Christian Group Launches New Attack on Christmas Commerciali

[The Spartan]

Time by way of Yahoo News

Christian Group Launches New Attack on Christmas Commercialism
By AMY SULLIVAN / WASHINGTON Amy Sullivan / Washington Tue Dec 15, 3:10 am ET

If it's December, then there must be frost in the air, gingerbread in the oven, and ... right on time, Bill O'Reilly and the other defenders of Christmas bemoaning the prevalence of "Happy Holidays" - rather than "Merry Christmas" - greetings.

There's a war on Christmas, O'Reilly recently reminded viewers, driven by those who "loathe the baby Jesus." This season, a holiday-dÉcor company is marketing the CHRIST-mas Tree, a bushy artificial tree with a giant cross where the trunk should be. And the Colorado-based Focus on the Family is continuing its Stand for Christmas campaign to highlight the offenses of Christmas-denying retailers. The campaign was launched, according to its website, because "citizens across the nation were growing dissatisfied with the tendency of corporations to omit references to Christmas from holiday promotions." (See TIME's photoessay "Have a Very Ridiculous Christmas.")

But to a growing group of Christians, this focus on the commercial aspect of Christmas is itself the greatest threat to one of Christianity's holiest days. "It's the shopping, the going into debt, the worrying that if I don't spend enough money, someone will think I don't love them," says Portland pastor Rick McKinley. "Christians get all bent out of shape over the fact that someone didn't say 'Merry Christmas' when I walked into the store. But why are we expecting the store to tell our story? That's just ridiculous."

McKinley is one of the leaders of an effort to do away with the frenzied activity and extravagant gift-giving of a commercial Christmas. Through a savvy viral video and marketing effort, the so-called Advent Conspiracy movement has exploded. Hundreds of churches on four continents and in at least 17 countries have signed up to participate. The Advent Conspiracy video has been viewed more than a million times on YouTube and the movement boasts nearly 45,000 fans on Facebook. Baseball superstar Albert Pujols is a supporter - he spoke at a church event in St. Louis to endorse the effort. (See TIME's video "Bethlehem's Complicated Christmas.")

In the past four years, Advent Conspiracy churches have donated millions of dollars to dig wells in developing countries through Living Water International and other organizations. McKinley likes to point out that a fraction of the money Americans spend at retailers in the month of December could supply the entire world with clean water. If more Christians changed how they thought about giving at Christmas, he argues, the holiday could be transformative in a religious and practical sense.

The idea for their own war on Christmas came to McKinley four years ago, when he was sitting around with some of his pastor friends and they realized they were all dreading Christmas. "None of us like Christmas," he says, adding, "That's sort of bad if you're a pastor." Instead of helping their congregations focus on the season of Advent and prepare to celebrate the birth of Christ, the pastors found themselves competing with a secular consumerism that made December the hardest time to make their message heard.

So McKinley and his friends decided to try a radical experiment. They urged congregants to spend less on presents for friends and family, and to consider donating some of the money they saved as a result. At first, church members weren't quite sure how to react. "Some people were terrified," remembers McKinley. "They said, 'My gosh, you're ruining Christmas. What do we tell our kids?'" The pastors had to reassure people that they weren't advocating a Grinchy no-gifts kind of Christmas, but rather one in which people spent a little less and thought a little more, expressing their love through something more meaningful than a gift card. Once church members adjusted to this new conception of Christmas, they found that they loved it. Many, in fact, seemed relieved to be given permission to slow down and buy less. (Read "A Brief History of 'The War on Christmas'")

In many ways, the Advent Conspiracy movement has appropriated some of the traditional arguments of the conservative Christians who see themselves as defenders of Christmas. A popular rallying cry of the foot soldiers in the war on Christmas is, "Jesus is the reason for the season." Often, however, it seems that being able to score a half-price Nintendo DSi and a "Merry Christmas" from the checkout clerk is the real prize. The Religious Right has spent decades casting secular culture as the enemy. And yet instead of critiquing the values of the consumer marketplace, many conservative Christians have embraced it as the battleground they seek to reclaim.

A movement like the Advent Conspiracy is countercultural on two fronts - not just fighting the secular idea that Christmas is a month-long shopping and decorating ritual, but the powerful conservative notion that the holiday requires acknowledgement from the nation's retailers to be truly meaningful. It's not easy, says one youth pastor whose church is part of the Advent Conspiracy. "When you start jacking with people's idea of what Christmas is and you start to go against this $450 billion machine of materialism and consumerism, it really messes with people," he explains. "It takes a lot of patience to say there's a different way - Christmas doesn't have to be like this."

