The Desert of the Real

I recently was forwarded an article regarding Christmas, written by a woman named Debbie Daniel. I reply to it here not to shame her, but because her message fairly accurately represents the kinds of things I’m hearing from many parts of what is called ‘evangelicalism’ today. (Not the least of which is the AFA) I would say her ignorance in this post is more the fault of the church and its failure to ground its people in sound doctrine than anything.

I would like to make a disclaimer before I start. I have no problem with Christmas as a holiday. I don’t object to people writing Merry christmas on their car, or exuberantly telling others “merry Christmas”. Lots of people love this holiday, love spreading joy during this season in particular.

However, when a person’s love of Christmas turns into a desire to beat others over the head with it, rather than their actions being an outpouring of their enjoyment of it, then a line has been crossed. I think that happens in this email. In addition, when a person elevates Christmas beyond its actual importance, or tries to elevate it to almost the level of an ordinance of the church then there is a serious problem that needs to be addressed. I believe this is what we are seeing these days within the realm of ‘evangelicalism’. (Ironically enough, we see it most strongly this year, hand in hand with cancelling Lord’s day services, which IS commanded by scripture).
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I apologize for the extended outage. We had some server issues, and an extended outage for a complete rebuild. Then with moving, being out of town, and the holidays it was some time before I could get all the other pieces back together to get things up and running. During the outage, I had a surprising number of people contact me about my blog, and indicate they miss reading it. I appreciate all of you sharing your interest with me. I don’t really track site visits, so I don’t have any idea how well read this site is. It’s good to hear from people who enjoy reading it.

I have a metric ton of things to write about that have happened in the interim, particularly in the political arena. I don’t know when I’ll get around to it but I do hope to have at least a little something up this week.