Why is it that I often find myself looking at the behavior of the American Church and sadly shaking my head? Do we honestly think that we are going to win the world by making sure that greetings cards read “Merry Christmas” rather than “Happy Holidays”?
I have heard many of the arguments that are out there. People are worried that our pluralistic society is taking Jesus out of Christmas. NEWS FLASH: It is not the responsibility of a pluralistic society to put Jesus into Christmas in the first place. That is the responsibility of those who claim to know and worship Him. And frankly, I think there are better ways to put Jesus into Christmas than by making asses of ourselves by insisting that Christmas trees are, in fact, Christmas trees and not Holiday trees. (FYI – Ass in the previous sentence was a Christmas reference… Mary rode Joseph’s all the way to Bethlehem.)
David posted recently about the use of X’mas versus Christmas, and I posted the following there:
The world is not trying to take Jesus out of Christmas nearly as much as many church attending individuals are failing to put Jesus into Christmas. We say that it is a day spent in celebration of the birth of Emmanuel, that we are rejoicing because the God-who-was-far-away has indeed come near, but we spend the weeks leading up to that day spending money we don’t have to buy things we don’t need to impress people we don’t even like… and this is about Jesus how, exactly?
Sure, there are those who want a secular Christmas without the religious trappings. But if they aren’t believers, what do you expect? Can you expect those who don’t know Christ to behave as if they did? They are living up to their job descriptions pretty well.
It is those who profess to know the Almighty Creator that should act differently. And all too often, we don’t.
‘Nuff said.
P.S. – I know, I know… how pretentious of me to quote myself!
I like how you specified the American church, since the Church in so many other countries is thriving and growing like wildfire — even without ‘Christian’ holidays to celebrate! I think the American church has forgotten what is really important — winning souls for Heaven.
I agree, Jim… all too often, we major in the minor stuff.