Well, it's that time of year again. Time for conservative whiners to complain that people aren't celebrating something in the way that they want them to.

Honestly, fuck 'em. I think I may have mentioned this at some point, but I'll say it again: this year if someone gets all puffed up about saying Merry Christmas they're getting a Happy Festivus in return. This shit got on my nerves when I was still religious. It's ridiculous. "You're not celebrating something in the same way I celebrate it so you're a horrible person!" I may as well complain that some people have a ham at Thanksgiving instead of turkey, or eat a lamb crown roast for Christmas dinner instead of roast beef, etc., etc.

[Shroom Man 777]

I think the thing, personally and totally subjectively, seems to be running out of steam and getting stale and tired since every Christmas they've been going on about it since... the nineties or something... and right now people are just rolling their eyes whenever they shriek about the homobortionatheists stealing Christmas or some shit.

We should celebrate Happy Tsunami Day and give each other presents wrapped in USAID sacks.

[dragon]

Except Christmas was several different pagan holidays originally that the church corrupted into one of theirs.

In ancient Babylon, the feast of the Son of Isis (Goddess of Nature) was celebrated on December 25. Raucous partying, gluttonous eating and drinking, and gift-giving were traditions of this feast.

In Rome, the Winter Solstice was celebrated many years before the birth of Christ. The Romans called their winter holiday Saturnalia, honoring Saturn, the God of Agriculture.

In northern Europe, many other traditions that we now consider part of Christian worship were begun long before the participants had ever heard of Christ. The pagans of northern Europe celebrated the their own winter solstice, known as Yule. Yule was symbolic of the pagan Sun God, Mithras, being born, and was observed on the shortest day of the year.

The tree is the one symbol that unites almost all the northern European winter solstices. Live evergreen trees were often brought into homes during the harsh winters as a reminder to inhabitants that soon their crops would grow again. Evergreen boughs were sometimes carried as totems of good luck and were often present at weddings, representing fertility. The Druids
used the tree as a religious symbol, holding their sacred ceremonies while surrounding and worshipping huge trees.

link
But then either way I 'don't really care but some people are so narrow minded that they can't see their way.

[bobalot]

I agree with Marcus Brigstocke's opinion on this. The first 3 or 4 minutes basically sums my position up.

[Norseman]

the homobortionatheists stealing Christmas

You got to admit that sounds better than the Dr Seuss version, I'd read a story like this

[Darth Wong]

There's a war on Christmas, O'Reilly recently reminded viewers, driven by those who "loathe the baby Jesus." This season, a holiday-dÉcor company is marketing the CHRIST-mas Tree, a bushy artificial tree with a giant cross where the trunk should be. And the Colorado-based Focus on the Family is continuing its Stand for Christmas campaign to highlight the offenses of Christmas-denying retailers. The campaign was launched, according to its website, because "citizens across the nation were growing dissatisfied with the tendency of corporations to omit references to Christmas from holiday promotions." (See TIME's photoessay "Have a Very Ridiculous Christmas.")

Bill O'Reilly says: Make particular reference to our particular special interest group to the exclusion of all others, or else you must hate us!

But to a growing group of Christians, this focus on the commercial aspect of Christmas is itself the greatest threat to one of Christianity's holiest days. "It's the shopping, the going into debt, the worrying that if I don't spend enough money, someone will think I don't love them," says Portland pastor Rick McKinley. "Christians get all bent out of shape over the fact that someone didn't say 'Merry Christmas' when I walked into the store. But why are we expecting the store to tell our story? That's just ridiculous."

Good point, and one that I've made many times. If you think there isn't enough Jesus in the holiday, maybe that's because you're a fucking idiot and you're looking for him at the shopping mall. If you want more Jesus, go to church.

McKinley is one of the leaders of an effort to do away with the frenzied activity and extravagant gift-giving of a commercial Christmas. Through a savvy viral video and marketing effort, the so-called Advent Conspiracy movement has exploded. Hundreds of churches on four continents and in at least 17 countries have signed up to participate. The Advent Conspiracy video has been viewed more than a million times on YouTube and the movement boasts nearly 45,000 fans on Facebook. Baseball superstar Albert Pujols is a supporter - he spoke at a church event in St. Louis to endorse the effort. (See TIME's video "Bethlehem's Complicated Christmas.")

In the past four years, Advent Conspiracy churches have donated millions of dollars to dig wells in developing countries through Living Water International and other organizations. McKinley likes to point out that a fraction of the money Americans spend at retailers in the month of December could supply the entire world with clean water. If more Christians changed how they thought about giving at Christmas, he argues, the holiday could be transformative in a religious and practical sense.

