I was just reading a friends blog as he ripped into a beautiful rant against James Dobson and a variety of other topics. I won't point you to his exact words since I did not ask permission, but he stirred my mind a bit more on some of these topics over which I've been stewing for several weeks. And it has to do with the way in which a great many Christians are responding to the anti-"Merry Christmas" crowd.
Don't get me totally wrong here (I guess I added that for all my Dobson-loving friends and family memebers) ...I can appreciate a small amount of the zeal with which some Christians are crusading (intentional negative connotation) against the "Happy Holidays" agenda. But the more I think about it, the more stirred up I become and want to say "what do you expect?" Does anyone honestly believe that Christ is the focus of Christmas in America?! And he has not been the focus for a very long time...if ever. Even in my own family, we attend services...adore the nativity scenes...and pre-empt our gift-opening orgy with a reading of the Christmas story...but does that Christianize all the materialism and self-centered behavior we call the Christmas season?
If we're going to reclaim some "christian" territory...let it have less to do semantics and more to do with servanthood and social justice. Do you think fighting this battle over Christmas greetings is going to make a positive and eternal impact on our communities for the Kingdom? Really?! It's time for the church to reclaim a biblical agenda and not a self-serving agenda.
3 comments:
It's okay to direct visitors to your friends blog if that's where you read it. That's one of the good things about blogs. It becomes a network of ideas and opinions. Bring it on!
This is the kind of worthless issues Christians spend time and energy on ( and money given that the airtime people like Dobson and others use to deal with it is not free but paid for by donations).
It is easy for us to jump into a fray like this and feel like we're fighting the White Witch alongside Aslan. Arguing and launching verbal bombing attacks about the "Happy Holidays" spouting atheist and gay marriage proponents is a lot easier than actually loving and serving those individuals. We get to strut around and feel proud of our RELIGION, cocky and assured that Jesus would be proud of us.
May God have mercy on us (the Church).
"gift-opening orgy"
beautiful use of words.
such truth.
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