JESUS NEVER SAW A CHRISTMAS TREE

Common sense, and sensitivity, from Dr. Bruce Prescott:

Across the nation, Jerry Falwell and his Liberty Counsel affiliate are currently waging a "Friend or Foe" Christmas campaign in their culture war to make America a "Christian Nation."

Essentially, except for President Bush and his wife, everyone who substitutes "Happy Holidays" or "Seasons Greetings" for "Merry Christmas" has been labelled a "foe" of Christianity.

Falwell has been getting a lot of press over this campaign. It is a shame that the press doesn't know to ask him why he has abandoned the faith of his Baptist ancestors.

Early Baptists were concerned with sharing the gospel, not with preserving the culture of renamed pagan symbols or the language that merchants use to greet their customers.

The idea that naming trees either "Christmas" or "Holiday" has anything to do with making disciples would have been as foreign to the early Baptists as it is to Jesus.

The Jesus of the Bible never saw a "Christmas" tree and he never commanded anyone to make merchants greet people with a "Merry Christmas."

More good stuff on the "war against Christmas" from Dr. Bruce here. A taste:

A lot of Christians are displaying the same bigoted, prejudice and insensitive attitude toward people of other religions that they used to express toward people of different races. Worse than that is the campaign that many of these Christians are now waging to bully businesses, public schools and politicians into displaying the same insensitivity toward people of other faiths that they insist on exhibiting themselves.