Posted on 11/29/2005 11:36:32 AM PST by Pastor Fletcher
Please, PLEASE, tell me you are kidding!
When I saw the line “’A Petition to Stop the Ban on the Use of "Christmas" By Major Retailers” I thought it was a joke. I was not taken back by the possibility of retailers ‘banning Christmas.” No, I was taken back by the absurdity of a petition to address this issue.
Christians in America, will you please wake up and get a grip? We are so focused on the “culture war” we are neglecting the battle for the souls of men. The slippery slope is not the eventual dechristianization of America. GOOD GRIEF! The slippery slope is the growing distraction away from the proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Why are Christians asking non-Christians to live, act and think like Christians? We have been begging the public schools to pray to God for us. We have been all hot and bothered because our courts will not publicly display the Word of God for us. Now, we are miffed that retailers do not love the Son of God for us. This latest tempest in a teapot is indicative of how desperate Christians are to be embraced by the culture.
We have got our heads buried so deep in our history books that we have lost our theological and biblical vision. If the only way we can “keep Christ in Christmas” is to boycott Walmart for saying “Happy Holidays” we have the problem, not Wal-Mart. The sad ironies of this are profound.
We preach, “You cannot serve God and mammon.” Yet, when the local retailer does not serve up our mammon with the proper Christian greeting, we take our maxed out credit cards and go buy our mammon elsewhere. We are using money to bribe if not outright extort retailers into making us more comfortable with our own convictions. We have become Simon the Sorcerer for the new millennium. We are telling retailers “say what pleases me, and I will give you money.” When the world will not give us what we want, we whine and complain like spoiled children. Our boycott is little more than sophisticated temper tantrum. Miffed, we sign our petitions and take our money to the closest store that will gladly tell us what we want to hear as long as we bring our money.
What’s next: “Concerned Christians Petition Satan to Stop Being So Mean.”
anytime! :)
I give you a perpetual license to use the term as much as you like.
Thanks! :)
it is a classic..
"And, oh. MERRY CHRISTMAS!"
Yes, an early Merry Christmas to all, including you, Pastor postandrun.
An interesting point, I hadn't thought of it that way before.
I can see it about commercial enterprises not being forced to be "Christian". I would say though that it was a sad day in our nation's history when prayer was banned from school. It's not that Christians need it, it's that it was clearly good for children, as discipline in our schools steadily declined since then. I do believe there's a direct correlation there.
Also, it opened the door for this insane policy of "separation of church and state". There was never supposed to be such a "separation" as we've seen today. Local communities were supposed to be able to decide their own fate, especially when it came to religious expression. Now, everything is becoming increasingly centralized, with virtually no local control. The founding fathers never wanted that. I think they would cringe at the notion of a tiny minority of atheists in Washington deciding a decent, Christian community in Indiana cannot put a nativity scene on their local town hall lawn.
But, you do make a good point about the focus seemingly only on the political. Christians should be involved in every aspect of society, not just politics, that's the best way to truly spread the Good News. I don't think we should abandon such fights, but we shouldn't make political fights our only ones.
From a liberal? Maybe......
Yep, the original misspelling of Holy was a typo. I just washed my keybord and can't do a THING with it.
We all know how that worked out for Jonah when he decided not to do it. As "American Christians" we believe that our lives have been blessed by God by giving us this great country. As American Christians who study history we also know that the fall of all great societies has been marked by the rejection of God and the acceptance of immorality as normal. Tell me what could possible be wrong with Christians standing up for what they believe and protecting their home and God's blessings from destruction.
Spreading the gospel is certainly our most important goal.
But the two are not separate issues. Not only is Christmas a wonderful outreach program that spreads the gospel message to the non-Christian world, but allowing the gospel to be taken out of Christmas creates a secular story of Christ that will compete against the gospel message.
I suspect that there is no other time of the year, when the gospel message is presented as often and as clear as at Christmas. Retail stores carry (or did) scripture on Christmas cards, nativity scenes, etc. The festivities attract participation by non-Christians. Church perform passion plays which outreach to the community. And more than any other time of the year, charitable acts are done in the name of Christ.
To say "Gospel, Gospel, Gospel" and ignore the secularization of Christmas is to allow the destruction of one of the best vehicles for spreading that Gospel.
We must fight these smaller battles at the same time we seek to spread the Gospel.
Ahh, well HOLLY works as well. 'Tis the season. :-)
My 11-year-old brother's bus driver is not allowed to play Christmas music on the radio because two atheist kids on the bus object to it...
Pastor, you are full of horse sh*t. The "culture war" IS about the battle for the souls of men. The socialist left in America is deconstructing our country, and it started with the removal of morality, Christ in specific, from our society.
"What is mammon anyway"
dont know if thats a serios question or not, but just in case..
Riches, avarice, and worldly gain personified as a false god in the New Testament.
from dictionary.com
thank for the definition... it was a serious question.
Oh yes, Pastor Felcher, member since today. Nothing to see here American Christians, move along. All is well! Achtung! Schnell! Get into zee boxcar!
I ran into a guy using the screen name "servant of Christ" in a local forum. Turned out that the "servant" was much more interested in preaching the virtues of socialist medicine in Canada.
I let my wife explain that she treats a large number of Canadian patients who come to this country seeking treatment they want and need rather than the treatment the state decides they need. I suspect the situation is common in all of our northern border states.
IB4Z?
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