Burk Parsons tweeted something a while back that prompts me to revisit the new perennial Christmas topic in the evangelical subculture—taking (or not taking) offense when people say “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas.” Parsons put it this way:
Saying in a corrective tone “Merry Christmas” in response to a store clerk’s mandated “Happy Holidays” greeting is not a form of evangelism.
I agree, but taking a step back, I think we ought to contemplate why some evangelicals get so offended by this practice. I know we don’t like the idea of a Christless Christmas—and we shouldn’t!—but let’s think about it for a second: Is insisting that a store clerk throw out Christ’s name in a thoughtless cultural greeting any meaningful kind of redemption of the reality that what we’re encouraging is hollow cultural Christianity, and what we’re doing is buying stuff?
I submit that “Merry Christmas” as an empty cliche is equally Christless to “Happy Holidays.” And in fact we ought to reckon the perfunctory “Merry Christmas” as more offensive than a cheerful “Happy Holidays,” not less.
Why? Because God commands us to revere his name and keep it holy. I don’t think getting irked that the clerk at Target didn’t Jesusify his mandated holiday greeting meets what this law demands.
I guess what I’m saying is, why do we want to force people to claim our Christ? Let’s not foist Christ at Christmastime. I fear in doing so we’re actually inadvertently campaigning for Christ’s name to be taken in vain!
Church, boycotting or petitioning to make store salespeople confess Christ to us does nothing to truly honor Jesus. It just puts our preferred religious gauze on our holiday consumerism. It might make us feel better but it does not truly adorn Christ’s gospel. As Uncle Lewis says, “That ain’t the Christmas star, Gris. That’s the light on the sewage treatment plant.”
