God’s Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get It by Jim Wallis (Wallis's Views on Homosexuality)

Wallis says he supports gay civil rights and legal protection for same-sex couples. He admonishes liberals for not being vocal enough on issues affecting the family. But he condemns the religious Right’s “mean-spirited crusade” against gays. He states: “To say gay and lesbian people are responsible for the break-down of the heterosexual family is simply wrong. That breakdown is causing a great social crisis that affects us all, but it is hardly the fault of gays and lesbians. It has very little to do with them and honestly more to do with heterosexual dysfunction and, yes, ‘sin.’ Gay civil and human rights must also be honored, respected, and defended for a society to be good and healthy. It is a question of both justice and compassion. To be both pro-family and pro-gay civil rights could open up some common ground that might take us forward.”

Wallis also comments: “We can make sure that long-term gay and lesbian partnerships are afforded legitimate legal protections in a pluralistic society no matter what our views on the nature of marriage are. But the question of gay marriage is important; it is a major issue in the religious community, and it is unlikely to be resolved for many years. Many in churches and the society believe that the long-standing and deeply rooted concept of marriage as being between a man and a woman should not be changed, but same-sex couples should be granted the rights of ‘civil unions.’ That’s still my own view. For others, only gay marriage fulfills the requirements of equal protection under the law. There are at least three different views being debated in the churches. Most Christians still believe that the sacrament and theology of the church on marriage should not be altered, while others are exploring new rites of church ‘blessings’ for gay and lesbian couples committing to lifelong relationships, and still others want full sacramental inclusion.”

Leviticus 11:10, 42 (New King James Version)

But all in the seas or in the rivers that do not have fins and scales, all that move in the water or any living thing which is in the water, they are an abomination to you.
Whatever crawls on its belly, whatever goes on all fours, or whatever has many feet among all creeping things that creep on the earth—these you shall not eat, for they are an abomination.



Leviticus 18:19-30 (New King James Version)


19 ‘Also you shall not approach a woman to uncover her nakedness as long as she is in her customary impurity. 20 Moreover you shall not lie carnally with your neighbor’s wife, to defile yourself with her. 21 And you shall not let any of your descendants pass through the fire to Molech, nor shall you profane the name of your God: I am the LORD. 22 You shall not lie with a male as with a woman. It is an abomination.
30 ‘Therefore you shall keep My ordinance, so that you do not commit any of these abominable customs which were committed before you, and that you do not defile yourselves by them: I am the LORD your God.’”

God’s Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get It by Jim Wallis (Wallis's View on Fundamentalism)

Jim Wallis states that at heart he is a nineteenth-century evangelical born in the wrong century before the movement was “humiliated as a result of the famous Scopes trial in 1925.” Before that time, fundamentalism was often socially allied with the Left to support economic reforms that would benefit its mostly working-class constituency. However, Wallis observes that modern fundamentalism has moved to a theocratic movement, which “is really a betrayal of the biblical faith that regards political power much more suspiciously.” Wallis states that like the Taliban and al Quaeda the religious Right “desire their religious agenda to be enforced through the power of the state.” Wallis characterizes this as “primarily, a religious mistake.

Wallis expresses that with the move to theocracy, modern fundamentalism too easily justifies violence as a tool for implementing its agenda.” He also notes that “fundamentalist arguments for violence quickly become more political than religious.” He notes, “It’s always striking to me that when I listen to the Christian fundamentalist justifications for violence I don’t hear them asking that question, ‘What would Jesus do?’ From a fundamentalist Christian point of view, shouldn’t that be the key question to ask? What is more ‘fundamental’ to Christianity than Jesus? Perhaps the teachings of Jesus most unpopular with Christian fundamentalists (and other Christians too) are his statements about loving our enemies and not just seeing the ‘specks’ in your adversary’s eye, but also the ‘log’ in your own.”

In reflecting on our nation’s reaction to 9/11, Wallis criticized “American Bush theology” consisting of a struggle between “good and evil—we are good, they are evil.” Wallis stated, “we are not the good. That’s bad theology. Jesus teaches us to see the beam in our own eye, and not just the mote in our adversary’s eye. George Bush is a Methodist, but he sees no beams in the American eye.” Wallis contends, “We must act so that the world will not be remade in the image of the terrorists; and we deny the terrorists their victory when we refuse to be changed into people of God has not called us to be.”

