Picture this....it is a couple of days after back to school and already your local Walmart is filing away school supplies on the clearance racks and beginning to put out Halloween decorations and costumes. Each year, the Christian holiday wars begins at about this time. Halloween is pagan, satanic and EVIL!!!! If you dare carve a pumpkin, hang a skeleton, watch Harry Potter or say "trick or treat," you can kiss salvation goodbye as you can not POSSIBLY be a born again believer in Jesus Christ.
Sigh.....where to start. I suppose the answer would be simple if it were just a Halloween issue. But alas, soon after Halloween is Thanksgiving. How could Thanksgiving be controversial in the American Christian community? Ha! We Christians have a knack for, as I like to put it, Jesusifying EVERYTHING. Online communities get into debates on questions such as this one I stole off a FB board:
"If you don't accept the notion of a God who created you, loves you, wants a relationship with you, will forgive you, wants the best for you, provides, sustains, and gives you hope for the future and true peace and joy in this life. Then why celebrate THANKSGIVING? To whom are you thankful? Your lucky stars? I know i'm preaching to the choir here...but it mystifies me how people put so little thought into what they practice."
Does this attitude end with Thanksgiving? OF COURSE NOT! Why would it? We have the wonderful Christmas season to contend with. What? You don't believe me? It is after all the celebration of Jesus' birthday for goodness sake. Just take a look around again at the online Christian community. Christmas is a pagan holiday. It is sinful to celebrate it. Jesus wasn't even born in winter. Santa Clause is a demon and causes you to lie to your children. St. Nicholas was ok, but only if you are Catholic. Christmas trees are also a pagan symbol and should never be found in a Christian home. Blah Blah Blah.....
Like clockwork, every year, we have these same conversations. People give the same answers they did the year before and yet, the arguments continue on all sides of the equation with equal gusto. Of course, then we add in those who are not professing Christians.
AHHHHH...my.head.is.going.to.explode.
Let's start with the basics about Christmas that everyone should be able to agree on. Nobody knows the exact birthday of Jesus Christ. The day we celebrate Christmas now is based off an ancient pagan celebration that recognized the winter solstice and the return of longer days. Christmas is one of the three best times in the Christian calender, back to school and Easter are the other two, when seekers are most open to hearing the Gospel story. In most societies that celebrate Christmas, it is more a cultural holiday and not a faith based one regardless of the CHRISTmas name.
My solution? It is a simple one, are you ready? No matter what your faith beliefs are or are not, you get to choose what you believe and how you will act based on those beliefs. So, if you feel Christmas is pagan and Harry Potter and Christmas trees are evil, then don't celebrate Christmas or read/watch Harry Potter. If you are a Christian believer and grew up with a Christmas tree and want one for your family now, enjoy the holiday and festive atmosphere that a beautiful blinking light tree will provide for you in your home. If you are in the Charlie Brown camp and feel Christmas is too commercial, act accordingly.
We all have different convictions, even if some of us have the same basic faith beliefs. How about we choose to love our neighbors and our differences, and celebrate or not celebrate a specific holiday or such according to our personal convictions and leave it at that? Why do we worry so very much about other people and take their choices as an attack on ours?
With that, I'll be off to bake some cookies for our upcoming Christmas open houses. I may even turn on some evil Christmas music and....don't fall off your chair....our pagan Christmas tree.
Falalalala, lala, la, la........
Monday, December 05, 2011
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