American Christians: Get a Grip!

November 29 2005 | Steve Fletcher

[Pastor Fletcher]

Please, PLEASE, tell me you are kidding!

When I saw the line “’A Petition to Stop the Ban on the Use of "Christmas" By Major Retailers” I thought it was a joke. I was not taken back by the possibility of retailers ‘banning Christmas.” No, I was taken back by the absurdity of a petition to address this issue.

Christians in America, will you please wake up and get a grip? We are so focused on the “culture war” we are neglecting the battle for the souls of men. The slippery slope is not the eventual dechristianization of America. GOOD GRIEF! The slippery slope is the growing distraction away from the proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Why are Christians asking non-Christians to live, act and think like Christians? We have been begging the public schools to pray to God for us. We have been all hot and bothered because our courts will not publicly display the Word of God for us. Now, we are miffed that retailers do not love the Son of God for us. This latest tempest in a teapot is indicative of how desperate Christians are to be embraced by the culture.

We have got our heads buried so deep in our history books that we have lost our theological and biblical vision. If the only way we can “keep Christ in Christmas” is to boycott Walmart for saying “Happy Holidays” we have the problem, not Wal-Mart. The sad ironies of this are profound.

We preach, “You cannot serve God and mammon.” Yet, when the local retailer does not serve up our mammon with the proper Christian greeting, we take our maxed out credit cards and go buy our mammon elsewhere. We are using money to bribe if not outright extort retailers into making us more comfortable with our own convictions. We have become Simon the Sorcerer for the new millennium. We are telling retailers “say what pleases me, and I will give you money.” When the world will not give us what we want, we whine and complain like spoiled children. Our boycott is little more than sophisticated temper tantrum. Miffed, we sign our petitions and take our money to the closest store that will gladly tell us what we want to hear as long as we bring our money.

What’s next: “Concerned Christians Petition Satan to Stop Being So Mean.”

[Clemenza]

Are you the guy from "Sojourners" magazine?

[jennyjenny]

May I have extra butter on my popcorn, please?

[cripplecreek]

He has "pastor" in his name, aren't you convinced?

[Americanwolf]

I would petition to stop satan from being so mean, but politics is so corrupted now it would go no where...

plus satan needs his hobbies to..

[Americanwolf]

Convicted? oooh convinced?.... no

[somemoreequalthanothers]

Tell 'em like it is, Pastor!

[Americanwolf]

So i am kinda lost here with what you are saying... are you saying christans have become slaves to consumerism...walmart is bad..... you know it all kinda blurs for me.

[firewalk]

What’s next: “Concerned Christians Petition Satan to Stop Being So Mean.”

& why not?
he really should be nicer...

[airborne]

Joined today to preach?

Good luck with that!

[BigFinn]

A very unpolitically correct
MERRY CHRISTMAS

[Americanwolf]

Man I just hate hit and run preachers

[joebuck]

A "holly troller" as it were.

[Americanwolf]

nice!.... do you have that copyrighted yet?

[apackof2]

Gee pastor, some of us can do both, proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ and fight for our American cultural and historical Judeo-Christan hertiage

After all the Word saids, "We can do ALL things through Christ Jesus"

[silverleaf]

The slippery slope is the growing distraction away from the proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

And if the trend of removing Christ from public view and public mention continues, just where and how might such proclamation be made, Pastor? You may be willing to hide your light under a bushel, but fewer and fewer of us are willing to take our religious celebration underground. Frankly, if merchants wish to cash in on a birthday celebration, they need to hear from the guests that we will not be attending if they censor mentioning the name of the Guest of honor and equate His birth with the phenomenon of kwanzaa.

[Americanwolf]

"We can do ALL things through Christ Jesus"

Score 2 for apackof2... Excellent point! :)

[GLDNGUN]

It's really quite simple, "Pastor". If a business is too ashamed of the word "Christmas" because it has the word "Christ" in it, while another business is NOT ashamed to recognize this CHRISTIAN holiday, why should Christians patronize the former and not the latter?

And, oh. MERRY CHRISTMAS!

[apackof2]

Thanks.......;>)

[GLDNGUN]

A "holly troller" as it were

Ha ha. Don't you mean HOLY TROLLER? ;-)