All this week I’ve been pondering if I should write a little blog post about a fictional character called “Billy the Black-Friday Bandit.” What I wanted to do was to make a parallel between real, godly, historical people and how, over centuries, their legacy not only becomes all-but-lost, but completely defamatory.
If I had enough time and wits about me I was going to turn Billy Graham, one of the most respected evangelicals of the century and, arguably, one of the greatest evangelists in all of history, into Billy the Black-Friday Bandit. You can see the logical progression: Whereas BG brought the Good News of Salvation to the masses, BBFB would bring the good news of great savings to the masses! BBFB would sneak into people’s homes and slip flyers for “Black Friday” sales under everyone’s bedroom doors. How exciting! It’s a pleasant fiction for the whole family!!
This is the same thing that has been done to Nicholas of Myra who would probably completely lose his friggin’ mind if he found out what his legacy actually ended up being: Santa Claus.
Maybe we all need those trading cards that Mike was talking about!
Peter Enns has a really good, short post about rediscovering the historical Nicholas over here.
Haha! This is great! I was just thinking the other day about the fact that Santa Claus is quite literally the worst possible abomination of Mr. Nicholas. There is a true irony that someone who at heart was so socialistic has been manipulated so perfectly by free market capitalism.
Do it! I want to see a BBFB series as soon as possible. Also….I clicked on your Nicholas of Myra link and I was confused. It appears that he was a guy who died in the 4th century in Lycia. But Santa Claus isn’t dead, and he lives at the North Pole. I don’t see the connection. Nicholas just threw coins down a chimney. Santa magically slips down even the smallest ventilation exhaust pipes. If you’re wondering how I know all this, it’s because I just watched a fascinating documentary called “The Santa Clause” the other night.
It was weird, though. Santa kind of looks like Tim the toolman.