December 24, 2018
SILENT NIGHT: The Real Message of this Classic Christmas Carol . . . Then and Now
By BJ Krug It was a time of war. A time of upheaval. A time of economic uncertainty, of political uncertainty. In 1816 the Napoleonic Wars had just ended, and the nations of Europe had crashed over and against each other until their borders were no longer recognizable, even to the people living in them. In many places, occupation forces were still present or were only recently withdrawn. A young priest in Austria named Joseph Mohr wrote a poem channeling some of that uncertainty by recasting it in familiar terms of love, care, and affection—a challenge, you might say, to
