Embracing a Biblical world view

Friday, December 02, 2005

Don't be distracted


I said Christmas


With a great amount of publicity, several "family friendly" groups are declaring victory in the battle to keep Christ in Christmas.  Focus on the Family, American Family Association, and Family Research Council, have all raised the banner to battle against those who would want to de-Christianize the Christmas season. 


Through letter writing campaigns and store boycotts, a message is being sent to corporate America.  Don't piss off the Christians, because they are a force to be reckoned with.  They will, with their emails, letters and most importantly with their dollars, exert pressure on "ungodly" corporate America that bows down to radical special interest groups, who have an agenda of changing the landscape of America from the Christian roots upon which it was founded, into a secular godless society.  Heaven forbid!


In today's Focus on the Family broadcast, Dr. Dobson declared that 96 percent of the people in the USA celebrate the Christmas Holiday.  The entire hour was dedicated to teaching us Christians how to battle the "Scrooges" who would want to remove Christ from Christmas.


Don't get me wrong, I'm dismayed that our culture is moving from "Merry Christmas" to "Happy Holidays" or worse, "Seasons Greetings".  After all Jesus is the reason for the season, right?  Without Christ there would be no Christmas, right?


Very soon now, Christians the world over will soon be celebrating the highest, best, most wonderful, most supreme gift to the human race, the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ.  We will exchange gifts with one another to commemorate the fact that "God so Loved the world that He gave....".


However, the rest of America who don't know a thing about Jesus as Lord and Savior will also be exchanging gifts with one another and celebrating "Christmas".  They will sing songs like "Rudolph the red nosed reindeer", "Frosty the snowman" and "Santa Claus is coming to town".  Some of them will, with a great deal of innocence and ignorance, celebrate one of the most Holy days with debauchery, drunkenness and football games.


What if the Christians took all the publicity, money and energy that these "family friendly" groups are putting into turning "Happy Holiday" signs into "Merry Christmas" signs and instead used it to spread the real meaning of Christmas?  I wonder what would happen if we focused on changing hearts, instead of signs and touching lives instead of corporate bottom lines?  I wonder what would happen if the church used it's new found "muscle" to serve the world as Jesus served his disciples on the eve of his crucifixion?  I just wonder...


Shouldn't Christians take a stand for righteousness? YES!  Shouldn't Christians be concerned about how a minority of secular citizens are forcing themselves and their ungodly worldview on the rest of the citizenry?  YES! 


We've been told for two thousand years that this drift towards godlessness was inevitable.  We are in the last days, folks. The return of our Lord is imminent.  Let's focus on what really matters.


This whole situation reminds me of the conversations between Wormwood and Screwtape in CS Lewis' famous work, "The Screwtape Letters".  If the enemy can get us to focus on something that appears on the surface to be "godly", but in the long run doesn't really amount to much, he will be able to distract us from the real issues that are the most important.


In the long run, this whole brew ha ha about Christ in Christmas is going to make the church look foolish.  Much ado about nothing.  This is a non-issue and we should be focused on preaching the Gospel and making disciples, not affecting corporate bottom lines, and arm twisting stores into changing signs.