The ‘war on Christmas’ leads to closed churches

December 9, 2005

It’s one thing for stores to wish shoppers a “happy holidays.” It’s another when the White House Christmas card doesn’t mention Christmas. But when politically-correct secularists successfully started closing down churches at Christmas, it was a clear sign that the war on the holiday had gone too far. Oh wait, that wasn’t the secularists; it was the Christians.

Some of the nation’s most prominent megachurches have decided not to hold worship services on the Sunday that coincides with Christmas Day, a move that is generating controversy among evangelical Christians at a time when many conservative groups are battling to “put the Christ back in Christmas.”

Megachurch leaders say that the decision is in keeping with their innovative and “family friendly” approach and that they are compensating in other ways. Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Ill., always a pacesetter among megachurches, is handing out a DVD it produced for the occasion that features a heartwarming contemporary Christmas tale.

“What we’re encouraging people to do is take that DVD and in the comfort of their living room, with friends and family, pop it into the player and hopefully hear a different and more personal and maybe more intimate Christmas message, that God is with us wherever we are,” said Cally Parkinson, communications director at Willow Creek, which draws 20,000 people on a typical Sunday.

Yes, for a growing number of large Christian churches, parishioners are essentially told that Christmas worship — on a Sunday, no less — is effectively optional. It’s a telling reminder of the reason for the season: heartwarming DVDs.

Note to Bill O’Reilly: Secularists and religious minorities aren’t undermining Christianity; you guys are doing that just fine without us.

If even one lib said churches should be closed on Christmas, O’Reilly would call for their assassination. But the irony is rich and Christian pastors are doing it.

Falwell and O’Reilly should now ask why Christian ministers hate Christmas but I won’t hold my breath waiting for it.

  • What the f***? The idiots claim a nonexistent problem exists, and then create the problem to prove it? What’s really important here? It’s not Christianity, and it’s not the truth.

  • I can’t believe none of them came up with something more imaginative — such as midnight eve services or late afternoon xmas services. This is silly.

  • seasonal follies

    Suppose our children could clamber into a wardrobe and through its back to another world, where, among other things, they might find themselves engaged in an adventure involving the possibility of redemption from sin. It must be allowed that such a narrative is categorically beyond reason. Take a world occupied by reasoning beings where another narrative, on which the wardrobe one was modeled, has persisted for over two thousand years in its latest form. Assume this narrative has adherents of many stripes and critics of mostly one mind. The latter group refuse to acknowledge the redeemer because everything about him confounds reason. A large segment of the former group cannot refrain from constructing all varieties of reasons why the latter group is mistaken. They do battle on fronts ranging from what are the legitimate worldly ways to celebrate the incarnation of the redeemer, to what policies that redeemer might favor in a war among various factions in the reasoning world.

    Now, as for the redeemer, can it be disputed, to borrow a formulation from the man whose portrait is etched on the topmost left of this page (see wamoshiii.typepad.com), that he either is or he is not? In the end, there can be no other alternative. Surely, if he is our maker and our judge, he is doubled over in the loudest combination of laughter and tears our reason permits us to imagine. And he must wish that his proponents would strive, in their faith, to adopt the ways of his son incarnate, to follow him rather than dare to know him. As for those unable to get beyond reason, surely his chief hope is that they come to accept his grace,

    But, as for worldly disputations over what the wardrobe maker intended by his tale, or whether department store clerks should prefer “Merry Christmas” to “Happy Holidays”, or whether one’s nations attitudes better serve his purpose than another, I’d wager that is utterly indifferent.

  • As kids, we Catholics were always delighted when Christmas fell on a Sunday because that meant one less Mass we had to go to! Christmas Mass took care of BOTH the holy day of obligation and our Sunday obligation. Bonus!

    It completely boggles my mind that some Protestant mega-churches are not having services on Christmas Day. Talk about ruining Christmas! Why in heaven’s name couldn’t they just hold a simple prayer service on Christmas Day for those who find meaning in the spiritual aspects of the holiday? Skip the light show, the band, and all the rest of the trappings, and simply pray together. But I guess this is inconceivable in our age of religio-tainment.

    The one good thing about this sorry episode is that Bill O’Reilley can’t possibly blame Jews, secularists, gays, or any of the other bogeymen of the Right for this. His co-religionists and fellow travelers are doing it to themselves.

  • I was raised Catholic, and like Mary, I remember being ecstatic when Christmas fell on Sunday. But I also remember that we always went to church on Sundays (sometime sSaturday night) and Christmas. There were no exceptions.

    Admittedly, I don’t know much about evangelical Christianity. But doesn’t the DVD send the message that you don’t need a church to find God?

  • I just don’t get this…… Christmas is on a SUNDAY and this is one of the holiest days in the Christian calandar and they cancel services. What happens if some of the parishnoers actully, gasp, want to go to church on Christmas Sunday? Oh well I am sure there are many, many mainline protestant churchs that will welcome them to their Christmas Sunday service.

  • The open secret of conservative Christianity -they don’t worship Christ; they worship at the altar of “family values.”

  • this pc attitude about christmas tree is getting out of control……

    i prefer to call it a non-holiday specfic generic, ornament covered, special event tree, lol

  • prm wrote: “But doesn’t the DVD send the message that you don’t need a church to find God?”

    I sure hope so. The world would be a happier place.

  • Our church usually has 2 services on Sunday. This year we are having a Birthday Party for Jesus with 3 services and many family things to do between services. This is after having 3 services on Christmas Eve.

  • I’m a born again Christian and I will be in Church on Dec. 25, twice. Morning and evening services at the Potters House Christian Fellowship church in Prescott, AZ will be conducted. Y’all come!

  • I never imagined that political wars have gone this far. It really sounds frustrating that even the Holy House is already troubled by the moves of the White House. The question now is, which sector of the state now portraits complete peace?

    John

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