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The Peace That Presidents Seek on Christmas Eve

The Peace That Presidents Seek on Christmas Eve

Last updated on: December 24, 2024 at 2:00 am by Daniel K. Williams

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The Peace That Presidents Seek on Christmas Eve 2024-12-21T15:22:43-04:00 Daniel K. Williams

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For the past hundred years, the night before Christmas has not only been the occasion for church services, last-minute gift-wrapping, and eager anticipation from children of a visit from Santa Claus, but it has also been an opportunity for US presidents to give a speech to the nation. At no other time of the year do presidents routinely present homilies that are so explicitly Christian. Presidential Christmas Eve addresses therefore offer a fascinating window into American civil religion – the blending, that is, of the sacred and the civic.

Most other forms of American civil religion are not quite so firmly linked to Christianity. In his 1967 article “Civil Religion in America,” Robert Bellah observed that while presidential references to God are uniformly monotheistic, they are not explicitly Christian. Presidents invariably invoke God in their inaugural addresses, but they don’t mention Jesus, a tradition that goes all the way back to George Washington. American civil religion – that is, the political use of generic theistic references to unify the country, especially on civic occasions such as presidential inaugurations – has always been “rather ‘unitarian,’” Bellah concluded.

But when presidents address the nation on Christmas Eve – which has now been a presidential tradition for an entire century – they almost inevitably have to mention Jesus, since Christmas is seemingly inseparable from the Christ child. Through the Christmas Eve addresses of American presidents, Jesus’s message has been indelibly linked to America’s purpose in the world – and, above all, to America’s task of spreading peace in the world.

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President John F. Kennedy and First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy in front of a Christmas tree in the White House blue room, 1961

It took a few years for presidents to settle on this message, because in the era of American isolationism, it wasn’t immediately obvious that a message urging the pursuit of global peace could fit with American policy priorities. The first presidential Christmas Eve message that I could find was from Calvin Coolidge (president from 1923-1929), who began the annual tradition of holding a public ceremony to light the White House Christmas tree. Coolidge’s first Christmas Eve address made no direct mention of Jesus or even of peace, but did exhort Americans to engage in the work of service to others in keeping with the Christmas spirit.

But it was President Franklin Roosevelt who succeeded in giving American Christmas Eve its modern civil religious meaning. In his annual Christmas Eve addresses in the 1930s, Roosevelt referred to Jesus as the “Prince of Peace” and thus the symbol for peace and universal racial comity in the modern world.

“Around the Manger of the Babe of Bethlehem ‘all Nations and kindreds and tongues’ find unity,” Roosevelt told Americans in a radio broadcast on Christmas Eve in 1935. “For the spirit of Christmas knows no race, no creed, no clime, no limitation of time or space. The spirit of Christmas breathes an eternal message of peace and good-will to all men. We pause therefore on this Holy Night and, laying down the burdens and the cares of life and casting aside the anxieties of the common day, rejoice that nineteen hundred years ago, heralded by angels, there came into the world One whose message was of peace, who gave to all mankind a new commandment of love. In that message of love and of peace we find the true meaning of Christmas.”

“And so,” Roosevelt concluded, “I greet you with the greeting of the Angels on that first Christmas at Bethlehem which, resounding through centuries, still rings out with its eternal message: ‘Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good-will to men.’”

When the United States entered World War II, Roosevelt doubled down on this message, which suddenly took on a new urgency. The United States was at war in order to win peace for the world, in keeping with the spirit of Christmas, Roosevelt reminded Americans each Christmas Eve during the Second World War.

The presidents of the early Cold War years continued this message. When the nation was at war, presidents reminded Americans that soldiers were fighting in order to secure peace for the world. When the nation was not officially at war, presidential Christmas Eve addresses highlighted that fact and urged Americans to seek the global peace that the Prince of Peace had come to usher in. If the generic “God” of American civil religion’s inaugural addresses and presidential proclamations called on Americans to fight for freedom, the presidential invocation of Jesus on Christmas Eve reminded Americans that this fight for freedom needed to be conducted for the purpose of securing global peace.

“With faith and courage we shall work to hasten the day when the sword is replaced by the plowshare and nations do not “learn war any more,” President Harry Truman told the nation in his Christmas Eve address in 1946. “We have made a good start toward peace in the world. Ahead of us lies the larger task of making the peace secure. . . . May 1947 entitle us to the benediction of the Master: ‘Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.’”

The more the nation experienced the threat of military combat, the more presidents emphasized the call to peace that Christmas represented. In the immediate aftermath of the Cuban missile crisis, when the United States may have come closer to nuclear war with the Soviet Union than it had at any other point in the nation’s history, the theme of peace pervaded the president’s annual Christmas Eve message. “In this year of 1962 we greet each other at Christmas with some special sense of the blessings of peace,” President John F. Kennedy declared in his Christmas message. “This has been a year of peril when the peace has been sorely threatened. But it has been a year when peril was faced and when reason ruled. As a result, we may talk, at this Christmas, just a little bit more confidently of peace on earth, good will to men.”

