It is now that season when I see all sorts of posts on Facebook that call for Christians: "Keep Christ in CHRISTmas".
And I simply shake my head.
I don't expect American culture to keep Christ in anything, much less Christmas. That's the Church's responsibility. (Those two -- American culture and Church -- aren't interchangeable terms.)
Besides, the "Christ" of American culture is so utterly unlike the Christ of the Church's Scripture, that it's probably best to leave that cultural Christ out of anything.
What really does disturb me is that the Christian sisters and brothers worried about keeping Christ in Christmas have little problem with this Christ being left out of other national holidays. I'm looking at you, Memorial Day and Independence Day. Days, I should add, when he's said things about why those days might be bad -- "Love your enemies" and "pray for those who abuse and kill you".
The real war on Christmas isn't "political correctness" in the sense some conservatives believe. It's how little we can question the commercialization of our culture, the commodification of Christian saints like St Nicholas, the abuse of Christian kindness into a psychological attempt to manipulate children to conformity. If the real meaning of Christmas is "God with us", Santa Claus doesn't show that God very well. At all.
No, the real war on Christmas isn't to make sure that we keep "Christ" in it (not really even sure how you keep Christ out of anything, anyway -- he's rather persistent about coming into places and lives where we just rather wouldn't want him). The real war on Christmas is what the Christ Mass looks like. Jesus or Santa?
And I simply shake my head.
I don't expect American culture to keep Christ in anything, much less Christmas. That's the Church's responsibility. (Those two -- American culture and Church -- aren't interchangeable terms.)
Besides, the "Christ" of American culture is so utterly unlike the Christ of the Church's Scripture, that it's probably best to leave that cultural Christ out of anything.
What really does disturb me is that the Christian sisters and brothers worried about keeping Christ in Christmas have little problem with this Christ being left out of other national holidays. I'm looking at you, Memorial Day and Independence Day. Days, I should add, when he's said things about why those days might be bad -- "Love your enemies" and "pray for those who abuse and kill you".
The real war on Christmas isn't "political correctness" in the sense some conservatives believe. It's how little we can question the commercialization of our culture, the commodification of Christian saints like St Nicholas, the abuse of Christian kindness into a psychological attempt to manipulate children to conformity. If the real meaning of Christmas is "God with us", Santa Claus doesn't show that God very well. At all.
No, the real war on Christmas isn't to make sure that we keep "Christ" in it (not really even sure how you keep Christ out of anything, anyway -- he's rather persistent about coming into places and lives where we just rather wouldn't want him). The real war on Christmas is what the Christ Mass looks like. Jesus or Santa?