Fun With Santa

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Some Christians object to the modern celebration of Christmas, believing it to be too grounded in pagan rituals and secular mythmaking to be of any use to modern believers. While some of the influences surrounding Christmas were indeed pagan, that is no reason that followers of Jesus can’t enjoy the season. As long as we give glory to God in appreciating His work in the Incarnation, we can enjoy the secondary parts of Christmas. Santa Claus is one example.  

By Mark Harris, MD, MPH, MBA, MDiv, ThM, PhD, DBA

Christians know that the coming of Jesus Christ is the reason for Christmas. We know that Santa Claus is the American version of a generous and jolly character, an amalgamation of Father Christmas (England), the Christkind (Germany, known in America as Kris Kringle), Pere Noel (France), and others. We also understand that the modern Santa is based on a very real Christian leader in Rome, Saint Nicolas (270-343). Santa Claus existed, though much differently than the modern stories. Lastly, we know that Saint Nicolas is a servant of God in Jesus Christ.

Christians can enjoy the traditions around Santa Claus. We can track Santa’s location on Christmas Eve on a Santa tracker. The USPS takes letters from children who want something and matches these letters with people who volunteer to buy the requested present and send the gift to the child. Or you can go all in and become a Santa.

Resource Links

  1. How to be Santa Schools – Charles W Howard Santa Claus School, International University of Santa Claus, Northern Lights Santa Academy,  Worldwide Santa Claus Network,
  2. Operation Santa (Christmas Gifts for Children) – US Postal Service
  3. Santa Tracker – North American Air Defense Command (NORAD)
  4. Santa Tracker – Flight Radar 24
  5. Santa Tracker – Google

 

Judges 19 and Sexual Abuse

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Judges 19 contains one of the most gruesome stories in the Bible. Few people read it, and as far as I know, no one enjoys it, but God placed it in His word as a powerful indictment of sin. Christians can and must learn from it to help ourselves and our society avoid sin’s traps, specifically in the area of sexual abuse. The following is a fictional story based on a real event as recorded in the Bible.

By Mark D. Harris, MD, MPH, MBA, MDiv, ThM, PhD, DBA

The Story

Aaron, a middle-aged priest from Ephraim, dismounted his donkey in the small village of Bethlehem, while his two servants removed the bags and fed and watered the donkeys. Aaron’s primary wife, Rama, was unable to conceive a child so he had come to Bethlehem to find a concubine, a secondary wife. The priest looked anxiously for the people he was meeting. As the sun neared the top of the sky, a small group walked towards him.

A man with salt and pepper hair and beard, furrows on his brow, and a dark, weather-beaten face approached. Walking behind him and to his left was a trim, petite woman. Standing at a distance was an older woman with younger boys and girls.

“I am Jocham,” said the older man as he approached the priest.

“I am Aaron,” replied the priest. “My merchant friend in Ephraim told me that you have a daughter that I might be interested in.”

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Avoiding Putin’s Trap

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President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to stop the Russian war on Ukraine. While he possesses a strong personality, Trump’s personality alone is not likely to stop the T-80s from rolling into Dnipro and Zaporizhzhia. Stopping the war is a worthy goal, but Trump and his team need to ensure that they do not lose the peace. The following article illuminates how to get a fair deal.

By Mark D. Harris, MD, MPH, MBA, MDiv, ThM, PhD, DBA

Background

Ukraine is renowned for its fertile, black soil, and Ukrainian agriculture ranks among the most productive in the world. Fifty-five percent of Ukraine’s land is arable, mostly in the western and central regions, and 14% of Ukrainians work in agriculture.[1] Equally important, Ukraine has historically had several excellent ports on the Black Sea to safely and cheaply get its crops to market. These ports include Odessa, Chernomorsk, Yuzhny, Berdyansk, Mariupol, and Sevastopol.

Situated to the north and east, Russia lacks Ukraine’s vast swathes of rich farmland. For centuries, Russians moving to Ukraine to find a better life had few opportunities to settle in the western and central regions since native Ukrainians were there. The Donetsk and Luhansk regions along the Dnieper River in the east lacked such productive soil but, as the Industrial Revolution began in the 19th century, these regions had something even more valuable. Eastern Ukraine is flush with coal and iron and has a major river to move the coal and iron to market. In the late 19th and early to mid-20th centuries, Russian settlers flocked to these regions, together known as the Donbas. Nationwide, Ukrainians account for 77.8% of the people in the Ukraine and Russians account for 17.3%, but the Russian population percentage is much higher in the Donbas and in the Crimean Peninsula.[2]

Prelude to War

Putin had what he considered to be good reasons to attack Ukraine. He argued that the West had invaded Russia six times in the past two centuries, while Russia had not initiated hostilities against the West.[3] He cited NATO encroachment as a threat to Russia. Putin styled himself as a modern Russian savior along the lines of Peter the Great.

