Chance for the Chancers
"everything's gonna be okay
He's gonna wipe those fears away
and before the night is through
this is all going to make sense to you"
-Poor Old Lu, "Chance for the Chancers"
Christmas is still a few weeks away, but already I'm tired of the "put the Christ back in Christmas!" chant.
It's not that I think it's a bad idea. On the contrary, like Paul I'd love nothing more than to see my countrymen come to faith in Jesus Christ. The fact that there are people in America that don't know the story of the Incarnation is surprising, and I'm all for efforts to try to change that.
But we live in Grove City, PA. It has spiritual issues to be sure, but I think you'd be awfully hard pressed to find somebody who doesn't know that Christmas celebrates the birth of Christ, regardless of their beliefs.
Trumpeting that cause here just seems like a way to increase the volume of the debate, and makes us look foolish: we claim a victim's stance when we, as American Christians, might be the most privileged, protected Christians in the world.
"Somehow or other, and with the best of intentions, we have shown the world the typical Christian in the likeness of a crashing and rather ill-natured bore — and this in the name of one who assuredly never bored a soul in those thirty-three years during which he passed through the world like a flame."
-Dorothy Sayers
Paradoxically, it might be that giving non-Christians space on this issue is the best way to improve their relationships with Christ. Share with them their Christmas and take an interest in their lives. Jesus spoke with authority, but I don't think that people would've come to him unless the expected him to actually listen to them. He gave the chancers the chance they needed.
The rich, young ruler story is instructive here: the man went away sorrowfully. People who get turned off by the "get rid of the X in X-mas" lobby don't go away sorrowfully. It is left as an exercise to the reader to ponder the difference.
He's gonna wipe those fears away
and before the night is through
this is all going to make sense to you"
-Poor Old Lu, "Chance for the Chancers"
Christmas is still a few weeks away, but already I'm tired of the "put the Christ back in Christmas!" chant.
It's not that I think it's a bad idea. On the contrary, like Paul I'd love nothing more than to see my countrymen come to faith in Jesus Christ. The fact that there are people in America that don't know the story of the Incarnation is surprising, and I'm all for efforts to try to change that.
But we live in Grove City, PA. It has spiritual issues to be sure, but I think you'd be awfully hard pressed to find somebody who doesn't know that Christmas celebrates the birth of Christ, regardless of their beliefs.
Trumpeting that cause here just seems like a way to increase the volume of the debate, and makes us look foolish: we claim a victim's stance when we, as American Christians, might be the most privileged, protected Christians in the world.
"Somehow or other, and with the best of intentions, we have shown the world the typical Christian in the likeness of a crashing and rather ill-natured bore — and this in the name of one who assuredly never bored a soul in those thirty-three years during which he passed through the world like a flame."
-Dorothy Sayers
Paradoxically, it might be that giving non-Christians space on this issue is the best way to improve their relationships with Christ. Share with them their Christmas and take an interest in their lives. Jesus spoke with authority, but I don't think that people would've come to him unless the expected him to actually listen to them. He gave the chancers the chance they needed.
The rich, young ruler story is instructive here: the man went away sorrowfully. People who get turned off by the "get rid of the X in X-mas" lobby don't go away sorrowfully. It is left as an exercise to the reader to ponder the difference.
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