Wallis also gives examples to support his conclusion that George Bush has made the same mistake “over and over again of confusing nation, church, and God. The resulting theology is more an American civil religion than Christian faith.” For example, at Ellis Island, making a speech to mark the first anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, Bush stated, “This ideal of America is the hope of all mankind...That hope still lights our way. And the light shines in the darkness. And the darkness has not overcome it.” Wallis points out that the last two sentences are derived from the Gospel of John in the New Testament. However, in the Bible, the light is the Word of God and the light of Christ. By contrast, Bush’s reference of light is to America and its values.

Wallis suggests that this “bad theology” is being used to justify empire building and that the United States is beginning to resemble the Roman Empire. Of course, such an analogy is particularly poignant coming from a Christian like Wallis. The Roman Empire persecuted Jews in Jesus’ time, and also persecuted Christians after Jesus was crucified. Wallis repeatedly uses the term “Pax Americana”—a play off the term “Pax Romana.” As a more effective and theologically more enlightened approach, Wallis suggests following the prophet Micah, who emphasized that common security was the most effective means of self-defense.

Micah 4:3-4 (New Living Translation)
The Lord will mediate between peoples and will settle disputes between strong nations far away. They will hammer their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will no longer fight against nation, nor train for war anymore. Everyone will live in peace and prosperity, enjoying their own grapevines and fig trees, for there will be nothing to fear. The Lord of Heaven’s Armies has made this promise!

John 1:1-5 (New American Standard Bible)

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
He was in the beginning with God.
All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.
In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men.
The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

God’s Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get It by Jim Wallis (Religious Leaders and Political Power)

There is a fascinating passage of God’s Politics where Wallis compares “the two major faith-inspired movements of the last fifty years that have tried to influence national politics: the black-church-led civil rights movement of the 1950s and the 1960s and the religious Right movement of the 1980s and 1990s, exemplified by Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority and Pat Robertson’s Christian Coalition.”

Wallis’s comparison is based on part of his reading of Blinded by Might by Cal Thomas and Ed Dobson, who were former leaders of the religious Right. Wallis writes in God’s Politics that the religious Right “bristled with pride” when the media publicly gave them substantial credit for Ronald Reagan’s victory in 1980. Shortly thereafter, Falwell entered a packed auditorium with an ecstatic crowd on their feet as “Hail to the Chief” was played. Wallis states, “All of a sudden, conservative evangelicals who felt ignored and ridiculed for so long in the cultural backwaters of American life, almost since the infamous Scopes trial in the 1920s, were now in the national spotlight and getting their pictures taken in the Oval Office with the president.” Falwell and Reagan spoke regularly, and when Reagan was about to nominate Sandra Day O’Connor to the Supreme Court, Reagan asked Falwell to “trust my judgment.” Wallis states, “Perhaps anxious to be a player, a winner, an insider, Falwell went along, and a series of compromises began. Direct mail strategy and fund-raising came to dominate the religious Right’s political agenda over previous moral concerns. Political success defined as keeping political power, eventually became more important that the issues that initiated the formation of the religious Right in the first place. It’s an old story.” Thomas and Dobson lament in their book that little of their Christian agenda has actually been accomplished, and the religious Right have failed in their mission.

Wallis also noted that liberal religious leaders have also been “mesmerized by political power.” He observes that many were “reduced to defending Clinton’s indefensible moral behavior in a sexual and political scandal (or at least maintaining an awkward silence). Access clearly has its price.”

In contrast to those religious leaders who seek access and proximity to political power, Wallis observes that the civil rights movement succeeded because it was morally based and politically independent. The movement’s strength and base was not primarily inside politics, but rather at the grassroots. This helped its efficacy; it changed the way the American people thought about race and sought to affect the values of the culture. Wallis concludes, “The religious Right went wrong by forgetting its religious and moral roots and going for political power; the civil rights movement was proven right in operating out of its spiritual strength and letting its political influence flow from its moral influence. Other great social causes led by religious communities—abolition of slavery, child labor reform, women’s suffrage, and so on—all followed the same strategy.”

