Christmas for sale

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By: "JJ" http://onwapo.wordpress.com
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MADE IN AMERiK.

RevMark2U

I read your post of December 21, 2010 2:32 PM and it appears that you do not have a clue what Christianity is about, but you are not alone, there are many who call themselves Christian and many who most vehemently say they are not Christian that seem to be clueless about what Christianity is about.

Take care, be ready.

Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

Ms Thistlewaite the consumerists only win when you give over your soul to them. Christmas is not an outtie but an innie. By that I mean it is how one feels about the season that counts. If consuming is your thing then by all means consume. Someone desperately needs the job that your spending is supporting! But if Christmas is about the sharing of God's love with the world then all one has to do is to share a little love and that costs nothing but it is worth more than all the black friday receipts.

So to speak of Christmas for sale is like to say that air is for sale or smiles are for sale. Don't over think the obvious. And don't dwell on what your neighbor does just be true to your own faith and share the love.

http://alastairstephens.com/?photo=atheists-dont-have-no-songs

Thistlethwaite is right. Only she and the rest of the columnists at OnFaith are allowed to profit from religion.

Do you have to be a raving hypocrite to be a liberal? Sure seems that way.

Susan, I think you're right: the consumerists have won that battle. And perhaps your idea of moving the observance/celebration to a new date also is good. Perhaps that would also be a fit response to my own Christmas-time wish(es):

I crave a word from progressive Christian friends, a message that is a distinctive Christian addition to the religiously pluralist dialogue, "This is what we think we have to add to the earnest religious conversation, recognizing that we are not superior to the other religions, but also not inferior to them. We are eager to listen deeply, in order to learn deeply, in order to re-form our own tradition where they teach us meaningfully. And then we are eager to add in our voice as a co-equal voice, worthy of reciprocal engagement by those other religions, they listening and learning as deeply from us as we from them."

I crave a word that acknowledges that Christianity, in creating Christmas (and inventing itself), has borrowed at least as much (I personally think more) from the Greek mystery religions and the Native European religions and rituals as it has from Jewish culture and religion; indeed, that it continues to neglect the Jewishness of Jesus and religion as he practiced it. I look for it to seek "teshuva" for the latter and yet also, at the same time, to take pride in its creativity, inventing a new religion with as much creativity as William Shakespeare employed in turning old plots into new plays, and with as much inexhaustible depth of meaning.

I look for it to take pride in its creativity, along with pride in the creativity of the other religions. Perhaps therein can lie an exuberant happiness and sharing among all. Perhaps something similar then can happen on Divali from the Hindu side, on Wesak from the Buddhist side, on Eid from the Muslim side, and so forth, on all the more embracing and universal observances and celebrations of the worlds different religions.

In the meantime, I wish you a deeply joyful Christmas, minus all those heinous elements you wish to be rid of, and with Handel in your ears and heart.

This is the first idea I have seen written in the WaPo with merit. However, moving the celebration of Christmas all the way to the end of January is a little too extreme. Do as they do in Mexico. The Feast of the Epiphany would do for celebrating the birth of Christ, because that was the first time homage had been paid to him by strangers from both near and far as the Messiah and presented with the gifts the Maji had brought with them on their search led by a star.
In Mexico, not a single outside decoration goes up until December 24th and stays up through the Feast of the Epiphany, and then it is taken down. It is this time we as Christians should celebrate all of the traditions of the church, including the birth of Jesus on the 24th. I know that you said to wait until the end of January but do you think retailers care about anything once their store closes early on the 24th so their employees can go home and celebrate the holiday? I guarantee that by noon on the 26th you will not even know that a major holiday had just occurred in every shopping mall in America.
In summation, I am with you and your premise. Enough of the Christmas decorations going up in stores during the week after Halloween and the start of the playing of Christmas music. It burns people out, and it certainly does not have the desired effect retailers hoped for, i.e. making people want to buy more. Instead, I give a card and a check to be used at some future date, when the prices will not be "seasonally adjusted upward".

Actually, those who follow the Julian calendar - such as patriarchal Russian Orthodox, celebrate our Christmas on January 7th, and it is far less commercial and feels more holy.

joe_allen_doty

You wrote, "The 1st Century AD Church (called "The Way" in the Bible) didn't observe any holy days."

What difference does that make?

At the very beginning of the "Church", there was absolutely no New Testament part of the Bible either but there is now.

