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Thursday, December 15, 2005
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We took Katelyn to a book store, which I’ll not name but obviously from this picture you can tell they’re not too noble, and Liz and I were saddened to see these signs. I’ve heard the silly argument of how stores wish not to offend its customers; however, how does this not offend Christians? I mean the store proudly displays signs for a Jewish holiday and a crazy fictitious holiday for a minority group? You’ve got to be kidding!
I think these displays expose this countries distaste of anything Christian. I won’t brush the entire country with such a wide stroke using this store as proof, but I think all one has to do is go out into their malls and see this is taking place everywhere. It’s not uncommon to find “happy holidays” splattered all over the place along with reminders of the week the Jews celebrate the miracle of their burning lamp or some day brought into existence because of some activist thought it would unite gang bangers and the common folk of their neighborhoods. It’s sad and mind boggling how this is acceptable! But you know, when liberals talk about tolerance, this is what is meant by that. Ignore Christians but accept everyone else. That’s tolerance to them.
Last night we had dinner out Outback and the waitress encouraged us to have “happy holidays” on our bill. I signed the Visa slip and put on the bottom of it, “Merry Christmas. A Savior is born!” That’s what it’s about and I’m not PC enough to shun from that message!
December 16th, 2005 at 6:20
sad, just plain sad
December 16th, 2005 at 20:22
You’re right. They should have had a six foot statue of Jesus out front with a sign that read: “Jesus wants you to buy books from us.” Would that have made you happier, if they had exploited your religion in this way? I would guess not.
Seriously. Every president dating back to George Washington has been a Christian, yet somehow you feel your religion is being persecuted? Get real.
I seem to remember another holiday 7 days after Christmas that is celebrated by 99% of Americans. Together you could say “Happy Holidays” to mean both. But I guess you don’t celebrate New Year’s. Its only about Christmas. Be sure to take down all your Christmas lights December 26th. As for myself, I celebrate both. I’ll be leaving my lights and tree up until January.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
December 16th, 2005 at 21:11
Your argument fails to speak of the two other holidays that had their own specific signs. That was my point. If you can have Hanukkah and Kwanzaa, then why not Merry Christmas? You fail to see the problem because you are part of it.
As to your holiday marking the end of one year and the beginning of the next, I have yet to hear someone tell me in the wee hours of that new day, “Happy holidays!”
December 17th, 2005 at 11:26
Hmmm, nice interpretation… “six foot statue… Jesus wants you to buy books from us.” Wow, that might just be a really good marketing idea if BN wanted to attract “Christian” buyers, but no, that wouldn’t make Sven, nor myself, happy. Distribution of religious books and paraphernalia doesn’t equate exploitation (in a negative fashion) any more than the selling of apples, milk, and meat in a grocery store… it meets the needs/desires of society (capitalism is the fairest most reasonable economic model that actually works… if you’d disagree with me on this one - not that I’m saying you do - then go move to a communist state and see how enjoyable that idealistic manner of living actually plays out, socialism more your flavor, well… hopefully you like the Winter, cuz Sweden is dark and cold more than it is light and warm! ;o)
“Seriously. Every president dating back to George Washington has been a Christian” Sir, with all do respect, if you truly believe this, then you are not a Christian (unless very ignorant, no offense intended) and you are only believing the myth that if one goes to church, believes in God, or even takes it a step further and believes that Jesus Christ is their “personal” Savior and that He died for them BUT doesn’t then place Him as LORD and submit to His will for their lives (rather than them just following their own sinful desires) and demonstrate that by repenting of their sins (no one’s perfect, esp not me, but the true Christian’s life is characterized by an ongoing repentence of their sins and striving to live righteously and be more Holy like Christ was)…(wow, still no period!? What a long run on sentence, but the msg - I hope - was easy to understand despite my use of punctuation!
Summary: Not everyone… no, the majority of those who “say” or “claim” to be Christians simply are not when put to the test of Biblical standards (see below for more lengthy reading… I need to wrap this up, while I do love talking/writing about this type of material, my wife is due to deliver our first son any day and we still got some preparation left to do… not to mention buying a few C-mas - note, not X-mas! - gifts.
“yet somehow you feel your religion is being persecuted? Get real.” Not persecuted, if so then ever so mildly - nothing compared to real persecution being suffered by my brothers and sisters in Sudan, China, Iran, etc. - but more so “intolerated!” Imagine that! Those who preach “tolerance” as their dogmatic cry in a culture where reletivism and plurism are slowly choking the air out of moral absolutes from where laws and regulations have their only valid base/foundation. Those who preach tolerance rarely are tolerant of the intolerant - inconsistent, eh!? - and thus have no room for “protecting” Christianity as Christians - true ones any way - are exclusivistic in their theology - so was Jesus! see John 14:6 - and thus are viewed intolerant because they refuse to shut up and let millions of atheists, agnostics, Hindus, Budists, Muslims, etc go down the wide road leading to hell without warning them and attempting to showing them the narrow road leading to God and Heaven. I thank God for Christian intolerance, otherwise, I’d still be on the wide wrong road.
