Welcome back to Seamus Popery. I'm Joe Heschmire, and I'd like to welcome you to a very special Christmas Eve edition of Shamous Popery.

And I want to talk about one of, if not the, most controversial and divisive Christmas songs.

Okay, probably the most controversial Christmas song is maybe it's cold outside because, like, yeah, probably don't put anything in her drink to try to get her to stay.

That's pretty gross.

But I mean an actually religious Christmas song.

And I mean, of course.

If I'm going to be totally honest, I completely see both why people love and hate this song.

On the one hand, I actually like what it's trying to do.

Mark Lowry, the guy who wrote it, is a Baptist.

And he explained that he wrote it for a Christmas program

because he started thinking and wondering

if Mary realized the power, authority, and majesty

that she cradled in her arms in that first Christmas.

And he wondered if she realized that those little hands

where the same hands scooped out oceans and formed rivers.

And so he wanted to put into words the unfathomable. In other words, he had the pious and I think correct impulse that if you want

to understand the Christmas story, it probably helps to look at it through Mary's eyes. And this led him to start thinking of questions he'd ask if he had the chance to talk to Mary.

And so he was wondering what he would do if he got to sit down and have coffee with her

and ask her things like, what was it like raising God?

What did you know?

What didn't you know?

So, again, I think that's all good. At its best, the song

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