You then wrote, "Therefore for Jesus' followers even in modern times, relig holidays are not scriptural."

Actually, they are, but some look at them as holydays as opposed to holidays, Jesus's birth is mentioned, Jesus's death is mentioned, Jesus's rising from the dead is mentioned, they are mentioned in scripture, are they not?

Take care, be ready.

Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

Moving Christmas to a Sunday in January, huh? Great idea, that could work! I can see the stores now re-stocking after "The Holidays" to prepare for "Christmas". Special cards, candles with Jesus's image on them, electonic creches,special-edition Bibles and prayer blankets, music CDs and let's not forget the TV specials hosted by your favorite TV evangelists. Oh yes! Another opportunity to to market and make money!!

In Response to comment posted by thebump -

Our consumerism is actually the cause of why so many third world countries are still in poverty. Our corporations go there to rape and pillage these other countries' natural resources and then dump our toxic electronic trash for the impovished children to pick and burn through. We are poisoning their water supply, cutting down whole forests for our greed of palm oil and wood, mining their mountains for minerals, all the while we fail to open our eyes to the destruction our consumerism causes.

Learn how our consumerism affect the rest of the world, watch the "Story of Stuff": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLBE5QAYXp8

Posted by: thebump
The inconvenient truth about our Godless consumerism is that it has lifted more millions of God's children up out of grinding poverty in just the past two or three decades than two millennia of Christian charity.
That's a thought for Christians to ponder — and one that's a hell of a lot more challenging than the authoress's drivel.

Academics should leave the sarcasm to South Park.

In the interest of basic journalistic integrity, I demand that the Post update the above head shot of the authoress with a likeness that is less than three decades old.

Buy the kids illegal fireworks. Mom, can I have your lighter? Be carful. Here's an empty wine bottle, go shoot rockets out of it. Parents are having fire inside and kids are blowing things up outside. Put an M-80 in broken Chinese toy from last birthday.

I've never sold knowledge. The Dermis Probe. We're on Operation Blue Light here. Doubt disciples will want Jan. for change. If we move 2/14 to 7/4 we can celebrate love late and get a divorce from independence. We have fireworks for everything around here. I expect sooner or later they'll be having Christmas night fireworks for the kids. A New Castle Christmas.

Just a note - as with so many Christians, you've got it wrong when you talk about the "Hallelujah" chorus. One of my silly pet peeves is that the Hallelujah chorus belongs with Easter, not Christmas. Anyone who is even vaguely familiar with Handel's oratorio would know this - it's position in the performance is pretty explicit - plus, it's message isn't a Christmas one at all.

So - if the Hallelujah chorus is sung at Christmas, that's fine, since Christians shouldn't be attaching it to that event anyway.

I don't celebrate "Christ's Mass" (what Christmas really means) because I am not a Roman Catholic Church member. I have never been a member of a Protestant Church either.

Jesus' followers didn't call themselves "Christian." It was Greek-speaking pagans who made up the name. Jesus' followers were BELIEVERS!

The 1st Century AD Church (called "The Way" in the Bible) didn't observe any holy days.

Therefore for Jesus' followers even in modern times, relig holidays are not scriptural.

Actually, Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus every time they take part in the Mass and recite The Creed.

The inconvenient truth about our Godless consumerism is that it has lifted more millions of God's children up out of grinding poverty in just the past two or three decades than two millennia of Christian charity.

That's a thought for Christians to ponder — and one that's a hell of a lot more challenging than the authoress's drivel.

Just a thought. How about you celebrate the holiday when and how you want and leave others to do the same? You don’t have to participate in any of the commercialism; you don’t even need to put blue lights on your holy, hijacked pagan evergreen.

“you can't have the magnificent words of Handel's Messiah, and especially not the Hallelujah Chorus, or any of the deeply meaningful Christmas hymns like Joy to the World, Oh, Come All Ye Faithful, Oh, Little Town of Bethlehem, and particularly Silent NIght.”
Does that mean the performers of those songs will be returning their royalties to the ‘marketers’?

“We could focus on the birth of the Christ child and the message of peace and good will to all that is the heart of the Christian message of salvation and the foundation of our faith.”
Go right ahead.. what’s stopping you?

You are part and parcel of the War on Christmas when you start declaring how others SHOULD BE celebrating the holiday.
Mind your own business, do whatever pleases you.

Peace on earth.