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Are US Elections Fair – My day as a poll worker

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Citizens across the country worry about America. Voters wonder if their vote counts. In my admittedly limited time as a poll worker, I believe that it does.

By Mark D. Harris, MD, MPH, MBA, MDiv, ThM, PhD, DBA

“Stop the Steal” was a common phrase used by conservatives in the aftermath of the 2020 Presidential Election. Official counts indicated that former Vice President and long-time senator Joe Biden had prevailed over incumbent President Donald Trump. Trump, however, refused to concede the election. His followers peacefully protested, but a few rioted, at the Capitol in Washington DC on 6 January, although claims that this was a coup are overblown.

The election occurred during the greatest pandemic since 1918, COVID-19. As a result, mail-in ballots and non-traditional voting skyrocketed. Safeguards like correcting voter rolls (eliminating ineligible people) and requiring official photo identification were neglected or even opposed. Election laws written for another time were incapable of coping with modern technologies and a global pandemic. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg poured $419 million of his private fortune into mail-in, get-out-the-vote (GOTV), and shadier efforts for the Democratic Party in 2020.[1] Other deep-pocketed influencers did the same. Their money gave the Democrats a huge advantage in the gray zones of elections where laws are opaque and lawyers lurk. Small-time voter fraud occurred, but whether it was widespread enough to change the election is doubtful. We will probably never know for sure.

Concerned about the past and wanting to improve things in the future, I chose to serve as a poll worker in Raleigh County, West Virginia on 5 November 2024. I wanted to see firsthand how my corner of the system worked. To put the bottom line up front, I was encouraged by what I saw.

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Hotel California – TF 1AD 2003

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The Task Force First Armored Division (TF 1AD) had a singing competition for Independence Day, 2003. Soldiers at the Baghdad international airport, known earlier as the Saddam International Airport, lived in tents, bombed out buildings, or wherever they could. One bombed out building was christened the Hotel California by the soldiers who lived there. This song tells one perspective on life there.

By Mark D. Harris, MD, MPH, MBA, MDiv, ThM, PhD, DBA

Hotel California (TF 1AD) – sung and played to the tune of Hotel California by the Eagles.

Verse 1

At a dark desert airport, scorched wind in my hair
Warm smell of latrine fires, rising up through the air
Up ahead in the distance, I saw an RPG strike
My head grew heavy and my sight grew dim
I had to stop for the night

There she stood in the doorway
I heard the gunfire swell
And I was thinking to myself
This isn’t heaven its got to be hell
Then she fired off a tracer and she showed me the way
There were voices down the corridor
I thought I heard them say

Chorus

Welcome to the Hotel California
Such a lovely place
In a desert waste
Plenty of room at the Hotel California
Every time of year
The Army sends us here

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The Men of Jane Austen

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The World, and especially the West, has forgotten what God made man and woman to be. Jane Austen provides some examples. Christian men would do well to study them, emulate them, and teach others to do the same.

By Mark D. Harris, MD, MPH, MBA, MDiv, ThM, PhD, DBA

American society no longer seems to know what a man or a woman is. Just as Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson could not define a woman, so the media, academia, and large organizations in the public and private sectors insist that “male” and “female” are products of the mind and culture with little or no basis in objective reality, if objective reality exists at all. The world tells each person to decide what gender they want to be.  Then, the world tells the person to scream at, hit, protest, fire, reject, sue, and perhaps jail anyone who doesn’t like what that person has chosen. This is provided, of course, that the person chooses one of the identities favored by the world.

As a result, millions of men and women throughout the world cast about without knowing who they are, what they should do, and how to relate to others. A reality based only on personal preference is not a strong anchor to weather the storms of life. Broken people wander alone through the years, driving others away while seeking solace in activities, money, hookups, or alcohol. Unable to douse their God-given fire for marriage and children, women sink into despair, however passionately they refuse to admit it. Men who once thought that free sex would lead to Shangri-La now realize how meaningless it is and perish alone, often at their own hand.

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