Yes, there is a war on Christmas in America.
The Evangelicals were right.
The pulpit-pounding preachers were right.
Franklin Graham was right.
The Republicans were right.
Donald Trump was right.
Fox News was right.
The Religious Right was right.
Every single one of them was speaking gospel truth.
They’ve all been warning me for years, and I didn’t want to believe them, lest hopelessness set in—but the proof is unavoidable now and I need to confess they were right and I was wrong. I once was blind and now I see it clearly.
They told me Christianity was under attack here. It is.
They told me Jesus was being rejected. He is.
They told me a brazen mockery was being made of his birth. It is.
They told me the Gospels were being perverted. They are.
They told me decent people were being deceived. They are.
The only thing they neglected to tell me in their bombastic, sanctimonious, sky-is-falling sermonizing—was the source of the offensive.
The brutal yuletide assaults haven’t come from Atheists or Agnostics, not from Humanists or Muslims, not from coffee franchises or the Liberal Media or Progressive Christians or the mythical Woke Mob.
The very white Conservatives who’ve been loudly sounding the alarm, are the incessantly advancing hordes.
They’re the only ones warring with Christmas because they’ve forgotten their own story.
Christmas is a child of Palestinian Jewish parents desperately fleeing politically ordered genocide.
Christmas is a dark-skinned child, born amid the smell of damp straw and animal dung, because no human-worthy welcome could be found.
Christmas is a poor, itinerant, street preaching rabbi, living off the generosity of those around him.
Christmas is a compassionate caregiver, feeding and clothing and healing whoever crossed his path.
Christmas is a liberal activist fighting for the poor, condemning violence, shunning material wealth, and calling the world to live sacrificially for the common good.
The white Evangelical Church in America has no use for this Christmas. In fact, worse than that—it has open contempt for it.
Because this Christmas is antithetical to its arrogant supremacy.
This Christmas is incompatible with its rabid Christian nationalism.
This Christmas is counter to its ravenous capitalism.
This Christmas is resistant to its closed borders and erected walls.
This Christmas will not consent to its heartlessness, its callousness, its myopic America First hubris.
And this Christmas, is now hiding here in plain sight among the “least of these:”
It is the weary father of four taking refuge from ICE in a suburban church building.
It is the terrified young woman having to traverse three states to have autonomy over her own body.
It is the transgender teenager trying to feel at home within their own body, while being terrorized from without by lawmakers and preachers.
It is the Ukranian family trying to find some normalcy in the incessant assailing of their home.
It is the exhausted mother in Atlanta waiting for hours to cast her vote while being gerrymandered into silence.
It is the homeless veteran starving to death on the corners of opulent megachurches who pretend to care for the poor.
It is the grievously ill toddler whose parents have exhausted their resources trying to keep him breathing.
It is the young black man terrified during a traffic stop, because he has seen this viral body cam video a hundred times before.
It is the poor, sick, hungry, and marginalized of this nation, who exist on the razor-thin line between living and dying.
This is the Christmas these professed Christians are assailing.
And so this season, while they hide behind ceremonial religion, armed with recklessly wielded Bible verses, dressed in ornamental piety, and drenched in flowery prayers and sweet songs—these religious people wage their war on Christmas.
With every social media diatribe, every Tucker Carlson racist rant, with every piece of legislation, with every cell phone complaint to police, with every anti-immigrant, with every homophobic distortion, with every manufactured crisis, with every incendiary Sunday sermon.
White Evangelical Christianity as it is currently constructed in America cannot peaceably coexist with the Jesus of the scriptures; with the truth of the poor baby in the center of the Nativity; with the gritty, non-white, non-American reality of Christmas—which is why it is choosing to remove him.
We cannot let this happen.
We who seek to emulate Jesus and guard humanity need to speak this truth. We need to oppose their perennial act of aggression and their annual victim rhetoric.
We need to fight for the sick child, the migrant family, the transgender teenager, the homeless veteran, the young black man; because when we do, we are perpetuating the heart of the Middle Eastern child, born under duress in the place where livestock dined—the one who turned the world upside down in the name of a compassion that knew no borders and a love that had no walls.
Yes there is a war on Christmas.
The Right has chosen its side.
And so must we.
Thank you for this! You have stated this false thing called Christmas, perfectly!! People who claim being such great church goers, are 99.9+ percent are the most racist people in the world!!! Thank you!!
I’d love to see you try to back up that assessment of churchgoers. I won’t be holding my breath.
Thank You for speaking truth to power many are with you and feel the same and may God help us
Thank you for your voice and perspective…for the little I can read is very encouraging.
