Quote:
Originally Posted by Igzy
Yes. I don't see how celebrating Christmas blocks or confuses the gospel message at all.
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Well here is where i have an issue.
The church has a Christmas play, which focuses on Jesus birth, so far so good. In that play they have the Christmas celebration as a backdrop and context, OK, no big issue. They emphasize that the "reason for the season" is Christ. Sounds good.
But you can't do that without including some of the Christmas songs (not hymns, not spiritual songs) to help with the setting, maybe even the contrast.
But once you have done all this you have legitimized the entire holiday. How do you now draw the line? How do you tell your kid it is OK to listen to the church's spin on the holiday, but not to the world's? How can a kid make an informed decision on their own. As a result you opened the door for the kid to now watch every Christmas TV show and movie. Honestly, what is the difference, they are all morality plays, some with a Christian moral, some with a human moral. This in turn opens the door to all of those insidious commercials designed to brain wash you into the worship of materialism.
The point is simple, you could have the most pure and inspired Christmas play around, but by doing that you have opened the door for the children in the church to watch every Christmas play. You could have a wonderful "Christmas tree" virtually devoid of idols (though the tree itself is referred to as an idol) but now you have opened the door to every single Christmas tree out there, with all of the idols. That includes Santa, and Reindeer, etc.
You present Jesus as the reason for the season, but now it comes across as just one view, not that different from a man in a red suit who watches you, decided if you are good or bad, and then gives you presents.
Now you have adults who tell you they went to church as a kid, but don't believe. To them, once they realized Santa wasn't real it was akin to deciding Jesus wasn't real. That is the confusion. It is certainly real. It may not be justified, but it is certainly used as an explanation (you can say excuse) for why the gospel message is confused. To be fair to those who have come to this conclusion, they were in Church where they were expecting to hear the gospel and the truth, and they were the ones that were introducing them to Christmas, the whole story of Christmas. Maybe they emphasized Jesus birth, but they sure didn't dissuade them from any other aspect of the holiday.