War on Christmas. Sign This Preacher Up!

[Years ago, I won a national award for an article I wrote for Huffington Post. This year, I decided it was time to update it. So, I did… two ways. The straightforward update is available on my Facebook page: http://bit.ly/4arpL78. The second way is more fun. I give you my Southern Fried Heresy version.]

‘Tis the Season for Folks to Lose Their Ever Loving Minds

Ah. Christmas.

Some folks gear up for deer season.
Some dust off their waders for duck season.
Me. I stretch, crack my neck, and wait for the annual panic about the “War on Christmas.”

And every year I say the same thing.
Sign me up.
Hand me the clipboard.
Let’s go to war.

Not against Christmas.
Against what we turned Christmas into.

Bless our hearts.

The Hijacking of a Perfectly Good Story

The pundits love to pretend there are two sides.
The Christian side.
The non Christian side.
Both wrapped in culture war gift paper.

I hate to ruin the pageantry, but neither one is honest.
The public face of Christianity is often the furthest thing from the real deal.
They got better lighting.
Better money.
Better messaging.
They also got further from Jesus than a rooster heading west at sunrise.

Every December, they trot out a Christmas story that has been pressure-washed and perfumed.
Shiny.
Sweet.
Soft enough to spread on a biscuit.
But it is not the story we were given.

Not even close.

Let’s Tell the Truth. It Will Be Okay. I Promise.

The original story is gritty.
Uncomfortable.
Political.
Human.

A brown skinned teenage girl.
Unmarried.
Unhoused.
Looked at sideways by her community.
Giving birth in a corner that smelled like every barn I tromped through.
Which is to say.
It did not smell like peppermint and fresh pine.

And the baby.
Lord help us.
He did not glow.
He did not shimmer.
He did not come with a heavenly Instagram filter.

He came into a world where empire stomped on ordinary people.
Where hunger was normal.
Where soldiers kept order.
Where hope held on by its fingertips.

That is the story we inherited.
And the one we keep dressing up until the truth gets lost under three yards of tinsel.

Christmas Got Co Opted. And Not by Atheists.

Let’s set the record straight.
Atheists did not hijack Christmas.
Pluralism did not hijack Christmas.
Folks who say Happy Holidays did not hijack Christmas.

No.
The hijacking was an inside job.

Power repackaged a liberation story as a comfort blanket.
Corporations wrapped it in barcodes.
Christian nationalism slapped a bow on it.
And what was born in the margins got relocated to the suburbs.

Look at the pageants.
Mary is porcelain.
Joseph looks like he just finished a beard oil commercial.
The manger is cleaner than my kitchen right before company comes over.
The shepherds probably have dental insurance.

All of it tidy.
All of it cozy.
None of it real.

The folks yelling about a War on Christmas are often the ones firing the shots.

If This is Christmas, We Already Lost

When Christmas becomes a season of excess instead of compassion, something has gone sideways.

When we give gifts to people who have plenty and ignore those walking in darkness, we lost the plot.

When we bless the tree and forget the people, Christmas Past and Christmas Present start looking suspiciously similar.

And Christmas Future.
Lord.
Christmas Future is one long commercial break.

Isaiah once said the people who walked in darkness saw a great light.
Beautiful.
Poetic.
Not about Jesus at all.
Still powerful.
Still fits the season.

So let’s ask the uncomfortable questions.
The ones that make the room go real quiet.

Does your Christmas shine light into darkness?
Or do we just plug in LEDs and call it holy?
Does it bring hope to anyone but ourselves?
Does it challenge injustice?
Or does it decorate it with a bow from Target?

If the answers hurt a little.
Good.
That is the Holy Spirit tugging at your sleeve.
Or possibly your grandma’s voice saying you were raised better.

The Child in the Trough Grew Up and Raised Trouble

A child born in a feeding trough grew up to say we belong to each other.
A child born under empire grew up to challenge every system that harms people.
A child born as an outsider grew up to expose the lie of “outsiders” being a thing at all.

He taught us that every person carries the spark of Love.
He taught us that least of these is not a spiritual ranking.
It is a human created excuse for inequality.
He taught us that faith is not a shopping spree.
It is mutual care in motion.

If that is not political, then sweet tea is not sweet.

What I Want for Christmas is Simple

I want light.
Not the plug in kind.
Not the synchronized kind.
Not the kind controlled by an app.

I want the kind that nudges us toward compassion.
The kind that clears the fog.
The kind that reveals the people Christmas has left behind.

The hungry.
The exhausted.
The ones carrying grief.
The ones crushed by injustice.
The ones working three jobs to keep the lights on.
The ones some folks crop out of their curated holiday photos.

That is the Christmas worth fighting for.

So Yes. War on Christmas

A war on what we made it.
A war on worshiping consumerism inside the sacred halls of Walmart.
A war on pretending privilege is some kind of divine blessing.
A war on theology that smells like nationalism and looks like a Black Friday stampede.

Sign me up.

Twice.

Shoot, hand me the Sharpie.
I will write my name big enough for Santa to read it without his glasses.\

Because I refuse to let the story of my faith be co-opted by people who love Jesus the mascot far more than Jesus the liberator.

I refuse to let corporations sell me a Christmas that comforts the comfortable and erases the rest.

I refuse to let fear win.

War on Christmas.
Indeed.

Bring me the clipboard.
Where do I sign?