If you're mad because a store sign says "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas," you're looking for Jesus in the wrong place. It's really that simple.
In Monday's paper, guest columnist Alfie D'Souza aired a confusing screed against the preponderance of "happy holidays" and said big retailers, under pressure from "liberals and atheists" are "refusing to mention Christmas, although they are making profits out of the Christian faithful shoppers." To wit:
"Christians should not be punished and nullified due to these nut groups. Businesses should not be pressured by groups that, in effect, want a religious day of celebration removed due to intolerance. Why are we allowing these groups with a twisted sense of righteousness to eliminate our freedom of religious worship with the audacity to claim it on constitutional grounds? I find this claim of Christmas being offensive is offensive in itself. This is a shameful act and very twisted notion of religious freedom."
So although D'Souza writes correctly "it is up to each of us to keep Christ in Christmas," he, and any other of the countless voices who are griping about the "happy holidays" attitude in the retail world, is completely blind to the larger issue. If you want Christmas to be a religious day of celebration, what the heck are you doing in Walmart?
If you want to forget about Hanukkah or Kwanzaa or the winter solstice or what have you and focus solely on the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, the Messiah, the savior of the nations, might I suggest attending a worship service? Last I checked, there is no one, anywhere, even the "liberals and atheists," who are offended by Catholics, Presbyterians, Methodists, Lutherans, Episcopalians and so on who choose to gather on Dec. 24 or 25 to worship the Christian God and commemorate the human/divine birth of Jesus.
Continue reading "Looking for Jesus in all the wrong places."
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