WHICH WAR?

AOL’s newspage opened this morning with a picture of somebody in a Santa suit protesting WalMarts’ use of the word holidays in their seasonal advertising. Now, if you’ve followed some of my entries you’ll know I’m not exactly a fan of WalMart but this whole War on Christmas crap is just too much.

 

For one thing I guess I missed the entry in the Bible that included Santa Clause with the Three Wise Men on the way to Bethlehem. All holiday means in holy day. If you aren’t sure who is celebrating what it’s perfectly acceptable. And it looks like just everybody who is anybody has a festival at this time of year when the year turns and the sun starts climbing up the sky again. You’ve got Hanukkah (Jewish), Diwali (Hindu), Rohatsu (Bhuddist) and Kwanzaa (African-American) to name a few.

 

There was an excellent my opinion column in the Register Guard here in Eugene on the so-called war against Christmas. The author is a local Presbyterian deacon. He traces at least part of the beginning of this newest diversion of attention to Fox (we report, you decide(very audible snort here)) News anchor John Gibson, talk show host Bill O’Reilly and a group backed by Jerry Falwell. CNN and MSNBC have added fuel to the fire by parroting Fox News stories. Just another reason why we watch MASH in the evenings, read the local papers, read Newsweek, and watch Northwest Cable News.

 

Christians aren’t in any danger in this country. What is at question is what I call Civic Christianity. Public lip service that acknowledges this country as a so-called Christian Nation and basically tells anybody who doesn’t agree or follow a very narrow interpretation that doesn’t represent most people who call themselves Christian to sit down and shut up. For me this ranks right up with being required to show up at the temple once a year or so and make offerings to the gods and emperor of Rome.

 

For me this is just another attempt to divert attention from not only the very real war in  Iraq  but the war on all the people that Jesus had in His heart when He said “as you do to the least of these, you do to me.”

 

This last part from somebody who carries very little cash, finally got smart and asked bell ringer at Fred's if Salvation Army takes checks. THEY DO!