In a Baltimore Sun column, author essay, author Garrison Keillor incurred the wrath of Internet critics.
With a confusing blend of satire and self-righteousness, he wrote: “If you don’t believe Jesus was God, OK, go write your own damn “Silent Night” and leave ours alone. This is spiritual piracy and cultural elitism, and we Christians have stood for it long enough. And all those lousy holiday songs by Jewish guys that trash up the malls every year, Rudolph and the chestnuts and the rest of that dreck.”
GalleyCat readers were unsympathetic. Carol Mackintosh Hiller wrote: “That’s not curmudgeonly, it’s just damn mean, and worse: it foments divisiveness at a time of year Christians traditionally observe as a time of peace and renewal. What’s wrong with him, anyway?”
Another reader quipped: “Puhlease… the man’s a Lutheran Woody Allen. Never fails to crack me up.”
Finally, Saundra Goldman wrote: “This breaks my heart and opens my eyes.”