By the early 1960s, when Kennedy spoke, Americans were becoming more cognizant of religious diversity, which meant that a president could no longer simply quote a prophetic passage from Isaiah or the teachings of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount, as Truman had, and expect it to resonate with all Americans, let alone with all people around the world whom the American president wanted to influence. As a president who positioned himself as leader of the “free world” – not merely of the United States – Kennedy therefore went out of his way in 1962 to explain that the “Prince of Peace” of Christmas Eve was not just for Christians but for all people on earth, regardless of their religious faith.

“In the far off continents Moslems, Hindus, Buddhists, as well as Christians, pause from their labors on the 25th day of December to celebrate the birthday of the Prince of Peace,” Kennedy declared. “There could be no more striking proof that Christmas is truly the universal holiday of all men. It is the day when all of us dedicate our thoughts to others; when all are reminded that mercy and compassion are the enduring virtues; when all show, by small deeds and large and by acts, that it is more blessed to give than to receive. It is the day when we remind ourselves that man can and must live in peace with his neighbors and that it is the peacemakers who are truly blessed.”

As the last president of the Cold War, Ronald Reagan continued the tradition of celebrating the Prince of Peace by reminding Americans of the need to maintain that peace through military force. To perhaps a greater extent than any other commander in chief, Reagan blended his Christmas messages of peace with a reminder of what the American military was doing to promote the cause. “Because faith for us is not an empty word, we invoke the power of prayer to spread the spirit of peace,” he told the nation on Christmas Eve in 1983, a year in which he was leading America in a program of nuclear arms buildup while also deploying troops in Lebanon and elsewhere. “We ask protection for our soldiers who are guarding peace tonight — from frigid outposts in Alaska and the Korean demilitarized zone to the shores of Lebanon. . . . With patience and firmness we can help bring peace to that strife-torn region and make our own lives more secure. The Christmas spirit of peace, hope, and love is the spirit Americans carry with them all year round, everywhere we go. As long as we do, we need never be afraid, because trusting in God is the one sure answer to all the problems we face.”

Eighteen years later, in the wake of the terrorist attacks of 9/11 and the early weeks of America’s war in Afghanistan, the idea that Christmas could serve as an ecumenical symbol of peace was central to President George W. Bush’s Christmas message. “During this time of conflict and challenge, Christmas is a day on which we celebrate hope and joy, when our thoughts turn to justice and compassion and to a Prince of Peace born long ago,” Bush declared in December 2001. “Even in this time of war, we pray for peace on Earth and good will toward men, and we continue to ask God’s blessings on the United States.”

For most of the Cold War and the subsequent War on Terror, presidential Christmas Eve reminders of the Prince of Peace served to rally Americans to the cause of international peacekeeping. But for Joe Biden, the first president in two decades to preside over a nation that was not officially at war anywhere in the world, the conflicts among Americans at home seemed more urgent than conflicts overseas. He therefore used his 2022 Christmas address to call for peace in the midst of partisan rancor.

Christmas belonged to all Americans, regardless of their faith or their partisan allegiance, Biden reminded his listeners. “The Christmas story is at the heart of the Christmas — Christian faith,” he declared. “But the message of hope, love, peace, and joy, they’re also universal. It speaks to all of us, whether we’re Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, or any other faith, or no faith at all. It speaks to all of us as human beings who are here on this Earth to care for one another, to look out for one another, to love one another.”

“So my hope this Christmas season is that we take a few moments of quiet reflection and find that stillness in the heart of Christmas — that’s at the heart of Christmas, and look — really look at each other, not as Democrats or Republicans, not as members of ‘Team Red’ or ‘Team Blue,’ but as who we really are: fellow Americans. Fellow human beings worthy of being treated with dignity and respect. . . I hope this Christmas season marks a fresh start for our nation, because there is so much that unites us as Americans, so much more that unites us than divides us. . . .

“As we sing ‘O’ Holy Night’ — ‘His law is love, and His Gospel is peace’ — may I wish you and for you, and for our nation, now and always, is that we’ll live in the light — the light of liberty and hope, of love and generosity, of kindness and compassion, of dignity and decency. . . . Merry Christmas. Happy Holidays. And all the best in the New Year.”

It might be easy to be cynical about Christmas Eve presidential addresses and imagine that they’re simply one more opportunity for presidents to promote their own political agenda – or even, at worst, an attempt to invoke the name of the Prince of Peace as a blessing for their current wars. But even if that cynicism might be warranted at times, I think that such a cynical approach would also miss the genuine hope that has united Americans around the “Christmas spirit.” We know that we don’t live up to the promise of the Prince of Peace, but the fact that we return to this theme year after year, seeking a cause that is larger than ourselves and hoping for the reality of a world in which wars finally cease, is something to celebrate.

As a Christian, I know that Christmas is about a lot more than civil religious proclamations of peace. But it’s not about less. Even at their best, presidential Christmas Eve proclamations are not the full gospel of Christmas, but they’re still a light of hope in a world of darkness – an indication that for one moment, we would like to put aside our conflicts and believe in the promise of peace. Presidents have probably often been too quick to misuse that promise as a justification for their current wars. But perhaps our presidents have also genuinely seen something in the story of Christmas that inspired them to call Americans to seek peace and “goodwill” for all people. And if so, that’s something worth celebrating this Christmas Eve.

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