However, I am blind and rely on screen reading technology…and for some reason your site has never allowed me to read most of the text of your articles. I don’t know if it’s an old platform not optimized for accessibility or an anti-copy/paste measure that also suppresses voiceover, but I would really like to read your stuff in full. Any way you could fix this bug?
Thanks and God bless.
Matt- I don’t know if this helps, but I am going to try to.paste the text only in the reply and see if that helps you??
***************
Yes, there is a war on Christmas in America.
The Evangelicals were right.
The pulpit-pounding preachers were right.
Franklin Graham was right.
The Republicans were right.
Donald Trump was right.
Fox News was right.
The Religious Right was right.
Every single one of them was speaking gospel truth.
They’ve all been warning me for years, and I didn’t want to believe them, lest hopelessness set in—but the proof is unavoidable now, and I need to confess they were right and I was wrong. I once was blind and now I see it clearly.
They told me Christianity was under attack here. It is.
They told me Jesus was being rejected. He is.
They told me a brazen mockery was being made of his birth. It is.
They told me the Gospels were being perverted. They are.
They told me decent people were being deceived. They are.
The only thing they neglected to tell me in their bombastic, sanctimonious, sky-is-falling sermonizing—was the source of the offensive.
The brutal yuletide assaults haven’t come from Atheists or Agnostics, not from Humanists or Muslims, not from coffee franchises or the Liberal Media or Progressive Christians.
The very white Conservatives who’ve been loudly sounding the alarm, are the incessantly advancing hordes.
They’re the only ones warring with Christmas, because they’ve forgotten their own story.
Christmas, is a child of Palestinian Jewish parents desperately fleeing politically ordered genocide.
Christmas is a dark-skinned child, born amid the smell of damp straw and animal dung, because no human-worthy welcome could be found.
Christmas is a poor, itinerant, street preaching rabbi, living off the generosity of those around him.
Christmas is a compassionate caregiver, feeding and clothing and healing whoever crossed his path.
Christmas is a liberal activist fighting for the poor, condemning violence, shunning material wealth, and calling the world to live sacrificially for the common good.
The white Evangelical Church in America in 2018 has no use for this Christmas. In fact, worse than that—it has open contempt for it.
Because this Christmas is antithetical to its arrogant supremacy.
This Christmas is incompatible with its rabid nationalism.
This Christmas is counter to its ravenous capitalism.
This Christmas is resistant to its closed borders and erected walls.
This Christmas will not consent to its heartlessness, its callousness, its myopic America First hubris.
And this Christmas, is now hiding here in plain sight among the “least of these:”
It is the weary father of four taking refuge from ICE in a suburban church building.
It is the exhausted family sprinting toward a border amidst chaos and tear gas.
It is the transgender teenager trying to feel at home within their own body, while being terrorized by lawmakers and preachers from without.
It is the homeless veteran starving to death on the corners of its opulent megachurches.
It is the grievously ill toddler whose parents have exhausted their resources trying to keep him breathing.
It is the young black man terrified during a traffic stop, because he has seen this viral body cam video a hundred times before.
This is the Christmas these Christians are assailing—and no one else.
And so this season, while they hide behind ceremonial religion, armed with recklessly wielded Bible verses, dressed in ornamental piety, and drenched in flowery prayers and sweet songs—these religious people wage their war on Christmas; with every social media diatribe, with every piece of legislation, with every cell phone complaint to police, with every ICE raid, with every homophobic rant, with every manufactured crisis, with every incendiary Sunday sermon.
White Evangelical Christianity as it is currently constructed in America cannot peaceably coexist with the Jesus of the scriptures; with the truth of the baby in the center of the Nativity, with the gritty, off-white, non-American reality of Christmas—which is why it is choosing to remove him.
We cannot let this happen.
We who seek to emulate Jesus and guard humanity need to speak this truth. We need to oppose their perennial act of aggression and their annual victim rhetoric.
We need to fight for the sick child, the migrant family, the transgender teenager, the homeless veteran, the young black man; because when we do, we are perpetuating the heart of the Middle Eastern child, born under duress in the place where livestock dined—the one who turned the world upside down in the name of a compassion that knew no borders and a love that had no walls.
Yes there is a war on Christmas.
And we’ve chosen our side.
Matt, I am blind as well and I am having the same problem. I would love to be able to read more of John, but I can never find the actual article… Please, John, can you change the body of the article to be detectable by screen reading technology such as JAWS (Joeb Access With Speech) or Voiceover on Apple products? Thank you for considering this!
Thank you.
You are going to suffer the wrath of the Evangelical Bible thumpers. Every word you write is so true that I don’t know whether to cry or shout, “Yes!”
Peace and Love to you John Pavlovitz!
