I posted the above to Facebook earlier this week (click to enlarge). It elicited a lot of very friendly responses and there was peace and goodwill towards man all around. This, of course, is to be expected, because when someone posts something you disagree with, unless you're just in a particularly foul mood or tend to go trolling for trouble (which I am about to do), you move on and let them have their opinions while you have yours.
HOWEVER>...
While I was getting in the Christmas mood this weekend, I realized a lot of other people were kind of doing the opposite, at least in the way the tone of their posts came across.
Their idea of celebrating Christmas is apparently to tell anyone who is not Christian that they don't matter, this is OUR holiday, and go take their heathen selves on a long walk off a short pier. Because, you know, as Christians this must be a sure-fire way to win non-Christians over: rally around a false cause, mock any one who disagrees with them, and generally take the goodwill-toward-men-o-meter down a few notches every time they open their mouths.
Here, collected in the space of about a day, some 5 weeks before the traditional date of Christ's birth that didn't happen in December and in a holy season that goes back millennia before his non-birth-date, are some sample posts:
Note these are all just variations on a theme, but it is fun to watch the game of telephone played out in reposting.
I'm still on the lookout for the first person to post the obligatory "Xmas is crossing Christ out of Christmas!! Share or go to hell!" ... A quick Google search seemed, at first hit, to indicate perhaps that movement is played out and enough people finally figured out how stupid this made them look:
But, alas, a front page listing on Facebook searching "xmas and Christ" yielded splinter groups of said stupidity:
Second only to "Crossing Christ out of Christmas" in your group title is apparently the requirement that you must possess an appalling lack of grammar.
Please note: I am completely aware that I am engaging in similar un-Christian behavior here. Let's just skip the "yeah, so are you" fallacy and I'll own up to my shortcomings.
Note the rebel group at the bottom, poor saps. At least there's 36 of them and only 9 of the Hell Cat group...
Just to go on record, I plan to have a very merry Christmas and a whole lot of Happy Holidays to boot and I am no less of a Christian if I don't tell those people next door with the menorah that they should shove it were the sun don't shine because it's MY holiday, pretty much from now until New Year's.
You know, for it being the last bastion of holidays that celebrate Christ, at least we picked a nice long one, huh?
Perhaps I should suggest Catholicism to those Protestants feeling slighted by the lack of holy days they're getting screwed out of. At last count, just the days of obligation alone can keep you pretty busy.
C'mon.
If you follow Christ, the miracle of God among us has nothing to do with one month or the other, one holy day or another, one phrase of greeting or another.
It does, however, have everything to do with how we treat our fellow man, how we, as much as possible, as much as it up to us, keep peace with all men (Romans 12). . . (oh, and love them (gasp) . . . that seemed pretty important to Jesus, since He seemed to mention it just a few more times than His commands on how to celebrate his birthday.) Paul, of course, took the opportunity at one point to use the altar of the Unknown God to call attention to his Christ but didn't exactly threaten to knock it down or jump all over it, ala Daffy Duck, proclaiming MINE, MINE, MINE! when most of the people did not immediately believe.
I'll keep collecting these "MINE MINE MINE" moments from Facebook, if only to remind myself why Bara Dada (not Ghandi, by the way, although I'd bet he'd second the motion) so beautifully remarked, "Your Jesus is ideal and wonderful. But you Christians -- you are not like Him."
kyrie eleison, indeed.
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