"Christmas Under Attack"

This weekend, at dinner, our sever wished us "Happy Holidays" when he returned my dad's credit card. As the server walked away, my mom muttered under her breath, "Merry Christmas. You could wish us a Merry Christmas."

I've been ignoring the "Christmas Under Attack" tempest in a teapot, but my folks are intellegent, educated, and generally thoughtful... except for those areas where their church or other Christian media has packaged up an opinon for them. And it seems like the "Christmas is under attack" opinion has taken hold.

So, given that it's become personal, I want to crack this frame.

Christian leaders like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson are urging their congregations to be vigilant about the disappearance of the word "Christmas". They called for a boycott of certain stores who've chosen this year to avoid the word in their advertising.

But I think this is just a "have your cake and eat it too" action on the part of these leaders. When I became a Christian in the mid-80's, the big movement among evangelical churches was to insist that "Jesus is the Reason for the Season." In other words, don't say "Christmas" unless you honor Christ. They were reacting to an increasingly secular use of "Christmas". After all, "While Christmas" has nothing to do with the manger. "Silver Bells" is more about shopping than salvation. "Happy Xmas (War is Over)" is a holiday version of "Imagine".

So, granted. People who are thoughtful about their Christian heritage are probably justified in recapturing the name of this Christian holiday.

What has resulted from that recapture is a new secular language for the holiday and the season. "Happy Holidays" is intended as nothing more than a respectful stance for the multiple religious meanings of the holiday. I know my parents would like to be recognized as Christians, but over the course of a dinner, why would anyone know that? And how would they feel if they were mistaken for Muslims or Buddhists or Pagans or Jewish and wished the corresponding holiday? They would be offended. So the non-sectarian route is probably the best course for these businesses.

I know what's motivating my parents and their leaders. They remember a time when Christians were all there was. Sure, there may have been other groups, but they kept quiet. Stayed in the closet, so to speak. The majority got all the priviledges of being the majority and bent the language to their pleasure. And that time is gone.

But I think there's also a deeper anxiety. There's a good chance that in America today, Christians, or at least that kind of Christianity, may now be in the minority. The language may be an indicator of that. And I think there's a very real reason to be worried about that. For at least the last 40 years, the church has failed to live the values of the manger.

Jesus came as an unplanned pregnancy to an unmarried poor family who because of a government program had been made homeless. He called for compassion for the stranger, the poor, the politically powerless, the weak, those across racial and cultural lines, and for the inclusion of all people in the movement he startes.

But in the past 40 years, the American evangelical movement has been solidly on the side of unjust wars, dismantling the safety net for the poor and the stranger, amassing wealth, revealing in consumption, they have resisted the expansion of civil rights for those who are different, they have stereotyped and stood aside while strangers in our midst are made scapegoats for our crimes.

So, if these people want to agonize about the loss of "Merry Christmas" and wonder how to get it back, why not consider the absence to be a kind of "Wittenburg Door"? I know it's easier to assume your kids are leaving their faith and practicing Paganism because of their own self-indulgence... but maybe instead it is a sign of the gap between the spoken and lived values of the church today.