Christmas War

Nathan Hart, a former neighbor and student of mine and now a pastor in NYC has made an excellent post over at his blog.

Nathan also touches on something I talk about in my classes - department stores, our government and the public schools are not churches and we shouldn't expect them to act like it.

I had a bit of fun in my class this week by asking some of my students if they knew the exact phrase from the NIV that the innkeeper says to Mary and Joseph. They all got puzzled looks on their faces, a few reached for Bibles to quickly find the quote. I didn't wait too long before I told them that there is not innkeeper in the Biblical Christmas story. The commercialization and assimilation of Christmas into our culture have caused us to lose focus on what Christmas really is. Fighting about the President's Christmas card or what we call the tree set up in a public place is just a distraction.