{"id":6036,"date":"2005-12-09T09:11:13","date_gmt":"2005-12-09T14:11:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=6036"},"modified":"2005-12-09T09:11:13","modified_gmt":"2005-12-09T14:11:13","slug":"the-war-on-christmas-leads-to-closed-churches","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/the-war-on-christmas-leads-to-closed-churches\/","title":{"rendered":"The ‘war on Christmas’ leads to closed churches"},"content":{"rendered":"

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<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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.”<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

“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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Note to Bill O’Reilly: Secularists and religious minorities aren’t undermining Christianity; you guys are doing that just fine without us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6036","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6036","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6036"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6036\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6036"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}