Read a Christianity Today article, “Peace on Earth? Christmas Carols and the Civil War.”

Read a pair of December 2003 columns by Terry Mattingly about carols: “A Caroling We (Don’t) Go” and “What is a ‘carol’ anyway?”

Kenneth W. Osbeck of Rockford, Mich., is the author of Amazing Grace: 366 Inspiring Hymn Stories for Daily Devotions (Kregel Publications, 2002) and Joy to the World: The Stories Behind Your Favorite Christmas Carols (Kregel, 2000).

Christmas music historian Ron Clancy of North Cape May, N.J., produces the “Millennia Collection,” a multivolume set of Christmas music books and CDs.

The painting “Christ the Yogi” hangs at the San Francisco temple of the Vedanta Society of Northern California, where congregants regard Jesus to be a spiritual master who embodied pure love.

Read a Wikipedia article about Jesus that includes how Hindus and members of other religions see him.

Read a biography of Jesus written by Sri Swami Sivananda Saraswati Maharaj, who lived from 1887 to 1963.

See the March 21, 2005, Time magazine cover story, “Hail, Mary,” about the growing popularity of the mother of Jesus among Protestants.

Lee Strobel, who lives in Southern California, researches the Christmas story in The Case for Christmas: A Journalist Investigates the Identity of the Child in the Manger (Zondervan, 2005). Contact him via his website.