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Christmas Bashing Starts Early
Posted by Bobby Eberle
November 29, 2006 at 7:56 am
The Thanksgiving holiday is barely in our rear-view mirror, and already the anti-Christmas PC police are working to turn Christmas from a Christian holiday to simply another reason to have a few days off from work. In stores and corporate America, we have seen the changes: Christmas parties have become “holiday parties,” and images of Jesus are replaced with cardboard cut-outs of snowmen. Now, even with a festival that is specifically about Christmas, officials in Chicago are warning about offending non-Christians.
As is being reported by FOX News in an Associated Press news story, city officials in Chicago have asked organizers of a downtown Christmas festival to reconsider using a certain movie studio as an event sponsor. The reason, you ask? It turns out that officials are upset that the movie studio, New Line Cinema, might offend non-Christians with ads for its movie “The Nativity Story.”
Now, let’s take a step back for just a minute. As mentioned earlier, we have already seen dramatic changes in retail and corporate America regarding their “definition” of Christmas. Santa is larger than life, but Jesus is nowhere to be found. The company Christmas party is now the “holiday” party, even though there is a Christmas tree in the lobby.
We have come to expect that a “holiday” party will contain references to multiple religions or no religions at all. However, this recent action in Chicago goes a step further — a very troubling step. In this case, we are not talking about a “holiday” celebration but, rather, a bonafide Christmas festival. More specifically, the event is the German Christkindlmarket. How can you possibly take Christ out of a Christmas festival? Isn’t the nativity scene an integral part of the Christmas story?
As the news story points out:
“The last time I checked, the first six letters of Christmas still spell out Christ,” said Paul Braoudakis, spokesman for the Barrington, Ill.-based Willow Creek Association, a group of more than 11,000 churches of various denominations. “It’s tantamount to celebrating Lincoln’s birthday without talking about Abraham Lincoln.”
City officials noted that they did not order the festival organizers not to use the New Line Cinema as a sponsor, but merely suggested that they don’t.
“Our guidance was that this very prominently placed advertisement would not only be insensitive to the many people of different faiths who come to enjoy the market for its food and unique gifts, but also it would be contrary to acceptable advertising standards suggested to the many festivals holding events on Daley Plaza,” Jim Law, executive director of the office, said in a statement.
We must draw the line regarding the on-going efforts to redefine Christmas. No matter what the religious beliefs of a person may be, if that person attends a Christmas festival, shouldn’t the person be expected to see depictions of what the holiday is all about? People have a choice whether to go to a Christmas festival or not, and to guard against people being “offended” because they go to a Christmas festival and actually see a reenactment of Christ’s birth is simply crazy.
If we do not stand up against the PC crowd who want to take the Christian religion out of Christian holidays, then Easter will come to be just a rabbit and Christmas will be a man in a red suit.
Posted by Bobby Eberle
November 29, 2006 at 7:56 am
The Thanksgiving holiday is barely in our rear-view mirror, and already the anti-Christmas PC police are working to turn Christmas from a Christian holiday to simply another reason to have a few days off from work. In stores and corporate America, we have seen the changes: Christmas parties have become “holiday parties,” and images of Jesus are replaced with cardboard cut-outs of snowmen. Now, even with a festival that is specifically about Christmas, officials in Chicago are warning about offending non-Christians.
As is being reported by FOX News in an Associated Press news story, city officials in Chicago have asked organizers of a downtown Christmas festival to reconsider using a certain movie studio as an event sponsor. The reason, you ask? It turns out that officials are upset that the movie studio, New Line Cinema, might offend non-Christians with ads for its movie “The Nativity Story.”
Now, let’s take a step back for just a minute. As mentioned earlier, we have already seen dramatic changes in retail and corporate America regarding their “definition” of Christmas. Santa is larger than life, but Jesus is nowhere to be found. The company Christmas party is now the “holiday” party, even though there is a Christmas tree in the lobby.
We have come to expect that a “holiday” party will contain references to multiple religions or no religions at all. However, this recent action in Chicago goes a step further — a very troubling step. In this case, we are not talking about a “holiday” celebration but, rather, a bonafide Christmas festival. More specifically, the event is the German Christkindlmarket. How can you possibly take Christ out of a Christmas festival? Isn’t the nativity scene an integral part of the Christmas story?
As the news story points out:
“The last time I checked, the first six letters of Christmas still spell out Christ,” said Paul Braoudakis, spokesman for the Barrington, Ill.-based Willow Creek Association, a group of more than 11,000 churches of various denominations. “It’s tantamount to celebrating Lincoln’s birthday without talking about Abraham Lincoln.”
City officials noted that they did not order the festival organizers not to use the New Line Cinema as a sponsor, but merely suggested that they don’t.
“Our guidance was that this very prominently placed advertisement would not only be insensitive to the many people of different faiths who come to enjoy the market for its food and unique gifts, but also it would be contrary to acceptable advertising standards suggested to the many festivals holding events on Daley Plaza,” Jim Law, executive director of the office, said in a statement.
We must draw the line regarding the on-going efforts to redefine Christmas. No matter what the religious beliefs of a person may be, if that person attends a Christmas festival, shouldn’t the person be expected to see depictions of what the holiday is all about? People have a choice whether to go to a Christmas festival or not, and to guard against people being “offended” because they go to a Christmas festival and actually see a reenactment of Christ’s birth is simply crazy.
If we do not stand up against the PC crowd who want to take the Christian religion out of Christian holidays, then Easter will come to be just a rabbit and Christmas will be a man in a red suit.
