The Spirit of Halloween at Christmas
The Spirit of Halloween at Christmas?
“Why not put up a beautiful manger scene? He could have put up a sign on it that said, ‘This is the reason for the season of Christmas,’ ” she says. “Instead, he just lynched Santa Claus.”
~ I think this represents, graphically, what happens when you remove Christ from Christmas. When all you have are the heathen counterfeits and bacchanalia there is an entropic transformation.
Atheists think society would revert to neutral, but this illustrates that in humanity there is no neutral, neutral is death. Every time there is a collective success to remove the influence of Christianity…. You get ugliness.
This is because men are informed by the direction of their aspirations. When you remove something of hope and goodness, a chaos of mind results, catapulting into a downward spiral. There is a flailing for homeostasis. That is why you often find beauty in societies without the light of Christ -as long as they move towards good. It is when good is found and despised that man spirals downward.
And that is what I think these urban artists are saying. This is as much urban art as any graffiti or performance art.
This is why I don’t think that those who wage war on Christmas and seek to root out religion have any real idea what they are to end up with in their accumulative successes.
This is why Christians should seek to restore the core of their message in the culture. The only way that was ever accomplished was in living it out… and with sacrificial dedication.
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I’ve been busy and didn’t get this posted Friday, but while I’m at it I thought I would put in a little Christmas rant. It is this: When I was surfing along some blogs, there was a Christian one that went on about the Holiday vs. Christmas dispute and stated that the author didn’t shop @ Target this year because of…whatever…. then happened to see a commercial that prominently wished “Merry Christmas”, but then, too bad…”not a dime of [my money] went to them”. Christians are using a political tool in all the wrong ways, it seems to me. A boycott is meant to bend the policy of a business, and when that business responds, the reward of again doing business with them is supposed to come into play. But Christians ( in this case of their Christmas controversy) are using it as a punitive measure…something like economic sanctions.
The whole idea of Christians heavy-handedness in maneuvering society is starting to rub me very wrong. I can’t rationalize it within the teachings of Christ, or in my experience of how the Holy Spirit leads. Perhaps the point at which I divert is on the weight of the issue. Sometimes issues are seemingly small, but carry great impact, and vice versa.
I think I want to see a difference made between issues of life and death and those of preference, such as whether to say “holiday” or “Christmas” in the institution of political measures such as boycotting, etc.
I don’t believe that any Christian should come off as a bully.
That’s just what I think- and I think it more at Christmas than, perhaps, at any other time.
I agree that Christians should not attempt to bully their position or agenda into place.
I also believe that we Christians in the 21st century West have different responsibilities than did our 1st century counterparts (e.g., the provisions of a democratic society). The question, as you aptly discuss, is how do we properly wield these responsibilities?
I’m trying to decide whether I’d rather be a bully or a hypocrite. Neither one sounds very good.
I have to think back on the history of the Christmas celebration and how it came to be what it is today. Without Christ, I don’t know that there would be any happy holidays for anyone to be hyper-celebrating in the first place. Athiests seem to enjoy the secularized portions of the holidays quite a bit. I see trees, gifts and eggnog in their homes. Should I spend my hard-earned money in retail establishments that bow to a loud, minority voice telling them to erase Christ from Christmas when He is how the whole thing got started in the first place?
Jesus never shied away from the word hypocrite. My NIV shows exclaimation points in several places where He uses the word. Should I shy away from a decision to shop elsewhere when that’s my way of giving this hypocrisy a name? If I just do it quietly (no letter to the CEO, no mention on my blog, no exclaimation point at all), am I still a bully?
I may be splitting hairs. I may also be missing out on something you’ve clearly stated that I’m just not getting. Would that we could sit down over a cup of coffee/tea and give this the clear(er) communication it deserves.