John 12:24-26 (The Message)

"Listen carefully: Unless a grain of wheat is buried in the ground, dead to the world, it is never any more than a grain of wheat. But if it is buried, it sprouts and reproduces itself many times over. In the same way, anyone who holds on to life just as it is destroys that life. But if you let it go, reckless in your love, you'll have it forever, real and eternal.
"If any of you wants to serve me, then follow me. Then you'll be where I am, ready to serve at a moment's notice. The Father will honor and reward anyone who serves me.

God’s Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get It by Jim Wallis (Politicians' Use of Religious Issues)

Wallis is critical of Democrats’ hesitancy to speak in religious terms. He rejects Howard Dean’s admonition to stay away from the issues of “guns, God, and gays” and to focus instead on jobs, health care and foreign policy. By contrast, Wallis approved of John Kerry’s references to Scripture and his own faith during the 2004 presidential election. Wallis suggests that those references were simply too few and too late in the campaign to have been politically successful.

Wallis notes that in declining generally to discuss overtly religious topics, Democrats have essentially been playing to Republican hands and letting the GOP define the terms of the debate. He states, “The ‘religious issues’ in an election get reduced to the Ten Commandments in public courthouses, gay-marriage amendments, prayer in schools, and, of course, abortion.” Wallis is adamant that there are a much wider array of political issues with religious significance including combating terrorism, remedying poverty, preserving the environment, and eradicating racism from our society.

I myself am very sensitive to his concern that the “religious issues” have been erroneous circumscribed to abortion and gay rights. However, many progressive Christians like myself have been repulsed in recent years by the exploitation of faith to achieve fleeting political power. I would not want the Democrats (or any other political party) to follow the tragic and misguided approach of the Republicans in that vein. I think there is a fine--though perhaps somewhat elusive--line between honestly referring to one’s faith as a guide to one’s political decisions, and exploiting the faith of voters to gain their political support. The former is transparent and natural. The latter is horrifying and completely lacking in integrity. I don’t understand God to be vengeful, but I certainly believe he is omnipotent. Consequently, I would not want to test my understanding that he not vengeful by consciously exploiting his Word for earthly gain!

Nonetheless, Wallis raises an important point that Christ followers should broaden our sense of “religious issues” in the political sphere. Both abortion and homosexuality are mentioned in Scripture in only fleeting ways (if at all). By comparison, poverty and justice are pervasive themes. However, I’m not convinced it is the responsibility of politicians to remind us of that. It seems to me that is more the responsibility of each Christ follow as he/she studies God’s Word, and also the responsibility of our church leaders to guide us in our understanding of the teachings of Scripture.

Matthew 8:3-4 (The Message)

Jesus reached out and touched him, saying, "I want to. Be clean." Then and there, all signs of the leprosy were gone. Jesus said, "Don't talk about this all over town. Just quietly present your healed body to the priest, along with the appropriate expressions of thanks to God. Your cleansed and grateful life, not your words, will bear witness to what I have done."

God’s Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get It by Jim Wallis (Prophetic Voice of Religion)

Jim Wallis is an Evangelical pastor and the founder of Sojourners. He has written several books, and this particular one was written in 2005. At the time, much of the country was still dissecting the 2004 presidential election, and the role of conservative Christians in re-electing George W. Bush in a very tight race. Wallis notes that after the election, the media focused on the “moral values voter.” A poll revealed that 80% of voters, who said “moral values” were the most important issue influencing their vote, had voted for Bush. Wallis points out that such polls are flawed. Abortion and gay marriage are typically viewed as being key to “moral values” politics, but Wallis notes that is a simplistic and incorrect way to look at the issue. Poverty and war are also “moral values” issues, but that point is overlooked by the media and pollsters.

In God’s Politics, Wallis is critical of religious leaders like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson who claimed that God was on the side of George W. Bush and Christians had a duty to re-elect him in the 2004 election. He decries single issue voting, and raises the importance of analyzing political candidates based on issues with biblical roots like caring for the poor, protecting the environment, respecting human rights, avoiding wars and truth telling.

