I was taking a peek over in Freeper-land to see how the smaller-government-loving-less-intrusion-seeking-conservatives where doing with the domestic spying revolations. Oddly, I found no smaller-government-loving-less-intrusion-seeking-conservatives there, the people in Freeper-land seem to like domestic spying. But what I did find was a story I first thought had to be fake, then I looked around some more, and found it was true.
Christian mega-churches are taking sides in the war on Christmas, and they are opposed to Christmas! (http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/...) They are even dropping an atom bomb on this Sunday Dec. 25th, by locking up their doors and not having any services. Yes, you read that right, no church on Sunday, no church to celibrate the birth of Christ in "Christian" churches. It boggles the mind.
Some of thesee churches are claiming they are shutting their parishioners out to give their staff the holiday off to celebrate at home with their families (
http://www.philly.com/...). Others are saying Dec. 25th is a Pagen Holiday and criticism for shutting people out of a house of God on a Sunday, on Christmas, is a sign of the Devil at work--oh my! (
http://blog.christianitytoday.com/...)
From Jon Weece of Southland Christian Church in Lexington, Kentucky: "I was deeply saddened by the knee-jerk response of the Christian community as a whole to give the benefit of the doubt to the media and not a church or a Christian brother. I'm still troubled that more Christians did not stand up for us. Can you see or begin to see that the devil is stirring the pot on this?"
Oy! Where to start.
I guess the Ten Commandments would be a good place. There is that little known clause--to so called pastors of the mega-churches anyway--about "Keep holy the Sabbath". And for Christians, the Sabbath is on Sunday (http://en.wikipedia.org/...). So, if Christmas falls on Dec. 25 2005 or not, the Bible and the Ten Commandments dictate that there should be church on Sabbath, which nearly all Christians agree is on Sunday. If the pastors of the mega-churches think it is OK to take such liberties with the Ten Commandments, with a Commandment that is so clear and so simple to understand, then doesn't this mean we can all take the same attitude with all the commandments and scriptures? Can we not follow their example and just follow the rules we like and ignore the ones we don't feel like following? These jokers are breaking, and leading their parishinerrs into breaking, one of the the big ten rules that these same Christians want placed in out public places so baddly.
Next there is this idea that posed by Weecee, that it's OK to keep his church closed on Christmas becausee it's really a Pagan holiday: "Christmas began as a pagan holiday to the Roman gods, and if we were to really celebrate the historical birth of Jesus, it would either be in early January or mid-April. I'm only pointing out the historical technicalities not out of intellectual arrogance, but again because of the illogical, ill-informed and even hypocritical arguments that were aimed at me this past week."
That may be so, but it has also been the day Christians have traditionally celibrated the birth of Christ. I posit Weecee's reason is not anti-Pagan, but anti-Catholic. The Catholic Church is the reason we celibrate Christmas on Dec. 25th, and this break with tradition is not an attempt to distance his Christians from Pagans, but from Catholics. (BTW, a reminder, there are still peoplein the US who think Catholics are not to be trusted).
I am sure this is both weird and wrong on some many other levels.
All I have left to say is someone call Bill O'Reilly! Quick!