Aptly Named Church

Let me start by saying Jesus--just His name alone. Just Jesus. He's the reason you have your life and breath, He's the One who upholds all things. The second Person of the Trinity, the Savior of the world, the God-Man sequestered within a human frame, glorified and humiliated all at once. Unlimited power in undignified dust. He was by no means born in December, but that is when we officially celebrate His birth ... apparently some of us rejoice with protests and misguided energy.

Here is an article concerning the recent protests over Christmas/holiday semantics.

The facts: many Christians are apparently upset that "Merry Christmas" has been replaced with "Happy Holidays" or "Season's Greetings". Lots even signed an online petition to prove that they were really upset. Bill O'Reilly has featured his Christian disgust on his TV spots, which brings it to a whole new level of "majoring on minors".

The most ironic part (sad, funny and very telling) is the church's actual name in this article. I don't care how they came up with it, there's no good way to spin this one. You have to read the article to understand what I'm saying here.



Really, folks, let's think this through a little. Wal-mart's chief goal is to make money, not converts. If you want to pick an issue to support, if you really want to throw your energy, time and resources behind something, take a look at the AIDS epidemic in Africa, the Blood and Water Mission in Africa (and other third-world locations), orphans in Iraq or Mozambique, your town's battered women's shelter or homeless areas, etc., etc.

But, for the love of all things reasonable--and holy--, don't take your protesting to the doorstep of a money-making business where their primary focus is not God, but money. It's your responsibility to honor Christ, not Wal-mart's. It's your responsibility to raise your kids, not Wal-mart's. It's their responsibility to get everyone (from different religions) to buy at their store, not disseminate doctrine from their shelves at low, low prices. Who in the world wants Wal-mart representing Jesus Christ anyways?!

While I personally wouldn't mind Wal-mart saying "Merry Christmas", nothing of religious value whatsoever hinges on whether they do or not. Has anyone ever gotten saved because they saw "Merry Christmas" in a store? No. Any revivals due to a store's choice of advertising? No. And, tell the truth now, when was the last time (before this Christmas season) you dropped to your knees, overwhelmed with thankfulness, upon walking into a Wal-mart to see "Merry Christmas" displayed? Have you ever gone out of your way to thank the Manager of a store for hearing "Merry Christmas" from a greeter?

It's funny to me how everyone looks at tele-vangelists who ask for money and immediately writes them off, but some of those same people want to sell Jesus for the holidays in every store on the block. If money-grubbing tele-vangelists disgust you, you should be overjoyed that general stores are not using Jesus to make money. If you allow stores to do this at Christmas, you have to allow it all year. It's basically (not exactly, but close) like bringing the money-changers back into the Temple after Jesus just kicked them out. God is either an advertising pawn or not; He is worth more than that to me.

This is yet another reason normal people think Christians are all wacked out in the head--because some of us mistakenly demonstrate that life hinges on two seasonal words, rather than on our compassionate actions toward others throughout the year. Let's pick our battles, folks. And let's just be honest, on the scale of eternal significance, this couldn't even register a heartbeat. By the way, God is not an American, so I doubt He circled December 25th on His calendar.