Reflections of a Church Kid

I couldn’t help but notice something during December. When calling in to my cable company a few times for tech support, I noticed each time the representative said “Happy Holidays.” When I beat one of them to the punch and said Merry Christmas, the uncomfortable hesitation and responding “Happy Holidays” made me want to laugh out loud as I remembered the controversy a few years ago as Wal Mart flipped flopped on its own policy, first mandating its employees use “Happy Holidays” and then allowing “Merry Christmas” when the American public voiced their offense at the store’s attempt at sensitivity.

The reason I laugh about it is after reviewing articles and blogs regarding this subject, I found that people on both sides are equally childish about this subject. Not that I’m more mature about this, but I just don’t take offense when someone says “Happy Holidays” to me and I think people who get offended at “Merry Christmas” need to grow up and get some historical perspective.

Simply put, “Happy Holidays” has moved into common use in American Culture today among Christians because of the fact that several holidays take place during the winter season. “Happy Holidays” for many of us means covering Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years. So, to put it simply Christians should not be offended when someone says “Happy Holidays.”

On the other hand, I think “Merry Christmas” really can not be seen as being offensive. It is a recognition of the birth of Jesus Christ, whose moral teachings and roots in Judaism have shaped western values and laws in ways that are just beginning to take shape in other parts of the world. First of all, even though Jesus made it clear that he is the only way to the Father as the redeemer (John chapter 14:1-14), his teachings on the sermon on the mount (Matt 5-7)and directly with his disciples in the gospel accounts (eg. Matt 18) made it clear that the “church” he had in mind would be his followers being salt and light in the earth. Even though the earliest gatherings of believers formed congregations, it is clear from the gospel accounts that Jesus never intended for them to become an institution where religious leaders sat in lofty places and lorded themselves over others. In fact, he did what no other religious founder would dare think of… he said that all you have to do is trust him, that is have faith in him to have eternal life (eg. John 3:16).

Skipping over hundreds of years of history, we find that in our own country, the influence of Christ’s teachings brought us the Bill of Rights drafted by John Adams together with the Danbury Baptists where freedom of speech, press, and religion were granted to all people. For the Danbury Baptists, it was important that not only should Christians have the freedom to believe and teach Jesus is the only way to heaven, they also believed that no person or government should force that doctrine on anyone.

Simultaneously, as the United States was being birthed, William Wilberforce began a long campaign against the Slave Trade in Great Britain. Believing that Parliament was wrong to allow “necessary evils” on account of the cost to the economy by eliminating slavery, Wilberforce pushed on with his campaign to educate British citizens to the evils of the Slave Trade. Though some modern day critics of the Bible point to it’s allowance of indentured servitude, Wilberforce exposed the Slave Trade as nothing more than the kidnapping and degrading of human beings and transporting them to foreign shores as if they were cattle, which any honest interpretation of scripture condemns. As a result of his actions and leadership, Parliament passed the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833.

In the United States, 30 years later, Abraham Lincoln issued the executive order known as the Emancipation Proclamation after seeing the aftermath of the battle of Gettysburg. Claiming that he had made a covenant with God, Lincoln stopped arguing the issue of slavery in economic terms and dealt with the question of whether slavery was right or wrong. Though the EP did not immediately end slavery in the states that did not split from the union, by the end of the war only 2 states had not abolished slavery and the passage of the 13th amendment in 1865 abolished slavery in all states.

Further movements were still to take place in the years to come and were impacted by Christ’s teachings. Susan B. Anthony and the women’s suffrage movement and Dr. Martin Luther King and Civil Rights showed us that what happens when Christians stand up for what is right. Without the foundation of Christ’s teaching in their lives, these great people would not have given what they had for justice.

To be clear, there have been many people and Christian institutions who have directed or at least participated in atrocities such as the crusades, inquisitions, and other various persecution movements. Even within the United States and Great Britain, many Christians were found on the wrong side of the Bill of Rights, Slavery, and Civil Rights. We Christians today know they were on the wrong side because of scripture and Christ’s teachings.

The first point I want to make is this; even if you don’t believe that Jesus is the only begotten Son of God and redeemer of the world, I invite you to celebrate the birth of the man that caused at times a minority of believers to stand up with scripture against injustice and change the world. These people throughout history ranged from monks who preserved education, scripture, and books through the middle ages to our own beloved Martin Luther King. Of course they were not entirely alone since they influenced both believers in Christ and non-believers alike.

