From this video, produced by James Dobson's CitizenLink divison, you'd think Christmas was about buying buying buying. The folks over at Focus on the Family seem to take great pleasure in being outraged that "Christmas" is being mentioned less and less in retailers' greetings, catalogs and ads. In fact, we Christians are supposed to find these so-called "efforts to secularize Christmas offensive."
Watch the video now.
Me? I tend to be of the thought that Christmas is about the birth of Christ, about God's gift to humanity, about worshipping a God who has literally walked among us. While we certainly celebrate Christmas in our family by doing traditional things like exchanging gifts, baking cookies and decorating a tree, I have never for a moment tried to define this holiday by what I hear and see at the mall or on the catalogs I get. But apparently Stuart Shepherd who does these "StopLight" videos (remember: he was the same guy who did the "Would it be wrong to pray for rain at the Democratic National Convention?") defines Christmas differently than I do.
Apparently getting outraged that retailers (whose customer base goes beyond just Christians, believe it or not) use a generic holiday greeting rather than "Christmas" is enough reason to be offended and boycott businesses. (yes, there's an actual list .) Personally I get more riled up about fair trade, labor practices and treatment of employees and factory workers in developing countries and so on. But those wise people over at Focus on the Family are obviously the ones who we need to turn to for our "moral compass" and "values." Because if you value celebrating the birth of Christ, what better way than to make sure that Target is saying "Christmas" and not "Holiday"?
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4 comments:
To tell you the truth...I've been trying to ignore anything Focus on the Family related. I just get frustrated and irritated. It makes me sad.
the folks at www.adventconspiracy.org (and Chris Seay on CNN on Christmas Day) said they'd prefer the stores not say Merry Christmas. They think FOTF is rediculous for making such a big deal of the non-deal. They're like, hey, how about we not put Jesus' birthday is the context of consumerism and what better center of how consumerism has eaten our country alive than Best Buy or Target nerving up their mouths to say Merry Christmas. *That* is not Christmas.
But then again, Dobson is rarely on base. He tends to live on the tangent:)
Thanks for the comments! What drives my insane is that I know so many people who pretty much take anything from FOTF as God's direct word, so while I'd like to just dismiss what they say, I feel I have to refute it--crazy as their stances may be at times!
Please--to everyone reading this blog. Please think twice about falling in line with any and everything that's put out by Dobson and company. Both "mel" and "beckley" are wonderful Christians and I'm glad they see through some of these inane statements by the FOTF folks. It would be one thing if the guy just made a so-called funny video, but they're actually asking you to boycott and write letters. People are starving in the world, there is an active slave trade with more people in bondage than ever in the history of the world, there is corruption and poverty everywhere and FOTF decides THIS is what we need to get all upset about?
We're better than that.
Amen. You should blog more often :-)
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