I’m not particularly invested in whether or not “my people” control this culture or not…. I want to see love, peace, and hope come to my culture, and every culture as a matter of fact. This Kingdom of God though—it’s a whole lot bigger than my bumper sticker.

(what a line!)

Frankly, I oftentimes feel convicted about the amount of investment I have in politics. I love my University with incredible ferver; I love my country quite a lot more; but I love my God most of all. Which means, ultimately, all things that I do, ought to be a reflection of His will and His nature. Sadly, I fall short.

I think you do well to point out that you “don’t need to hear leaders pay lip service to Christian culture.” This has to be true, particularly if you believe it is the hearts (or whatever part of the body you want to identify as the one dealing with emotions–neuroscience majors can get nitpicky and call it the brain) of people that must change for anything to matter. Merely pointing out that the origins of what has become a holiday to the God of consumerism was once a holiday dedicated to Jesus Christ is as convoluted as the sun-worshiping pagan correcting the Christian everytime he says Merry Christmas: “don’t you mean happy Winter Solstice?” he might ask. There will likely be no heart change for the individual who is chastized for doing what has become socially acceptable (and somehow neutral). And if there is a heart change, it will likely be one of apathy towards the driving force behind this crusader’s anti-other-holidays rant. Which is to say, the one who insists on making people say “merry Christmas” is probably having an opposite effect on their hearts than he would want.

Overall, I agree. It’s not usually one’s words that act as the manifestion of the contents of one’s heart, rather, the things that we do (perhaps even the things that we do in private where no one can know they’ve been done) are the greatest indications of what we believe. That’s why I am oftentimes taken aback by the Christian who insists that the cashier at his grociery store wish him a merry Christmas rather than a happy holiday.

I think it all boils down to prudence. We have to know which hill to die on. And I don’t think that societies refusal to say “Merry Christmas” is a battle worth fighting. Rather, I would say, the exiting of the words from the vernacular is a symptom of the nature of the true battle–Jesus is being ignored. People are ignoring him, oftentimes, because of the example they see Christians set. And if making people say “Merry Christmas” is done at the expense of getting them to understand who Christ is (or worse, giving them the wrong impression of who Christ is) then it is not only an unjustifiable war, but it harms the Kingdom of God.