The second is to consider the impact of Jesus Christ on my own ancestry in western Europe. During the time of winter solstice (around December 21), my pagan ancestors huddled inside around the household fires believing that the solstice was a time when the doors to the spirit world opened and anyone caught outside could be snatched away. All across Western Europe, there were variations on these beliefs where all lived in fear, and the celebration was tied to the relief that the long winter was coming to an end. Of course the Italians or Romans celebrated Saturnalia which was something like Marti Gras on steroids. The point is that today no one lives in fear like my ancestors. We look forward to winter and celebrating Christmas because we know that even through the darkest days of winter, we celebrate life.

Historically, early Christians like Justin Martyr correctly saw that the gospel of Luke chapter 2 pointed to mid to late December on our calendar as the time of Christ’s birth.  However, the major celebration for early Christians was his death and resurrection because at the time birthdays were not a culturally relevant thing to celebrate.

Today, in our current culture, the celebration of birth takes is a celebration of life and accomplishment. So Christ’s birth takes on just as great of importance as his redemptive sacrifice and for believers and non-believers alike Christmas is also a celebration of what happens when people take Jesus’ teachings and live by them… bringing the hope of peace on earth and and giving good will toward all people.

One of the issues that comes up in teaching the Bible is moral values. In this, the question comes up about where good works and living for God come in to the salvation of the soul. The short answer, as I understand from the Bible, is that a person is saved by faith alone in Jesus Christ. This is clearly taught as the main point of the gospel of John and outlined as a theological argument in the book of Romans. Also, in the book of First Corinthians, the writer does something that most modern religious leaders would not do. He speaks to a group of immoral Christians and actually calls them brothers. In fact, it seems that all the writers of the New Testament assumed that the Christians they were writing to were heaven bound “brothers” in need of correction.

The problem among Christians is we are a religious people. Since religious beliefs tend toward legalism or fatalism, very few are satisfied with the idea that a “sinner” could in fact be a “saved” believer in Jesus. As such, many Christians believe in false dichotomies where a person can actually have faith in Jesus Christ, but not the kind of faith that “saves.” Naturally, the idea here is that a person that has a faith that “saves” also has good works, while a person with a fake faith or a faith that does not save lives an immoral life and is therefore not “saved.”

So far, I can not find any support for such a false dichotomy anywhere in the Old or New Testament. In conversation with those who believe it either point to proof texts taken out of context or fail to see that some of the arguments giving reasons why believers should not sin are actually hyperbole reflective of 1st century literary culture as is the case of 1 John chapter 3. As such, the clear teaching of the entire New Testent is a person either has faith in Jesus Christ for the salvation of his or her soul and is “saved” or has no faith and is not “saved.”

On the other hand, the writer of First Corinthians does give us something to consider regarding morality.

Even though the Corinthians were guilty of tolerating moral behavior such as the man there who was engaged in a sexual affair with his “father’s wife,” the writer of 1 Corinthians decided to confront behavior that is almost always justified and encouraged in churches today. In Corinth, these just people were divisive and aligning themselves with certain teachers. According to chapter 1 verses 10-17, some of the people were saying “I follow Paul” while others were claiming to follow other teachers like Apollos or Peter. There were even some that were trying one-up all of them by saying “I follow Jesus.”

Today, this plays out among the most moral and religious of Christians. Back in the 1980s, people would say, “I follow John MacArthur” or “I follow Charles Ryrie” or some other teacher. This later lead to the founding of so-called discernment ministries like The Berean Call and others who fail in discernment and honest historical and scriptural studies.

Today, instead of following teachers, church people claim to follow after doctrinal perspectives. “I am a reformed theologian”, “I am a dispensationalist”, “I am a Calvinist”, “I am a fundamentalist”, etc, etc, etc.

If only to make things worse, when you disagree with anyone in these “groups”, rather than recognize you may actually be correct, you will be accused of belonging to one of the other groups and as such incapable and blinded from the “truth”. The ironic thing is that most of the people I meet in church and seminary that identify themselves with these groups actually have nothing in common with them. For example, writer and preacher R.C. Sproul claims to be a “reformed” theologian, but actually has more in common theologically with the Puritans and Pietists a century after the reformation.

In either case, the writer of 1 Corinthians dealt with this before he dealt with the gross immoral acts of the Corinthian believers. If he followed the example of church people today, he would have sided with one group and dealt only with immoral behavior in Corinth by accusing everyone of being “unsaved”. Instead, he dealt first with the division caused by religious behavior.

I wonder what church would look like if we confront the sins of arrogance, pride, and self-righteousness caused by religious behavior before we confront confront things like sexual immorality, substance abuse, or any self destructive behavior.