The (Real) War On Christmas

I thought I had a clever idea for a post this past weekend.

Turns out I’m not nearly as clever as I thought I was.

My brain told me “Hey, self, you know what would be a good idea for a post? The REAL War on Christmas!” But within minutes I was already seeing Facebook posts, tweets, and random articles about the “real” war on Christmas. And the more I think about, I’m pretty sure I already wrote a post about the “real” war on Christmas years ago when I was still blogging under the name The American Jesus.

In my defense, the regular war on Christmas isn’t a new idea either. I know it seems like something invented by Fox News but it was around, at the very least, for decades before Fox ever hit the airways. I remember working in an archive several years ago and stumbling upon a newspaper clipping from the 1930s. The subject?

The war on Christmas.

Now, obviously I don’t have to tell you that the war on Christmas is a bunch of ridiculous nonsense invented to stoke fears, drive wedges, and sell ads. No one is trying to cancel Christmas. It’s too lucrative. 

But while no one may be trying to cancel Christmas, there is another war raging on the Christmas holiday and it’s being waged by the people you would least expect. The very same people who worry every year that Christmas is being canceled because Starbucks redesigned their coffee cups.

I’m talking, of course, about Christians.

Specifically, the conservative evangelical kind and more specifically the kind that think Donald Trump is the Lord’s anointed, which at this point are essentially one and the same people.

These folks may raise hell about Target saying “happy holidays” instead of “merry Christmas” in December, but the rest of the year, and for much of the Christmas season as well, these are the folks waging the real war on Christmas, the kind of war that cuts to the very reason for the season and why God put on flesh to be born like one of us.

It’s the kind of war that makes celebrating Christmas almost blasphemous. Not because of all the money being spent on toys to celebrate a child born into poverty. The kind of blasphemy that sings and decorates and talks about how incredible the incarnation is one time of the year while spending the rest of the year - and again even some of the Christmas season itself - going out of one’s way to attack and destroy and snuff out and even denounce as unchristian all the things that make the incarnation worth celebration.

Think for a moment about what the holy day of Christmas is really all about. It’s not about Candice Cameron Bure falling in love with a school teacher that just moved to town and then getting a new puppy before the credits roll.

It’s about the Creator of the universe putting on the flesh of creation in a very specific way for a very specific mission.

In the sweet baby Jesus asleep on the hay, we see God choosing to be born in the most humble and defenseless form possible: a child. But not just any child. A child born into poverty to teenage parents who together with their newborn would soon become refugees. When that child finally grew up he would spend his life without a home of his own as he served the poor, healed the sick, and proclaimed liberation for the oppressed while denouncing the rich and promising the overthrowing of the powerful which he would one day do through nonviolence self-sacrifice on a cross, the innocent victim of a government sanctioned death penalty.

Now consider this image…

This is United States Congressman Thomas Massie and his family.

Just days after a teenager took the gun his parents had recently given him to school to murder and terrorize his fellow classmates and teachers, Rep. Massie thought it would be a cute and fun idea to celebrate Christmas by having his family, children included, pose with weapons that only exist to kill other people. Because nothing says the spirit of the season like trying to own the libs.

Not to be outdone, horrifying political sideshow and inexplicable Congresswoman Lauren Boebert decided to strike the same appalling pose with her own kids…

Cute.

The incongruity here between these images and Jesus is obvious. But what is maybe not so obvious is all of the ways this actual war of the message of Jesus’ birth continues throughout the year - and has for years - by these same people who spend the Christmas season yelling at others for not keeping the holiday holy.

For example, Jesus was a child born into poverty.

But Trumpvangelicals cease to care about babies the moment they leave the womb and go out of their way to ensure the government provides as little support as possible - if any - to them and their family as they grow up.

Jesus was the embodiment of peace and the promise of life everlasting.

Trumpvangelicals lust after the death penalty with gleeful vengence and worship their guns with blind zeal, caring nothing about the children whose lives they sacrifice on the altar of “freedom.” 

Jesus was a refugee.

Trumvangelicals want the borders closed permanently and refugees to be sent back to their homeland to fend for themselves.

Jesus was a minority.

Trumpvangelicals have made it their central mission to ensure white supremacy is maintained in every corner of American life from the classroom to the border and every street and segregated neighborhood in between.

Jesus was the new creation incarnated.

Trumpvangelicals scoff at the idea of climate change and dismiss creation care as an international conspiracy perpetrated by greedy scientists who just want grant money.

Jesus came to set the prisoner free, liberate the oppressed, empower the poor, and make all things news.

Trumpvangelicals would rather send that Jesus back to where he came, see criminals kept behind bars, pretend they’re the ones who are truly oppressed, let the poor help themselves, and turn the clock back to the 1950s when white supremacy reigned unopposed.

I don’t agree with Trumpvangelicals on much, but they’re right about one thing.

There is a war on Christmas.

It’s just not being waged by Starbucks.