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A Boy Named Lucia
Every year around this time, Sweden celebrates the feast of Saint Lucia, a Christian martyr who according to legend brought aid to persecuted Christians in the dead of night, her head adorned by a candle-lit wreath. This is commemorated yearly by a reenactment, usually performed by children, carrying candles and singing Christian songs.
Most major Swedish companies do their best to capitalize on this cutesy tradition, but this year Åhlens, one of the largest department store-chains in the country, decided to go above and beyond the traditional and the ordinary. On the cover of the Christmas edition of their company magazine as well as their website, they chose to use a young black boy as the Lucia-model, dressed in the traditional gown and wreath, and the internet lost its collective mind. The comments ranged from “this is genocide on white people” and “A disgusting affront on Nordic tradition” to the more blunt “You make me puke.” Just a few days after the picture was published it had to be taken down after the boy’s mother asked the company to protect the boy from what ended up being a racist hate-storm.
The brunt of the criticism toward the company was focused on two factors: that there was a boy in a traditionally female role and that the boy was black, whereas the Swedish Lucia-procession traditionally features blond and blue-eyed children.
I wrote about this on my Facebook page, which is a highly homogeneous place, made up of 90 percent conservatives and 10 percent libertarians, and the comments I got made me question the direction the conservative movement is taking. My Facebook friends were upset, or rather offended, that this Christian tradition had been hijacked by “gender-bending leftists,” and the language they used in the debate that followed reminded me of the worst of the others on the other side.
A large chunk were feeling “victimized,” others said that poking fun at Christian traditions should be penalized, and some were saying that this meant that Europe was giving in to cultural relativism.
Let’s walk this back and look at the actual issue.
A young black boy in a dress, representing an old Swedish tradition. From a religious standpoint this is not offensive, as the specific tradition of the procession is modern and doesn’t have Christian roots, therefore the company’s interpretation is a version of a version and not an affront on the origin story. From a political standpoint this is excellent, because what we want is for immigrants to embrace our traditions and participate, and the boy is a representation of that. It is the opposite of putting a blond woman in a hijab, and that should be applauded rather than objected. As for the dress. Well, it’s a five-year-old in a dress, not a statement on transgender issues. Let’s relax about 300 percent.
And finally: This is a private company, not the state, and as conservatives we need to not be calling for intervention in private enterprises, but accept their right the offend whatever sensibilities we have.
This debate is not the first recent example of conservatives adopting the left’s language of victimhood and triggers. Leading up to, during, and after this election we have seen movement on our side toward the progressive paradigm of “if it’s not my thing, it needs to be outlawed” and this goes against the conservative grain and is an insult to our entire movement.
Will a boy in a dress really overthrow our civilization? Is that really our fight? Here I thought we were wise enough to let them occupy streets and have vigils over democratic elections while we actually run things, but lately it seems we are stooping to their level and being beaten by experience.
It’s a boy in a dress, now let’s all relax. The left works in micro, we work in macro, and this obsession with detail and “issues” is a dangerous step toward an anti-ideological society where no one has beliefs but everyone has opinions, and it is up to us to stem that tide.
Published in Culture
A whole Benneton ad’s worth of star children would’ve been adorable!
Simple; let these companies look foolish… they don’t need any help. They can’t make you be foolish, that’s your contribution.
Take your business elsewhere.
There’s never a good reason for racism and everyone who actually has a faith in God/Christ already knows this.
I’m just confused. How did anyone know, simply from looking at the picture,that the child is a boy?
I don’t care about the kid being black, but I wouldn’t be happy with the gender changing. Likewise for Mary being represented by a teenage boy, or a crucifix with Jesus as a female.
Within the context of modern liberal behavior, it’s probably correct to see this as an intentional blurring of gender boundaries.
I’d like to address a few questions that have come up during this lovely and lively debate:
And with that,I wish you all a good week and apologize for my late reply, but I was offline for Shabbat, being religious and all ;)
/Annika
Sorry, no. Lucia is a girl. There are boys who participate in the pagent as well, they are star-boys. They wear cone on their head. Lucia is a girl and she wears candles on her head. She is usually blond, but doesn’t have to be. She usually is ethnic Swedish, but she doesn’t have to be. But Lucia is a girl.
Åhléns is perpetuating a lie. Why is it so bad that Lucia is a girl? They must think that it is, else they would not have made the change.
