this year we have experienced as a country some change due to the christmas season or should i say holiday season. i am not so sure. somehow the christmas tree has become the holiday tree and we are not eating christmas cookies. somehow the tolerance we had for other religions is starting to change how we celebrate one of our holiday's.
it is bad enough that in the past few years we have seen christmas become x-mas. which i read a few weeks ago an article in relevant magazine on "debunking christmas" and how it is okay to use x in the place of Christ. their reasoning for this is that the first letter im the greek word for Christ is chi. in the roman alphabet x is the symbol of chai. because of this they say x-mas is justifiable.
so let me get this correct x and Christ is the same understanding, oh wait, backing up to what they said is that it is the first letter of Christ. so in reality it should be merry c-mas. but even if x stood for Christ, most people in the christian world would not know that so how does the rest of the world see it. it is all about tolerance. letting people of the world control how we as christians celebrate our holiday.
and now of course we have this whole thing with churches canceling services on christmas sunday. so we can take time and be self absorbed underneath the christmas tree opening up our christmas presents with our christmas sweaters and sipping eggnog in front of the fire place. i do not mind the idea of spending christmas with your family but what is so wrong about making Christ the center of what christmas is about. it is named after him.
but today in the world christmas is all about presents, pleasure and pride. yesterday while driving in to work i heard this on the radio. this is the new low. it was an advertisement for "adult world-- where we put the x in x-mas."
this is where our tolerance has placed us. where we have no say is our own religious holiday.
4 comments:
I can understand your frustration, as something inside me cringes everytime they say "Happy holidays."
The only thing I can say is this: Is this a battle worth fighting, or do we as believers have bigger troubles on our hands? To be more specific, if we spent all our energy trying to put Christ back into the holiday, would that be doing a whole lot of good? Would people be drawn to Him based on how we represent Him? Are we caving in too much to the cultural standard of political lobbying to advance one's cause?
Thanks for raising this topic, and I can only hope to help this discussion, not cause dissent.
Much love.
-Dan
dan, i do not think that the issue at hand has anything remotely to do with christmas, but with christianity. somehow we are letting those from the outside (the world) change who we are on the inside. this might be personal or from a universal perspective. but the tolerance that we have for other religions and way of life is changing the direction of christianity.
I think I see your point. If this pressure continues, we as people of faith will lose our identity in a pluralistic melting pot of watered-down "spirituality." Is this what you are saying?
Here's an interesting thought...the word "Holidays" is actually "holy days." I wonder if people would benefit from an effort, not to start a huge political battle, but rather to lovingly educate everyone about the meaning behind common symbols (Christmas tree, stars, candy canes, even St. Nick himself). I think we have become postChristian enough that such an effort could inspire intrigue and perhaps draw people toward the original Meaning.
What do you think?
dan
i lead a young adult sunday school class and for the past few weeks i have been writing/thinking up a curriculum for integration of faith and current events. i think this will help with not watering down christianity.
as for the "holy days" i had heard that before but thanks for the reminder.
thanks for the dialogue
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