Abby McCloskey, Dallas Morning News, December 21, 2025

“. . . . Christmas tends to be a time when, aside from the Salvation Army bell, the world tends to look away from pain and suffering, toward parties and merriment. This is a trap that many Christians also fall into.

Think of the Christmas hymns. “O Little Town of Bethlehem, How still we see thee lie,” or “Silent night, Holy night, All is calm, All is bright.” There’s a peaceful stupor of sorts, a halo of calm and break from reality, even before the eggnog.

But the Scriptures describe Bethlehem differently, in a way that would have shaken early Christians out of any dreamlike state. The very first time the town appears in the Bible is in the book of Genesis. It too is a story of childbirth. After striving so long (and sometimes faithlessly) to have children of her own, Rachel dies in Bethlehem giving birth to her son Ben-oni, son of my sorrow, who would later be renamed Benjamin.

In the book of Judges, Bethlehem appears again, this time in a story that should come with a trigger warning. Bethlehem is the home of a woman who is sexually assaulted to the point of death. Her body is cut into 12 pieces and sent to the tribes of Israel, setting off a civil war. . . . “