As a believer and follower of Christ, I am embarrassed that these battles go on. In previous years, religious groups have organized boycotts of business and retail stores that say "Happy Holidays," sell "Holiday Trees," or have "Holiday Sales" instead of using the word Christmas. This year, the battle has heated up against atheist groups in metropolitan areas buying billboard space with a picture of the nativity scene asking the public if they really believe this happened. Local church groups have organized boycotts of the companies that sold this ad space. (It should be noted that the companies selling the ad space say they would be glad to sell ad space to Christian groups to advertise their message too). Furthermore, there are posts going around Facebook asking people if they really believe in saying "Merry Christmas" instead of the politically correct "Happy Holidays," then copy and paste this as your Facebook status.
I really don't know where to begin in addressing this, but I will start with the political correctness issue.
First, saying "Happy Holidays" doesn't necessarily make one politically correct or anti-Jesus. I will say both "Happy Holidays" or "Merry Christmas." These are the holidays. Within just over a month, you have Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's. These are three nationally recognized holidays. There is nothing wrong with wishing someone well during these days.
Second, we as Christians need to be confronted with a harsh reality. We say "Merry Christmas" and want others to say "Merry Christmas," but when going by actions instead of words, are we really celebrating the birth of Christ? Yes, we (I am including myself here) like to think that we are, but actions speak louder than words and what our actions really say, if we are not careful, is that we are taking the name of Christ and using it to feed our materialism. We are so concerned about what we will get and what to get others that we will shop ourselves stupid and spend money we don't have. We don't need most of the stuff we get for Christmas and we know we don't need it, but we will use the name of Jesus as an excuse for feeding our materialistic desires. No wonder there are atheist groups organizing themselves to question what is recorded in the scriptures about Christ's birth. I believe what the scriptures say. But do my actions about Christmas speak to the world that I believe the scriptures? Or do my actions say that I am all about stuff, that I am attached to stuff, and that I want more stuff. Not that giving and receiving gifts is wrong as long as we keep in perspective that we are about the Hope that arrived in this world in Bethlehem 2,000 years ago. So, what I am saying in so many words, is that we are showing a lot of hypocrisy. Instead of fighting the world over using politically correct phrases, let's examine ourselves first.
Third, Jesus isn't politically correct and never has been in any culture. We as Christians just need to deal with that. He's been controversial ever since he arrived in this world (remember, he ticked-off King Herod). Instead of fighting the political correctness in the larger culture, we need to be on guard against religious correctness in our Christian subculture. People in church circles will use religious litmus tests to determine someone's Christianity. These litmus tests aren't based upon things found in scripture, but are things considered taboo in religious subculture. Alcohol is an example of this. The scriptures don't actually prohibit someone from taking a drink, just for getting drunk or allowing alcohol (or anything else for that matter) standing between an individual and God). In our culture, we need to consider the negative connotation of alcohol and whether or not we would be tempting someone who struggles with alcohol addiction if we were to take a drink. For this reason, I don't take a drink. But I won't hold it against someone or consider him or her less Christian if he or she decides to take a drink. Same goes with saying "Happy Holidays" or "Seasons Greetings" instead of "Merry Christmas." I sense from some in the Christian subculture that if you don't say "Merry Christmas" then you aren't the spiritual and Godly giant that they think they are. This is the same smugness and air of superiority that Jesus confronted in the religious people of his day. I use the term religion here because when we get to that point, it is no longer about faith, but just about keeping rules.
To sum this all up, if we as followers of Christ would be more concerned about living our faith in our culture instead of waging war against our culture at Christmas time and every other time of the year, maybe the culture would be different. By fighting political correctness, we are just digging ourselves deeper into a hole.
