On December 19, Brian McClaren published a well-intentioned post on this site suggesting that Christians put aside all their political and cultural differences and focus on their common faith in Jesus Christ.
As it happens, I read Brian's piece the day after I attended a Southern Baptist Lord's Supper down in my home state of Georgia that made me fearfully reflect on the extent to which political and cultural differences have come to define our not-so-common faith in ways that make his irenic plea less than persuasive.
One of the the most depressing aspects of the Advent season is the perennial reappearance of the "War Against Christmas" argument in some conservative political and religious circles. This story-line, most visibly associated with Fox News' Bill O'Reilly, is based on the idea that Christians are being mortally offended, and perhaps even threatened in their religious liberties, by department-store decisions to peddle their wares under the slogan of "Happy Holidays" rather than "Merry Christmas." The "War Against Christmas" theory also feeds on the usual tedious and marginal fights over publicly-authorized Nativity scenes and equal access to other seasonal religious or even anti-religious messages.
I think it's time for Christians to reclaim Christmas by declaring war on the whole "War on Christmas" whine, and on the planted axiom that Jesus Christ needs to be proclaimed on department store facades and municipal squares. More generally, Christians should be offended by the idea that commercial or government neutrality towards religious expression represents some sort of persecution--a grievous insult to the sacrifices of true Christian martyrs, past, present and future.
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