A Belated Christmas Prayer for 2021

In 2020, we forgot key 2,000-year-old principles. In 2021, let’s remember them.

In public life today, there are those who think principle is for “suckers” and “losers.” For them, might makes right. They bully the weak; make arguments that trigger fears instead of hopes; take authority as truth instead of truth as authority; and exploit all they encounter, squeezing both organizations and human beings like lemons before — when done — moving on to the next unlucky fruit.

These soulless souls have no higher purpose than accumulation — of money, of status, of sexual partners. Fundamental principles like equality under law, empathy, and honesty mean nothing. Only power matters to them. Why? Because only they matter.

Whatever your religious beliefs, Jesus of Nazareth was different. Instead of deriding the weak, society’s “losers and suckers,” he exalted them; rather than pursuing material wealth, he chose spiritual wealth; and instead of treading over others, he walked beside them. Although the Roman Empire murdered him for his principles, Rome and then much of the world would later worship him for them. While he was called a “loser,” laughed at, and humiliated by a society afraid to love and eager to hate, he, or at least his teachings, attained immortality. His tormentors? The bullies? We hardly remember them.

As 2021 revs up, I hope we eventually remember basic principles taught 2,000 years ago but recently forgotten: That “man cannot live by bread alone”; that we must “do unto others as we would have them do unto us”; and that forgiveness, not condemnation, is divine.

So, to those who celebrate, Merry Christmas.

Michael Elias Shammas is a lawyer, writer, and aspiring academic. Feel free to follow him on Twitter, or to read his preliminary legal and political philosophy scholarship.