"No, no, I don't celebrate Christmas, I'm a CHRISTIAN!"
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gq7KQubcoZYlyDvdQtL1eVU3fEzQD8TGMBAO0
One has to admire the rejection of secular commercialization of a religious commemoration, but....
Universalis, your very own breviary in pixels...
1 comment:
That's not too far from how I look at it. I always get annoyed with conservative culture warriors this time of year complaining about atheists attacking Christmas. Christmas is a commercialized secular holiday of santa, trees, and spending money. Even looking back on Dicken's "Christmas Story", those who "defend" the "true meaning of Christmas" make it about "brotherhood", "charity", and many other things that would break the quotation mark key on my keyboard. I recall 10 years or so ago, the main thrust was to "put Christ back in Christmas." That was a noble gesture, but it's dead - Christmas is as secular now as ever.
I'm not saying I don't celebrate it. Quite the contrary, I enjoy secular Christmas almost as much as the feast and season of the Nativity. However, I make a distinction between what's Christian and what's just American culture. If some atheist is going to get upset over our secular traditions, that's his right as a stupid American. But he can't take away our Church year, he can't take away Advent or the Nativity or Holy Innocents or Epiphany. The cashier at Best Buy saying "Happy Holidays" isn't insulting my faith because my faith has nothing to do with American culture. My faith today looks forward to Christ's return, in a week I'll celebrate that God sent Christ among us as a man, and 12 days after that I'll rejoice that Christ came for the Gentiles as for the Jews. And then at Christmas, I'll celebrate Santa, gifts, and overeating.
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