“I seem to remember another holiday 7 days after Christmas” Uh, yeah. Ok. I don’t have the time to comment on this one, Sven’s comment is good enough.
“Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.” Thanks! I hope the Lord blesses you w/these as well ;o)
I found these quotes will doing a quick search for Gallop Poll Born Again Christians, you may find them useful in redefining your understanding of what “Christianity” is and is not. May the Lord bless you richly with not only an proper definition but more importantly with His grace to bring you into a lastly relationship with Him in which you call and follow Him - the true Lord and Savior.
Claiming Truth While Denying Its Source
Nine out of ten adults own at least one Bible and eight out of ten consider themselves to be Christian, but you’d never know it from the smorgasbord of religious beliefs professed by most people. A new nationwide survey conducted by the Barna Research Group indicates that a large share of the people who attend Protestant or Catholic churches have adopted beliefs that conflict with the teachings of the Bible and their church. http://www.thegoodsteward.com/article.php3?articleID=1285
Walking the walk
While Time Magazine lionizes a group of Christian evangelical leaders, Christianity Today asks what I think is a more pertinent question: to what extent are such leaders — and their followers — ‘walking the walk’ of Christianity with any integrity? The polls that CT points to include some by Gallop and some by Barna, both of whom are held in great respect:
To say there is a crisis of disobedience in the evangelical world today is to dangerously understate the problem. Born-again Christians divorce at about the same rate as everyone else. Self-centered materialism is seducing evangelicals and rapidly destroying our earlier, slightly more generous giving. Only 6 percent of born-again Christians tithe. Born-again Christians justify and engage in sexual promiscuity (both premarital sex and adultery) at astonishing rates. Racism and perhaps physical abuse of wives seems to be worse in evangelical circles than elsewhere. This is scandalous behavior for people who claim to be born-again by the Holy Spirit and to enjoy the very presence of the Risen Lord in their lives.
It is not only evangelicals who ought to be asking this question. All of us who profess faith in Jesus Christ need to be searching our actions to see if we are indeed living what we believe.
Posted by hessma at 08:47 PM | Comments (0) http://www.religioused.org/tarchives/2005_01.html
What is a Christian? If you were asked that question today, what would you say? What is a Christian? What is an evangelical? How would you define it? R. Kent Hughes, who is an American expositor and preacher, has written a book. And his book has come in response to that question - that in a world in which we live today, where Roman Catholics can say now that they are evangelical, or this that and the other, if they use the same language, if they do the same things, sing the same songs and preach from the same book they are classed as evangelicals, born again Christians. And in response to that question and that dilemma, he has written a book entitled this: ‘Are evangelicals born again?’. ‘Are evangelicals born again?’. And what it is, is a commentary upon the Beatitudes, in other words what he is saying is this: that if you do not have in your life the prime substance, or even an indication of what we find in the Beatitudes, it is doubtful that you are born again. One quote that I read this week from Professor David Welles said this on the term evangelical he said, ‘It is descriptively anaemic. Today in our world it means nothing’. http://www.preachtheword.com/sermon/bea01.shtml
December 18th, 2005 at 0:17
My point is that the Bill O’Reilly crowd has blown this ficticious war on Christmas tale out of reality. I’m sure there are plenty of Christmas books that have Christmas written all over them at that book store. Everyone knows “Happy Holidays” includes Christmas, and whatever other holiday someone might celebrate. My point is that Christmas isn’t the only holiday, and we should be tolerant of others beliefs, just as you would like to have your beliefs treated. Sure, I see no reason why B&N shouldn’t have a sign saying “Merry Christmas” as well. I’m not really sure I see how that would honor Christians in any way. Would you rather every mall Santa was exchanged for a Jesus impersonator to sell their goods?
I know nothing about Kawanza myself, but svenrox comments regarding it are pretty insulting to those who might celebrate it. How about a little tolerance? If you aren’t going to be respectful of others beliefs, how can you expect any in return? I see no war on Christmas, but it seems some Christians are declaring war on other December holidays.
December 18th, 2005 at 14:40
TOS, if you see no war on Christmas, then you may have not been out in the malls and roads of America of late. Every where I look, I see little reference to Christmas but lots to “holidays”. When I went to school, it was “Christmas Break”. Now it’s “Winter Break”. When I was in college, nativity scenes were expected during this time but now are being called offensive. All this tolerance I hear about seems to forget and consider Christmas itself. The holiday that Christians have celebrated for hundreds and hundreds of years. Like the Jews, we have a tradition of a special day (week for the Jews) in which it is being stripped from history. There is a war and if you don’t take notice, you’ll forget what Christmas is truly about.