Good for them. That's precisely how Christians really should show their beliefs and values: by actually living up to them, instead of demanding rhetorical tribute from shopping malls.

The idea for their own war on Christmas came to McKinley four years ago, when he was sitting around with some of his pastor friends and they realized they were all dreading Christmas. "None of us like Christmas," he says, adding, "That's sort of bad if you're a pastor." Instead of helping their congregations focus on the season of Advent and prepare to celebrate the birth of Christ, the pastors found themselves competing with a secular consumerism that made December the hardest time to make their message heard.

Of course they're competing with secular consumerism. The secular consumerist Christmas is the real Christmas. It's the Christmas that has gone by other names in other societies throughout history, and has focused on celebrations, feasts, and gift since before Christianity even existed. Without it, no one would give a shit about Christmas. Do these people not understand that if you take away the fun party Christmas, the sombre reflective Christmas that's left behind would quickly become a lame and uncelebrated holiday? At best, it would be like Easter: just a couple of days off work when the religious people go to church, Filipinos lose their fucking minds, and everyone else catches up on their yard work.

So McKinley and his friends decided to try a radical experiment. They urged congregants to spend less on presents for friends and family, and to consider donating some of the money they saved as a result. At first, church members weren't quite sure how to react. "Some people were terrified," remembers McKinley. "They said, 'My gosh, you're ruining Christmas. What do we tell our kids?'" The pastors had to reassure people that they weren't advocating a Grinchy no-gifts kind of Christmas, but rather one in which people spent a little less and thought a little more, expressing their love through something more meaningful than a gift card. Once church members adjusted to this new conception of Christmas, they found that they loved it. Many, in fact, seemed relieved to be given permission to slow down and buy less. (Read "A Brief History of 'The War on Christmas'")

In many ways, the Advent Conspiracy movement has appropriated some of the traditional arguments of the conservative Christians who see themselves as defenders of Christmas. A popular rallying cry of the foot soldiers in the war on Christmas is, "Jesus is the reason for the season." Often, however, it seems that being able to score a half-price Nintendo DSi and a "Merry Christmas" from the checkout clerk is the real prize. The Religious Right has spent decades casting secular culture as the enemy. And yet instead of critiquing the values of the consumer marketplace, many conservative Christians have embraced it as the battleground they seek to reclaim.

A movement like the Advent Conspiracy is countercultural on two fronts - not just fighting the secular idea that Christmas is a month-long shopping and decorating ritual, but the powerful conservative notion that the holiday requires acknowledgement from the nation's retailers to be truly meaningful. It's not easy, says one youth pastor whose church is part of the Advent Conspiracy. "When you start jacking with people's idea of what Christmas is and you start to go against this $450 billion machine of materialism and consumerism, it really messes with people," he explains. "It takes a lot of patience to say there's a different way - Christmas doesn't have to be like this."

I hope these guys become more prominent and influential. This is the one attack against the conventional Bill O'Reilly narrative that he can't answer by simply appealing to tribalism: an attack from within that touches on his own remarkable hypocrisy.

[Serafina]

You know, i never heard a local complain about "christmas is not religious enough".
In fact, religious folks tend to encourage having a opulent, wastefull celebration - it shows how important a day it is.

[Vendetta]

Just remember, at this special time of year, when peace on earth and goodwill to all men are foremost in everyone's mind, the old catch 22. If you promote the fuck out of Christmas in every high street and mall, you are Losing Sight Of The True Meaning Of Christmas because of your commercial greed and exploitation. If, however, you do not promote the fuck out of Christmas in every high street and mall, rather leaving it as a personal family celebration for those it holds meaning for, then you are engaging in a War On Christmas as part of the Secret Atheist Agenda.

[Coyote]

But to a growing group of Christians, this focus on the commercial aspect of Christmas is itself the greatest threat to one of Christianity's holiest days. "It's the shopping, the going into debt, the worrying that if I don't spend enough money, someone will think I don't love them," says Portland pastor Rick McKinley. "Christians get all bent out of shape over the fact that someone didn't say 'Merry Christmas' when I walked into the store. But why are we expecting the store to tell our story? That's just ridiculous."

This guy didn't get the message: "spending money = patriotism", and "patriotism = Christianity". Man, when will these subversives get with the program?

Awesome, though. Faith vs. Commercialism. Right when the GOP is facing that exact same conundrum. How... appropriate and ironic.

[The Yosemite Bear]

Should we remind them that it's always been that way. After all the (hated by the fundies Catholic Church) co-opted the pagan holy days as Christmass, when the Roman census was held in the fall not the winter, because the citizens wanted their celebrations, drinking and gift giving.