Jesus vs. Santa

I love Christmas. I love the family, the food and the fun. I even like the parts that most guys hate, including the shopping (gasp!).

But in recent years I keep hearing something I don’t like during this season: a cultural war. It seems that Christmas time sparks the flames of political correctness and its detractors more than any other time of the year. Fights over the words we can use to greet each other, the stories we can tell our children and the songs we can sing in public seem to hit the news every other day. It seems like I see the ACLU’s name in more stories during the month of December than I do all year long (and that’s not a good thing).

I understand the issues. Christmas brings out a lot of cultural baggage in this country because, other than Jewish people and Kwanzaa-ites, pretty much everybody celebrates it in spite of the fact that it’s a Christian holiday. Then, when those same people miss the real point of the season, we Christians get upset with them. We look at Santa as a rival for Jesus, and the battle seems to get more heated every year.

It’s a shame that this war always pops up at a time when love, grace and forgiveness have historically been celebrated. I’m all for educating people as to the real reason for the season and greeting others with a Merry Christmas instead of a Happy Holidays, but I would beg everyone who is a follower of Christ to also show as much love and grace as possible.
Fiercely bashing anyone who uses the phrase “Seasons Greetings” is not going to help people understand the point of Christmas time. However, living like Christ and reaching out in love to those who are hurting and in need of help will get that point across without any need for words at all, whether they are PC phrases or not.