December 19th, 2005 at 9:02
“crazy fictitious holiday for a minority group” …if svenrox was referring to Kwanza, then quite frankly, I don’t know what he was thinking (perhaps he’d like to comment further on this, ah, I don’t think he could hold back from commenting… esp when invited to! ;o) I did a quick search on it (see below) and found nothing wrong with it (admittedly, I only read one paragraph! :o)
DEFINITION OF KWANZAA Kwanzaa is a unique African American celebration with focus on the traditional African values of family, community responsibility, commerce, and self-improvement. Kwanzaa is neither political nor religious and despite some misconceptions, is not a substitute for Christmas. It is simply a time of reaffirming African-American people, their ancestors and culture. Kwanzaa, which means “first fruits of the harvest” in the African language Kiswahili, has gained tremendous acceptance. Since its founding in 1966 by Dr. Maulana Karenga, Kwanzaa has come to be observed by more than18 million people worldwide, as reported by the New York Times. When establishing Kwanzaa in 1966, Dr. Karenga included an additional “a” to the end of the spelling to reflect the difference between the African American celebration (kwanzaa) and the Motherland spelling (kwanza). http://www.tike.com/celeb-kw.htm
Ah, tolerance! I know that in several countries, Cambodia for one, that orphaned and abandoned children (I’m talking toddlers to elementary school aged kids) are being enslaved in the sex trade without an outcry from the majority of adults around them. It’s part of their culture. It’s tolerated by those who could put an end to the practice but refuse to. Should I just tolerate that and say “well, relativismistic moral philosophy says that moral norms are governed by local culture/society majorities… what’s true to them is true” and therefore just ignore what I believe to be morally reprehensible!? Or should I do what I can… perhaps donate to a agency that builds orphanages and seeks to rescue these children off the streets and introduce them to a God who loves them through caring, loving people and a God who believes in absolute truths - one of which is the sanctity of man and abhors such violence imposed upon them at the hand of men who selfishlessly rage and carry out the evil w/in them for the sake of gratifying their lust, greed, and depravity!?!?!? …ok, tell me, what should I - in a world which a would love for relativism to rule - do w/the above scenario? Please don’t dismiss it as an extreme case which has no relevance to this small discussion which started over retail store advertising. Every idea has consequences… even the smallest one can have amazingly large ancestors.
The Intolerance of Tolerance (I thought this might be a good read for you, as usual, here’s a snipet followed by a link to the longer original article)
Gregory Koukl
Probably no concept has more currency in our politically correct culture than the notion of tolerance. Unfortunately, one of America’s noblest virtues has been so distorted it’s become a vice.
There is a modern myth that holds that true tolerance consists of neutrality. It is one of the most entrenched assumptions of a society committed to relativism.
The tolerant person occupies neutral ground, a place of complete impartiality where each person is permitted to decide for himself. No judgments allowed. No “forcing” personal views. Each takes a neutral posture towards another’s convictions.
This approach is very popular with post-modernists, that breed of radical skeptics whose ideas command unwarranted respect in the university today. Their rallying cry, “There is no truth,” is often followed by an appeal for tolerance.
For all their confident bluster, the relativists’ appeal actually asserts two truths, one rational and one moral. The first is the “truth” that there is no truth. The second is the moral truth that one ought to tolerate other people’s viewpoints. Their stand, contradictory on at least two counts, serves as a warning that the modern notion of tolerance is seriously misguided.
Intellectual Cowardice
Most of what passes for tolerance today is not tolerance at all, but rather intellectual cowardice. Those who hide behind the myth of neutrality are often afraid of intelligent engagement. Unwilling to be challenged by alternate points of view, they don’t engage contrary opinions or even consider them. It’s easier to hurl an insult–”you intolerant bigot”–than to confront the idea and either refute it or be changed by it. “Tolerance” has become intolerance. http://www.str.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5359
Why avoid using ‘Merry Christmas’?
By Beth Joyner Waldron
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – The all-inclusive “Happy Holidays” greeting has become an annual December puzzler for towns, public schools, and businesses: How do we respect the holiday traditions of one group of citizens without causing detriment to another?
While Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and in some years Ramadan and Diwali, share the same season, last year’s polls show around 96 percent of Americans celebrate Christmas.
For a pluralistic nation that prides itself upon embracing both freedom of expression and the separation of church and state, the widespread public celebration of Christmas poses a unique quandary. Guiding public displays of Christmas cheer are a patchwork of inconsistent, local-level policies - the perfect conditions under which litigation emerges.