Wallis laments the “enormous public misrepresentation of Christianity” in the media which has led to people around the world thinking that the Christian faith “stands for political commitments that are almost the opposite of its true meaning.” He asks, “How did the faith of Jesus come to be known as pro-rich, pro-war, and only pro-American?” He notes that the religious Right tends to focus only on sexual and cultural issues while ignoring the “weightier matters of justice.” Wallis states, “Most people just don’t get it, because they know that Jesus was on the side of the poor and the cause of peace. The politics of Jesus is a problem for the religious Right.” He observes, “The religious Right’s grip on public debates about values has been driven in part by a media that continues to give airtime to the loudest religious voices, rather than the most representative, leaving millions of Christians and other people of faith without a say in the values debate.”

However, Wallis is also critical of leaders on the left who want to negate or diminish the important role of spiritual values in shaping social policy. He warns that “[t]he spiritual component in all this is absolutely crucial. An understanding of how sacred the blessing of life is must undergird all our efforts for justice and for peace....each of those forgotten souls [the poor and victims of war] was made in the image of God and carries that sacred value.”

Wallis advocates a “genuinely ‘prophetic’ spirituality to the urgent need for social justice.” He clarifies that “[p]rophecy is not future telling, but articulating moral truth,” and the “prophets diagnose the present and point the way to a just solution.” Wallis states: “In politics, the best interest of the country is served when the prophetic voice of religion is heard—challenging both Right and Left from consistent moral ground. The evangelical Christians of the nineteenth century combined revivalism with social reform and helped lead movements for abolition and woman’s suffrage—not to mention the faith-based movement that directly preceded the rise of the religious Right, namely the American civil rights movement led by the black churches. The truth is that most of the important movements for social change in America have been fueled by religion—progressive religion. The stark moral challenges of our time have once again begun to awaken this prophetic tradition.”

Wallis explains the power of prophetic religion with a specific example from our country’s recent past. After the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was enacted, Dr. King met with President Johnson to tell him that the next critical step was passage of a voting rights act. Johnson was sympathetic, but explained he had used all of his political capital to get the civil rights law passed and a voting rights act just wasn’t a political possibility. Instead of giving up, Dr. King and the SCLC began organizing a protest on the Edmond Pettus Bridge in Alabama. On Bloody Sunday, civil rights protestors were beaten savagely by Sheriff Jim Clark and a large group of white police officers. In response, two weeks later, hundreds of clergy from various Christian and non-Christian denominations across the country came to Alabama to take part in the march from Selma to Montgomery. The civil rights struggle had become a religious one for many of the participants, and the whole nation was watching. Five months afterwards, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was enacted by Congress. King and his allies had shifted the debate and public opinion to enable President Johnson to boldly go to a joint session of Congress to call for a voting rights act. Wallis gives other examples of such prophetic religion such as Desmond Tutu, Alan Bosak and Frank Chikane of South Africa, Oscar Romero in El Salvador, and church leaders in the Philippines during the reign of Ferdinand Marcos and in Poland during Communist rule. He also notes the success of Christian organizations like World Vision, Bread for the World and Habitat for Humanity, and the faith-inspired movement of Jubilee 2000.

Wallis asks, “With the Republicans offering war overseas and corporate dominance at home, and the Democrats failing to offer any real alternatives, who will raise a prophetic voice for social and economic justice and for peace?” Wallis answers the question by stating there has never been a clearer need for leadership by churches and the religious community. However, Wallis warns that to be effective, prophetic voices need to not just protest but to offer alternatives. He states: “Many people will engage in protest, but even more are likely to follow an alternative that offers a better way. To offer an alternative is always more challenging than just protest; it requires more work, creativity, and risk. Like many others, I came of age during the 1960s, when the struggle for justice was embodied in the archetype of protest. We learned our lessons about politics in the streets, and the habit of protest is still deep within us. But protest can become static and formulaic. The aim of effective and transformative protest should be to illumine a society to its need for change. In other words, protest must be instructive to succeed, more than destructive. It should, at its best, point the way to an alternative, rather than just register the anger of its demonstrators. Protest must not become just a ritual of resistance, offering a laundry list of grievances.”

