Why I don't care if "Christmas" appears at Wal-Mart

A friend and soon-to-be blogger and I have been trading arguments about the "Christmas" controversy, basically whether Christians should get in a twist about whether retail ads and public displays at this time of year should explicitly mention "the real reason for the season." Of course, since "Christmas" is over for most, this may seem too late. But I'll remind you Catholics out there that Christmas has just begun, and goes until the feast of the Lord's baptism, Jan. 9, this year.

You may want to read his side first; it's posted as a comment to this entry. Just click on the "comment" link below:

1. It's said that 95% of Americans celebrate "Christmas"--I put the quotes deliberately. What are they really celebrating. I hate to say it, but I think a healthy chunk are celebrating the secular winter holiday that coincides with the Christian feast of the birth of the Lord. Think of all the pop culture Christmas icons: the movies (Miracle on 34th St., Wonderful Life, The Bells of St. Mary's), none of which have overtly Christian-Christmas references--even the one about the priest and the nun!; the TV shows are the same (Rudolph, Santa Claus Is Coming to Town, the Grinch, Charlie Brown); the decorations (trees, lights, stars)--none of them explicitly religious, all of them have non-Christian winter festival roots. And I'm not convinced that a plastic light-up nativity is really a "religious" symbol, but I could be persuaded.

I guess what I'm saying is that there are two simultaneous "holiday" celebrations: the secular (T-giving to New Years) and the religious (Christmas, only one day, or for us liturgical types, Christmas extending to Epiphany or so).


2. The ACLU: I doubt there have been any lawsuits regarding retailers use of "Christmas" in advertising; retailers can do what they want, and what they want is the most sales, and I'd be willing to bet there is market research that indicates "holiday" sells better than "Christmas" (or Hanukah or Kwaanza or Diwali for that matter). No retailer is going to get "sued" for using "Christmas"; they might just lose business. There can be no legal "war on Christmas" in the marketplace.

As for public buildings, I imagine the ACLU has opposed explicitly religious displays, and I'd say rightly so, unless the public buildings in the south suburbs of Chicago, for example--with large Hindu and Muslim populations--are also going to use public or private money to decorate those buildings for Diwali (Hindu) and Eid al-Fit'r, al-Adha (coming up), and the Prophet's birthday (Muslim). It may be majority rule, but it is also minority rights, and I think a public display of the "majority's" religious symbols is problematic unless it is totally, and I mean totally, balanced by anyone else's--and that mean Wicca, like it or not. That's why I go with none.

For instance, the ubiquitous "God bless America" on public buildings: How would most evangelical Christians feel if it said "Allah bless America," or even better, "Vishnu bless America"? "God" may be common English for the deity, but I'd argue it's basically Jewish and Christian. And I bet there'd be hell to pay from religious right if "Allah bless America" appeared in Patterson, NJ, or the suburbs of Detroit, where there are majority Muslim populations.

3. I think the real problem is that Christians have spent more time trying to defend privileged status for our holidays, texts (10 Commandments), etc., than trying to truly distinguish our "holy day" from the secular "holiday." After all, the pagan celebrations, which I think our secular one descends from, predates Christmas by centuries.

If Christians tried publicly--in the appropriate forums like newspapers, church and private property, other media, etc.--to really distinguish the celebration of Christ's birth from "the holidays" we might actually affect the secular celebration as well--which means we'd consume less, serve more. Instead, too often we choose culture war over evangelization.