.