I just got to read the article “Christmas in the 1960s: A Charlie Brown Christmas, Religion, and the Conventions of the Television Genre“, which appears in the current issue of The Journal of Religion and Popular Culture. Written by (AAUGH Blog reader!) Stephen J. Lind (currently of Washington And Lee University), this article exists to tackle the question of whether the reputation that A Charlie Brown Christmas had, that it talked about Christmas in religious terms at a time when such a thing was not done on entertainment TV. Lind looks at a sample of other Christmas specials and Christmas episodes of series, and finds that the belief is (SPOILER WARNING) true… but along the way, he puts a crimp in another common belief about the show.

This isn’t a mag that you’ll find on your corner newsstand, but you can probably get access to it through your local library. It’s a well put-together piece. (And the author is working on a book on Schulz and religion, which is the sort of thing that I really look forward to.)

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