This is exactly the same phenomenon as Fake News. You don’t like something, so you say that it doesn’t exist, and you and your supporters are happy. During the Soviet period, it was called The Big Lie. (It still is.) Whether Putin says it, whether Trump says it, whether a Swedish department store says it, a lie is a lie, no matter how good it makes somebody feels.
If this is the way Sweden is headed, if this is the way we are headed, it is not good news. Lies enslave humanity. As conservatives, we have always believed in Veritas liberabit vos — the truth shall set you free.
Lucia originated in Sweden in the mid-19th century among student societies. It is only indirectly religious. It’s more of a winter celebration, with light being the most important element (it gets dark in Sweden in December). Most communities in Sweden do some kind of pagaent for Lucia. Often it is in a church. I saw one in a small town in Dalarna (arguably the traditional cultural heart of Lucia) and it was absolutely beautiful.
That’s a bit of a straw man. Was anyone talking about legal repercussions? If so, I missed it.
The principle that allows them to advertise how they want means people are free to criticize their provocations.
Yes, this is a silly reason to get into a huff about. I would have no problem on the race of the child. Let’s say I would have muttered a word or two under my breath about the gender reversal. Yes, the left works in micro. But I would have muttered that word and moved on.
I wasn’t there to know the full context, but my hunch is it was meant to be subversive. The feast of Santa Lucia is not meant to be like Halloween where order is over turned for the day. Here the feast honors a martyr and a reverence for God’s hand in the cosmos in bringing back light. What was the rationale for making him a boy? Was it because they didn’t have any girls to choose from? I doubt it.
Protestant Sweden is Lutheran. Lutherans celebrate saints that lived prior to the reformation. American Protestantism is quite a bit different than most European Protestantism. American Protestantism evolved out of the Puritans.
I have heard that notion disputed pretty strongly, mostly recently in David Hackett Fisher’s book, Albion’s Seed.
Some did and some didn’t. Puritans were initially non-conformists in the Anglican Church. The episcopal church in America is part of the Anglican Church. The methodists also come from that tradition.
I think Congregationalists and, to some extent, baptists could be considered descendants of the puritans.
Presbyterians (originally the state church of Scotland) and Dutch reformed are very similar to puritans doctrinally, although not descended from them. Puritans and their writings are highly regarded among the Presbyterians and Dutch reformed.
Something similar could be said about Lutherans.
Within each of these traditional denominational groups there are those who hold beliefs much like the puritans, liberals who believe whatever they want, and many in between.
And @Matt White as well.
You make good points, but it is in the realm of dispute. True enough American Protestantism is varied, but the old Lutheran, Prebysterian, Anglicanism, and other mainline Protestant churches have mostly consolidated into what’s referred to as Evangelicalism. There are still adherents around, but their numbers have dramatically shrunk. Many of the notions in Evangelicalism seem to come from the second great awakening, which was an American phenomena in the 1830s on and then further qualified by the Fundementalist movement of the early 20th century. I think the biggest influence from the Puratans to Evangelicalism is the notion of Congregationalism, that is that local churches are somewhat independent of a church tradition/structure. Most Protestant Churches in Europe are linked to a government or larger tradition. This is a pretty short hand summary and I am certainly no expert. I’m sure others might have a more complete understanding.
Matt, I think we mostly agree.
“Official” Lutherans would probably disagree strenuously. It is true that some of the American notions about democratic government have affected church government of all Christian denominations, including Catholics. And even of non-Christian religions. But as for the doctrines and writings, not so much.
If anybody is curious about how progressives so easily takes over the cultural sphere, this thread is instructive.
But Reticulator, Lutherans are about as American as Catholics. [I say that as a Catholic.]
I think there’s an important aspect of this between your lines. If this were the first incident of its kind, I don’t think conservatives would have as much of a problem with it. It’s mainly because the left has a long and well documented history of both endorsing gender confusion and poking Christians in the eye that this comes to be seen as part of the larger culture war and thus more offensive than it might appear to be on its own merits.
First the left tells us that genders are constructed, so it’s OK to construct new ones. Then they tell us that the genders we already constructed need to be torn down, which is the message of young Mr. Lucia. (One of the main ways we construct genders is by establishing bounded roles and behaviors for them.)
Moral of the story: Never believe the left about anything.
I imagine part of the puritan influence in America comes from them writing about biblical doctrine in English. It makes them more accessible than early reformers from other languages.
Church government isnt usually the first thing to come up when we talk about doctrine. The typical Protestant setup of a church lead by a gromp of elders predates the the establishment of the American government.
Ask a confessional Lutheran about salvation and you will find much in common with the puritans.