Christmas in the news?

I read two reports on Christmas today. The first was about why some conservative evangelicals and Catholics are disgusted with President Bush's White House Christmas Card. The card is sent to some 1.2 million Bush supporters. How intimnate! Again this year, it lacked the Christmas message. For some, it is too generic and apologetic to send a "holiday card". They want the President to send a Christian message on Christmas. Others say that a Christmas card lacks senistivity to other faith traditions represented by some porton of the 1.2 million recipients of the White House greeting. A holiday card includes non-Christian peoples.
One congressman is reported to have said that he cares more about putting Christ back into our war policy than into Bush's Christmas card. I couldn't agree more, especially if said war policy was self-effacing, sacrificial, and peace-keeping. Why is it the President's job to send a holiday greeting at all? If he wants to be a Christian and a President, he ought to realize that Christmas is not supposed to be a secular holiday, bastardized by the free market to drive up consumer spending. He ought to say nothing about Christmas or Kwaanza or Hannakuh. We are not a nation built with religious propensity. We are a nation built on secular humanist virtue and enlightenment philosophy. Christianity was not the forte of Jefferson or many of the framers. Jefferson did not believe in the resurrection of Christ, nor in His divinity. I think the President should remain politically neutral when it comes to matters of faith. (That does not entail ethical uncertanity or moral depravity, as some would believe). Christ is in Christmas, not the President.


The second report I saw concerned the decision of many megachurches to cancel worship on Christmas Sunday! Justified by their belief that Sunday is no more significant for worship than any other day and the expectation that fewer people will attend on Sunday, December 25th or January 1st (Some are cancelling worship on New year's day too). This is in stark contrast to Roman Catholics and mainline protestants who will worship on the Lord's day because that is what the evangelical, catholic and apostolic church does. The megachurch continues to cater to the culture's designs for Christianity. They continue to throw the baby out with the bath water. Doesn't anyone see how dangerous it is to simply disregard Sunday because Americans are more faithful to themselves than to the God of Jesus
Christ? Let them cancel worship. The culture will devour them eventually. How long before they cancel Easter worship or worship on the fourth of July (the truly American holy day)? It all begins with cancellation of Christmas day. How convenient. How wrong!