Successive years of legal action by civil libertarians have effectively curtailed the public promotion of all things “Christmas,” giving rise to more politically correct - and judiciously safe - “Holiday” observances. In doing so, public officials and retailers alike have nurtured a well-founded hypersensitivity to the opinions of a minority group. http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1201/p09s02-coop.html
Activist Judge Cancels Christmas
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/43438/print/ …this is a bit funny, but sad. Stories simular BUT TRUE are already being carried out in several countries around the world. Could this satire come true in the land of the brave one day… well, it only took 50 years for Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini to demonstrate what “God is dead” really looks like for if the higher Authority doesn’t exist than man’s actions are only guided by his own measuring stick. Problem is that no two sticks used by men are the same, all are conceived in one’s own mind, with one’s own personal realm to chisel and sand until a perfectly crooked stick is crafted! (but everyone’s stick is “better” and “less” crooked than the next person’s, thus, in his own mind, man will always be better than someone else hoping that if God is not dead that He will judge man based on the stick that man made) TOS, rather than waxing philosophocally w/o any direct relationship building questions, mind if I ask you (1) what you use as your measuring stick and (2) if you believe in some form of life after death?
December 14, 2005 | Issue 41•50
WASHINGTON, DC—In a sudden and unexpected blow to the Americans working to protect the holiday, liberal U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Stephen Reinhardt ruled… (you’ll just have to go to the link to find out!
December 20th, 2005 at 9:21
Sean: To answer your questions would be quite time consuming, and my wife has a heavy “Honey Do” list for me over the Holidays (Christmas & New Years). But basically, I’m an Agnostic who believes in Evolution and Science. I appreciate and respect the values taught in the Bible, and for the most part use the same values as my “measuring stick.” However, I don’t see everything in the Bible as factual, but more metaphorical. I appreciate the life of Jesus, and see him as a great man who had a lot of wonderful things to say. Was He the son of God? Perhaps we could be said to all be children of God, and in that respect, yes He was as much as any of us are. As to the afterlife, I try to be open minded about the subject. It would be great if there is an afterlife. However, I’ve never conversed with the dead, so I can’t say if there is an afterlife or not. I’ve been to church, and even go occasionally. I’ve read the Bible. I don’t consider myself ignorant about Christianity. I try to be open minded, and don’t think any one religion holds ALL the answers. For the most part, each of our major religions worship only one God. To me it would seem to be the same god, no matter whether you call him Jahovah or Allah, or whatever.
I do however celebrate Christmas, and it’s probably my favorite holiday. I enjoy giving and receiving gifts, and spending time with the family. I may not celebrate Christmas the way svenrox or yourself might appreciate, but we do even have a nativity scene, we own a bible, and we have childrens books that are about the life of Jesus. My wife considers herself a Liberal Christian, although we don’t attend church regularly. We do even attend church at Christmas on occassion. As for myself, I’m open minded to the concept of religion and God, but have no desire to be converted.
In any rate, I hope I’ve alleviated svenrox fears that there is some sort of Liberal conspiracy against Christmas. If anything, it is a corporate decision to say Happy Holidays, and be inclusive of both Christians, Jews, and every other faith. It is not an exclusive slogan, but an inclusive one. Imagine if things were the other way around, and Jews were the majority. Every where you went people shouted “Happy Hannakah (sp?)” at you. I imagine you would prefer the slogan “Happy Holidays” as well.
Sorry, no time to proofread. Forgive any typos or spelling errors. I need to get painting my house :-O
Merry Christmas.
December 20th, 2005 at 9:32
TOS, if I was in Israel and someone said “Happy Hanukkah” to me, I would respond in the same manner. Since the majority of the country professes to be Jewish, it wouldn’t make sense to say anything otherwise. Just like it doesn’t make sense not to say Merry Christmas in a country that vast majority professes to be Christian.
Now paint that house good ’cause I hear more rain is going to wet our coast this weekend.
Merry Christmas, Sven. It’s a pleasure to have you here!
December 20th, 2005 at 12:17
Holiday = Holy Day
I have no problem with the slogan Merry Christmas, but I still fail to see what’s wrong with this Happy Holidays. In order to inclusive of the Jews in this season, I believe Jesus would approve of this Holy Day greeting. Especially considering he’s Jewish.
I’m painting the inside, so no worries about rain here. It’s actually very sunny and warm in Southern California. Maybe I’ll turn on the AC.
Back to painting
December 22nd, 2005 at 20:49
Dudes. You’ll be happy to know: I was in a Barnes and Noble in the San Diego area today. They had a prominent sign reading: Merry Christmas.
Christmas is saved
December 22nd, 2005 at 21:57
Woo hoo! My blogging did some good.