Observing a recent time when prophetic religion was absent, Wallis lamented the lack of a “serious national debate before” invading Iraq. He blamed the lack of debate on the Bush administration, which “seemed to equate dissent and even debate with a lack of patriotism.” Wallis quotes from a sermon given by the Reverend Peter Gomes at about that time where he stated, “This is a frightening time, and if one cannot speak out of Christian conscience and conviction now, come what may, then we are forever consigned to moral silence...What is and has always been lovely about our country is our right and our duty to criticize those in power, to dissent from their policies if we think them wrong, and to hold our alternative vision to be as fully valid as theirs.”

Matthew 10:27 (New Living Translation)

27 What I tell you now in the darkness, shout abroad when daybreak comes. What I whisper in your ear, shout from the housetops for all to hear!

Amos 5:24 (New International Version - UK)

24 But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!

Matthew 23:23 (New International Version - UK)

23 Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices— mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law— justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former.

Advent Conspiracy Campaign

In contrast to the “Stand for Christmas” campaign, I really appreciate the “Advent Conspiracy” campaign. The four pillars of the latter campaign are to (1) worship fully, (2) spend less, (3) give more, and (4) love all. Those are some principles I can really support. A link to the “Advent Conspiracy” campaign’s website is provided below.

http://www.adventconspiracy.org/

In recent years, particularly as we became parents and we grew in appreciation of the voluntary simplicity movement, my husband and I have done our best in our own little part of the world to reclaim Christmas as a meaningful religious celebration. We have drastically cut the amount we spend on gifts. We have spoken with our relatives and have agreed to not exchange presents among the adults. Instead, we each use funds we might have otherwise spent on gifts to help make the holidays brighter for others. (I deliberately use the term “holidays” in this context because the beneficiaries of our efforts are not necessarily Christ followers who would celebrate Christmas or might celebrate it only as a secular holiday.)

For many years when we still lived in Texas, our extended family pooled our funds to buy gifts for abused children in foster care. (The following link to the Child Advocates website provides information on the Santa’s Wish List program, which is amazing: http://www.childadvocates.org/) Each year, my husband and I took our own daughters shopping with us to help us decide how to use our budgeted funds to get as much on each of our assigned children’s wish list as possible. Even though our daughters were initially toddlers when we began participating in the Santa’s Wish List program, it was a great way to involve our children in the process, to help them understand that not everyone is as fortunate as we are, and to be grateful for our many blessings.

My husband and I also get our kids involved in deciding how to spend certain funds we’ve designated for the Christian anti-poverty charity, World Vision, which has a terrific Christmas catalogue: http://donate.worldvision.org/OA_HTML/xxwv2ibeCCtpSctDspRte.jsp?section=10389
Our daughters have enthusiastically selected mosquito nets, ducks, fishing gear, soccer balls, and other items to gift children in developing nations.

During advent (i.e., the season before Christmas), my husband and I try to emphasize within our own family the religious meaning of Christmas. I’m sure the grandparents think we’re scourges, but we’ve flat out told our daughters that there is no magical man named “Santa Claus” who flies around giving out toys on Christmas Eve. We explain there was once a nice man named St. Nicholas who gave presents to kids whose mommies and daddies did not have a lot of money. Now people dress up as Santa Claus to remember what a good man St. Nicholas was. We are honest with our kids about the Santa Claus myth for a variety of reasons, but a key reason is we want them to know the religious truth about Christmas and not get distracted by the secularization of the holiday.

Our family typically goes to church on Christmas Eve. On Christmas day, we stay home and enjoy each other’s company. In doing so, we deliberately try to down play the role of gifts. We have some for the kids, but we try to emphasize the spiritual reason for the holiday and spending time together as a family. We devote a lot of the day cooking yummy foods and playing games together. But one of the highlights of the day for us is making a homemade birthday cake for Jesus. We decorate the birthday cake with whatever the kids want, e.g., sprinkles, icing, candles, etc. One year they asked how old Jesus was so they would know how many candles to put on the cake. We explained the situation and then we mutually agreed to just put a dozen or so candles on the cake to avoid triggering the smoke detectors. At dinner time, when it is time to bring out the cake, we turn off the lights and illuminate the candles to sing “Happy Birthday” to Jesus. Fortunately, Jesus is pretty generous and he lets us eat all of his birthday cake.

