He rants a bit about a large conservative Christian organization that is waging a "war" on the "secularization" of Christmas in retail. They have a place on their website where you can rate a store based on how much they remove Christ from Christmas. The short of it is this: places that don't say "Christmas" are bad, places that do are good. I love the points Boyett makes on this, and agree.
Last year the thought hit me that we tend to spend ALOT of time trying to find the "true meaning" of Christmas. My conclusion was that the true meaning of Christmas has become talking about the true meaning of Christmas.
What frustrates me about the rating system is how far from the "true meaning" of Christmas this truly is. If you really want to get holy, wouldn't buying any gifts at all lean towards the materialism that we should be avoiding? So then why would it matter if a store says "Happy Holidays" rather than "Merry Christmas?" Retail stores have NO POWER over the true spirit of Christmas. They control sales and marketing. To say that their actions are removing Christ from this holiday is to give them way more power than they have. Could you imagine witches and satanists complaining about churches' Fall Festivals? How dare we take Satan out of Halloween! I'm being sarcastic, but I think the point is there. Why would we expect a world (especially the part of the world focused on buying and selling) to involve religion with their business?
If the Church is removing Christ from Christmas ... then we have a problem. That's what the church exists for. Retail exists to sell things. I think most large churches are shining examples that business and religion can't co-exist. So, stores, sell your things. Sell them well. Market to people and make them want to give gifts to each other. Church, keep Christ in Christmas. Keep telling everyone His story, and about His gifts to us, so that we will have reason to give gifts to each other.
1 comment:
Good one, Josh. I totally agree. My wife told me the other day about a large church organization that was mad because the Gap ad's this year include other holidays besides Christmas. I couldn't agree more with your assessment. Let us appreciate the fact that the world even recognizes this time as special and spread His story amidst all of the hustle and bustle of the holiday season.
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