Elphaba the Wicked Grinch, Christmas and Christian Nationalism

You watch Wicked and like to think you would stand with Elphaba…

…and then you sneer at the Grinch.

It’s not popular to acknowledge the Christian Nationalist propaganda in Christmas media, but a big part the holiday cheer includes pushing religious conformity.

The Grinch is Elphaba, a green skinned figure who represents the demonization of dissent.

Whoville is Munchkinland, a salt-of-the-earth community of nationalist authenticity where all of the jolly citizens gather to sing happy songs to celebrate the political assassination of dissenters who dare to rebel against the powerful.

Cindy-Lou Who is Glinda, the pretty blond girl in a pink dress who uses her popularity and cuteness to convince people to conform, to go along with the plans of people in power.

What are the Whos in Whoville celebrating when they celebrate Christmas? They’re singing Christmas carols with lyrics like this:

“God rest ye merry gentlemen. Let nothing you dismay. Remember Christ our savior was born on Christmas day to save us all from Satan’s power when we had gone astray.”

In Christianity, those who have gone astray are those who no longer obey the commands of the tyrant god who rules the world, Christianity’s own Wizard of Oz. Satan’s power is the power of the wicked, those who rebel against the power of Christianity, those who refuse to conform.

The Whos are singing the Hallelujah Chorus, which celebrates Jesus as “King of Kings! Lord of Lords!”

That phrase, “King of Kings! Lord of Lords!” isn’t a random phrase of generic praise. It comes from just one place in the Christian Bible: Book of Revelation Chapter 19, in which it is promised that Jesus will come back to Earth to lead a worldwide bloody religious war against non-Christians that will culminate in the bodies of the victims Jesus and his followers being picked apart by hungry birds.

“I saw Heaven opened, and behold, a white horse; and He that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He doth judge and make war. His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on His head were many crowns; and He had a name written that no man knew, but He Himself. And He was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood, and His name is called, The Word of God. And the armies which were in Heaven, clothed in fine linen white and clean, followed Him upon white horses. And out of His mouth goeth a sharp sword with which He shall smite the nations, and He shall rule them with a rod of iron; and He treads the wine press of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. And He hath on His vesture and on His thigh a name written: King Of Kings, and Lord Of Lords. And I saw an angel standing in the sun, and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the birds that fly in the midst of heaven, “Come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great God, that you may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains, and the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses and of them that sit on them, and the flesh of all men, both free and bond, both small and great.”

These Christmas carols have the same message as the Munchkin’s wrathful song: No One Mourns The Wicked.

Good times, right?

Christmas is the celebration of the birth of a person who the Bible says will go on to wage a global war of religious vengeance, killing all people who refuse to obey Jesus, with the bodies of the people killed by Jesus and his Christian army pecked apart by birds after they have been crushed in the sacred winepress of the wrath of God.

Christmas is the holiday when Christian Nationalists gather to sing: No One Mourns The Wicked.

Jesus is the Wizard of Oz.

Would you stand with Elphaba?

Stand with the Grinch.