Two years ago, the wife and I hit a Target on Black Friday. It was a brand new Target and, since no one knew about it, no one was there. It was blissful lonely shopping with good deals and no crowd. The oddest thing, though, was a very large and intentional banner that said, "Merry Christmas."
Each year, more and more retail groups are happy to include the word Christmas in their catalogs. I get warm Christmas wishes from employers and have not seen any new groups moving away from using that word. Did we win?
Lowe's certainly changed their tune and gave up on the idea of a "holiday tree" very quickly. It probably helped that no one had ever heard of such a thing.
I bring this up, because Christians don't usually win these types of victories. I'm not sure why, but this is one that the secular world and the anti-evangelical media simply gave up on and allowed us to win, and Christians have even gotten support from other groups. I've seen non-Christians like Ben Stein and Glen Reynolds applauding those who are saying boldly "Merry Christmas " rather than "Happy Holidays." And, at the company Christmas party, a gospel group sang a song with lyrics that quite literally stated "don't forget the baby" and "without Him there would be no Christmas." So far, no one threatens to sue. (Even though some people grumbled.)
But, I don't know why this victory was won. Christmas is the accepted name for the holiday season and the opposition has retreated without much of a fight, which has left me scratching my head. Maybe it just feels strange to see Christianity on the winning side of a social conflict, for once.
3 comments:
I can't say for certain but I believe it's representative of the way that the political correctness that liberals used to squelch expression of Christian faith is now being wielded by a large portion of the population who believed in the concept of tolerance touted by political correctness. So you cannot repress the expression of Christian faith -- that's intolerance. It's recognized that it's stupid to avoid using the word Christmas regarding traditions and items that are specifically connected to Christmas. It's recognized that it's stupid to be offended that someone wished you a Merry Christmas.
I believe that's evidence that the American people are becoming fed up with political correctness.
1) There's a serious flaw with what Jared is suggesting. (If interested, see here.).
2) Without clogging your blog too much, there was an interesting old article I recently came across you might also be interested in, that deals very much with the "soul" of the nation: "Our American Babylon". Warning, it's long. However, when you consider that this is not just a "Christian" holiday per se, but an international festival deeply engrained within our American culture, this specific battle takes on a new light. The commercialized aspect caters to where the cash is spent, which happens to not necessarily be with those who don't celebrate the holiday anyways. People might find Christianity offensive, but the removal of Christ from this tradition is paramount to nothing less than an attack on the traditional roots of the tradition itself ironically. The same goes for nut-cases who don't want to get a tree cause of its pagan roots. It's still more socially acceptable to become irrationally vehemently hostile to public Christian religious practices than pagan ones, but at the end of the day the ultimate ally was the holiday itself, which is a part of American culture. It only pays off so much to ultimately be anti-American. I'll check later to see if you're at all interested in elaboration (which I jumped around a lot) or disagree.
3) In the spirit of the season which it is, Merry Advent!
4) I just read this Jared "I guess I partially don't understand because I've never considered belief in Santa Claus a marker for childhood creativity and/or a sense of magic & wonder." That response was hilarious, made my night. Thanks
Post a Comment