Luke 1:46-55

The Magnificat: Mary’s Song of Praise

Mary responded,
“Oh, how my soul praises the Lord. How my spirit rejoices in God my Savior! For he took notice of his lowly servant girl, and from now on all generations will call me blessed. For the Mighty One is holy, and he has done great things for me. He shows mercy from generation to generation to all who fear him. His mighty arm has done tremendous things! He has scattered the proud and haughty ones. He has brought down princes from their thrones and exalted the humble. He has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away with empty hands. He has helped his servant Israel and remembered to be merciful. For he made this promise to our ancestors, to Abraham and his children forever.”

Focus on the Family’s “Stand for Christmas” Campaign

On its website, Focus on the Family has recently indicated it is about to launch its annual “Stand for Christmas” campaign. The conservative Christian group has been upset that some companies leave the word “Christmas” out of their advertising or fail to mention “Christmas” by name as it greets customers. Below you will find a link to Focus on the Family’s announcement that the 2009 “Stand for Christmas” campaign will get underway soon.

http://www.citizenlink.org/content/A000011444.cfm

Oddly enough, the past website posts on the campaign no longer worked when I was researching and drafting this blog post. As a result, I’ve instead provided a third party media description of the campaign from the Rocky Mountain News:

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/nov/16/focus-family-puts-retailers-naughty-and-nice-list-/

In the past, “Stand for Christmas” has published lists of retailers that are characterized as either “Christmas-friendly,” “Christmas-negligent,” or “Christmas-offensive” based on their use of the word “Christmas” in advertising and in stores. When I first heard of this campaign last year, I was frankly horrified. I became aware of it when listening to a local Christian radio station, and I was even more horrified by the enthusiastic response of listeners calling in to vow a boycott of stores that did not receive a “Christmas-friendly” label.

I too have been disgusted by what Focus on the Family refers to as the “secularization of Christmas.” However, to me, that secularization happens when we throw the word “Christmas” around too loosely, and it becomes more associated with an accumulation of material goods than with the birth of our Lord. I don’t see a connection between the birth of Jesus in a humble manger, and tying a big bow around a fancy car as an extravagant gift for your spouse. I think it blasphemes God to use the miracle of his son’s birth to encourage people to line up in a frenzy on Thanksgiving to await a turn to participate in a (sometimes deadly) stampede in a big box store. Even when no human being loses his or her life, where are the “family values” in such an experience?

While Focus on the Family is offended when sales clerks wish shoppers “Happy Holidays,” it offends me when retailers use the term “Christmas” in any way to justify their end of year marketing. To be clear, I certainly don’t begrudge the retail sector their end of year sales, which are critical to their ability to survive a competitive sector of the economy. But I just don’t appreciate them using Jesus in a sacrilegious way. I’d much prefer “holiday” advertising to “Christmas” advertising.

Though we are all Christians, the folks at Focus on the Family and I disagree on this issue; we seem to have a fundamentally different perspective on the significance of Christmas in American society. As I understand, the “Stand for Christmas” campaign is based in large part on the notion that the United States is a Christian nation and the roots of our holiday marketing are the religious holiday of Christmas. Perhaps I’m mistaken, but my understanding is that Focus on the Family wants to reemphasize those roots and stress the notion that we are a Christian nation (whatever that means). I disagree with that approach for several reasons.

First, I am pro-pluralism and anti-theocracy. I love Jesus, but think it is antithetical to Christianity that anyone would be forced to share my enthusiasm. It is a basic premise of Christian theology that God does not force himself on us, and instead we are each given free will to decide whether or not to follow him. Moreover, I am confident that if anyone studies Christianity, they too would embrace it. But I’m not in any way threatened by people who choose not to. Such a choice saddens me for a variety of reasons, but it’s not in any way threatening.

Second, Christmas is a sacred, beautiful holiday, and it is very important to me that it be preserved as such. It is not beneficial to anyone to have non-believers forced to wish store patrons “Merry Christmas” out of a type of political correctness. Moreover, it is frankly disgusting to me that Jesus’ birthday would be tossed around as an excuse to entice more customers into stores or to rack up debt on one’s credit card. That is not what Christmas means to me.

Matthew 21:12-13

Then Jesus went into the temple of God and drove out all those who bought and sold in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. And He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a ‘den of thieves.’”