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A Postive "War on Christmas"

Dec 16, 2009#1

Zappit

http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20091215/us_time/08599194759000

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.\"

Basically, this group called Advent Conspiracy is fighting against the over-commercialization of Christmas; while they are complaining about the lack of retailers using the words, "Merry Christmas", they're encouraging members and other people to only spend a fraction of what they were planning to spend on gifts and donate the rest to charity. They've already helped raise millions for clean water in developing countries.

I don't agree with the notion of forcing retailers to use, "Merry Christmas", but it's hard to argue against the charitable efforts they are encouraging. Unlike other Christian activists group obsessed with "the war on Christmas", these folks seem to get what the holiday is about and are trying to help the less fortunate. I just thought it was a good story to share.

Dec 16, 2009#2

Espy

Zappit said:
Basically, this group called Advent Conspiracy is fighting against the over-commercialization of Christmas; while they are complaining about the lack of retailers using the words, "Merry Christmas", they're encouraging members and other people to only spend a fraction of what they were planning to spend on gifts and donate the rest to charity. They've already helped raise millions for clean water in developing countries.

That is fantastic. It's always great to see people trying to help others during a time that seems to be dominated by greed.

Dec 16, 2009#3

Kitty Sinatra

Zappit said:
Basically, this group called Advent Conspiracy . . . while they are complaining about the lack of retailers using the words, "Merry Christmas"

Just to evaluate my reading comprehension, I want to say that, while the article mentions O'Rly and his ilk complaining about the lack of this phrase, I didn't see anything in there about the Advent Conspiracy complaining about it. And so I ask: Did I miss something?

Dec 16, 2009#4

North_Ranger

Good for 'em. I have had similar feelings when talking with Mom: neither of us can really think anything to buy for the children in the immediate family (that is, my sister's teenage children). "It's horrible if you think about it", says Mom, "that they have so much it's hard to find anything to give".

Also, the whole Christmas/holidays/season thing makes me glad the Finnish name for Christmas doesn't refer to Jesus in particular.

Dec 16, 2009#5

Troll

Christmas is a secular affair for my family and always has been. We've focused on much more on the idea of spending time with family, giving some gifts, and being thankful for others. Still, I very much like this idea from the Advent Conspiracy. I think you don't have to be very religious to see how much good they're doing. And I think that most people agree that it's too easy to get carried away and too materialistic during the season. So, I say kudos to them.

Dec 16, 2009#6

The Pumes

As much as my religious family (and I) enjoy Christmas I must say it is a right pain though, and it does support excessive spending which in some delicious form of irony Jesus preached against. Also Jesus was born sometime in June or July not December. I say we celebrate Winter Solstice again. That was an epic holiday.

Dec 16, 2009#7

North_Ranger

The Pumes said:
As much as my religious family (and I) enjoy Christmas I must say it is a right pain though, and it does support excessive spending which in some delicious form of irony Jesus preached against. Also Jesus was born sometime in June or July not December. I say we celebrate Winter Solstice again. That was an epic holiday.

Does it include orgies? If it does, I'm so in.

Or wait... WHOSE Winter Solstice you wish to celebrate?

Dec 16, 2009#8

The Pumes

North_Ranger;316513][quote=The Pumes said:
As much as my religious family (and I) enjoy Christmas I must say it is a right pain though, and it does support excessive spending which in some delicious form of irony Jesus preached against. Also Jesus was born sometime in June or July not December. I say we celebrate Winter Solstice again. That was an epic holiday.

Does it include orgies? If it does, I'm so in.

Or wait... WHOSE Winter Solstice you wish to celebrate?[/quote]

All of them. At the same time.

That way everyone can do their own thing according to their country of origin (or moar like orgy-in) :3

Dec 16, 2009#9

Soliloquy

I'm just chiming in to say that I support advent conspiracy's cause whole-heartedly.

Dec 17, 2009#10

Zappit

Gruebeard;316472][quote=Zappit said:
Basically, this group called Advent Conspiracy . . . while they are complaining about the lack of retailers using the words, "Merry Christmas"

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 really doesn't look like it's a major part of the movement at all - just a desire to fight off the rampant consumerism.

Dec 17, 2009#11

drifter

Zappit;317117][quote=Gruebeard;316472][quote=Zappit said:
Basically, this group called Advent Conspiracy . . . while they are complaining about the lack of retailers using the words, "Merry Christmas"

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 really doesn't look like it's a major part of the movement at all - just a desire to fight off the rampant consumerism.[/QUOTE]

I think you parsed that sentence wrong. The second "front" is not against retailers who don't say Merry Christmas, it's against conservatives who want retailers to say Merry Christmas.

Dec 17, 2009#12

Krisken

After reading that, these people have my respect.

Dec 17, 2009#13

makare

The winter holiday has generally been celebrated with the giving of gifts so the consumerism was part of the holiday long before Christ was and will probably be so forever.

I am all for celebrating Saturnalia.

Dec 17, 2009#14

Bowielee

Not to be the Grinch who stole the non-secular Christmas, but not spending money this holiday season in the US and shipping it overseas is probably the worst thing you could do to our economy right now.

Not saying that this isn't a great cause or anything, just looking at it from an economic standpoint.

Dec 17, 2009#15

Espy

Bowielee said:
Not to be the Grinch who stole the non-secular Christmas, but not spending money this holiday season in the US and shipping it overseas is probably the worst thing you could do to our economy right now.

Not saying that this isn't a great cause or anything, just looking at it from an economic standpoint.

I don't think you need to worry about that happening.

But people giving to those in need a little more wouldn't be the end of the world methinks

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