Three months ago, we were hearing again about the war on Christmas, including outrage about non-religious greating such as Happy Holidays. Now we are leading up to the Easter season. No similar problem?
This occurred to me today in church. I haven’t heard any complaints about a war on easter. Why?
I think it is because Easter hasn’t been turned into such a commercial opportunity, while trying to maintain it as a spiritual holiday as well.
Christmas is the key to many profits of many businesses. Black Friday is crucial to being in the black. That is certainly true for Christian business people. But there is schizophrenia about this.
People want to use the holiday for their commercial purposes, but still insist on keeping it as a religious observation. The first objective doesn’t go well with the second. People want to use the holdiay to bring both believer and non-belivers into their businesses by bringing non-Christians into Chrismas. It doesn’t work to draw the non-believer into your religious holiday for secular purposes and then fault the need to show those non-believers some deference by recognizing their not sharing your faith.
I think if Chistians want to not have greeting like Happy Holidays, then they needed to treat Christmas like Easter – a holiday for Christians only, not a commercial opportunity. You can’t have it both ways.