Much Truth
Yes, Jesus did come from humble roots. As an immigrant from Egypt, his family sought shelter and sustenance. If he lived today, Jesus would stand up for immigrants seeking refuge in our county, just as he had because he commanded us to love one another (John 13:34).
Those who follow Jesus and the teachings of the Bible (Evangelical Christians) are not the enemy in our country today, nor the cause of divisiveness and hatred. Your essay dangerously characterizes evangelical Christ followers as the other, being hateful, which is an oxymoron making no logical sense to those who truly understand the scriptures and teachings of Jesus (John 13:35).
My goodness Liz. “immigrant from Egypt”??? I don’t know what Scriptures you’re studying, but John Pavolitz correctly described the parents of Yehõshu’a as being Palestinian Jewish folk. As for your assertion regarding evangelicals “..follow Jesus and the teachings of the Bible..??”, I must agree with John Pavolitz in that everything – & I mean everything – which Yehõshu’a stood for (as eloquently described by him) is anathema to 99.766% (give or take a few decimal places) of evalgelicals. It has become so serious, I don’t ascribe the honour of referring to evangelucals as “Christians” any more.. !!! As Charles Haddon Spurgeon taught in the 1850s: “You may keep His (Yehōshu’a) birthday all the year round, for it were better to say he was born every day of the year than on any one, for truly in a spiritual sense he is born every day of every year in some people’s hearts, & that to us is a far weightier point than the observation of {so-called} holy days.” Spurgeon also reminded us how the likelihood Yehõshu’a was born in the Winter, least of all 25-December – is slim to none. I put it to everyone : a true Dissenting Protestant does not celebrate any Mass particularly one such as Christmas which was contrived by the church in Rome to distract the Southern Europeans from Saturnalia & the Northern Europeans from Yuletide. So, let’s drink our glõgg & celebrate around the Yule log, admiring the brightly decorated Yule tree, watching Norse god Odin on his eight-legged reindeer, accompanied by his elves, delivering gifts to the children. Merry Yule.. !!!
I suggest you listen closely to your brethren and then tell us they follow Christ and his words.
Liz, Jesus and his parents were not immigrants FROM Egypt but immigrants TO Egypt when fleeing Harrod’s massacure Of The Innocents! Jospeh and Mary lived in Nazareth and had to travel to Bethlehem for a Census and tax. They could not return to Nazareth until Harris died.
And I’m sorry, but the author was correct in his assessment of evangelicals! Thankfully, the majority of Christians are members of mainstream denominations! There really should be a way for the government to differentiate between true religions and fly by nights! The rest of the world doesn’t seem to have this problem……
Liz, just yesterday, a dear friend of mine said to me: “ they need to get off their ass and go to work or starve to death”. This person claims to be a Christian and I’ve known her for years. I was shocked and disappointed that she would say such a thing about other human beings.
Sounds like you have found the fight you have been looking for. Good luck! ❤️😢 And Merry Christmas
It is the Presidents job to secure any threat to national security. It is not the job of the president or elected officials to make sure other countries poor are taken care of with the peoples resources. That is the job of the Church. To spread the gospel and charity of Christ to all nations. If you want to help refugees ,stop guilt tripping Christian’s for wanting a secure border and join us as we go into all the world to share personally was God has given you. Lead by example.
John, I have to be honest, I am not religious and for most of my life have had little regard for most who are because of the naked hypocrisy in it all but I have to give credit where credit’s due, you speak from your heart and say things that need to be said and if that is an expression of your beliefs then more power to you. You are one of those few voices in the religious community that I follow regularly and recommend to others.
I have NEVER attended a church (and I have attended church all my life and been a Sunday School teacher for 20–in fact I taught that Jesus was NOT white or black, he was brown) that has felt this way. This is more twisting things to make Progressives feel superior and self-righteous. This is what he said and my comments in parenthesis. Christmas, is a child of Palestinian Jewish parents desperately fleeing politically ordered genocide. (Why are we, as a country, not bringing in more Christians who are facing persecution and death in so many countries right now?)
Christmas is a dark-skinned child, born amid the smell of damp straw and animal dung, because no human-worthy welcome could be found. (My deceased husband drove a Sunday School bus to minority neighborhoods and visited the children and brought them gifts and candy on Saturdays. We and others in my church were/are foster parents for abused, neglected children of ALL races)
Christmas is a poor, itinerant, street preaching rabbi, living off the generosity of those around him. (How many times have libs been annoyed by street preachers? And, wanted them to go away?)
Christmas is a compassionate caregiver, feeding and clothing and healing whoever crossed his path. (I give generously to two of those “awful” Christian charities–Salvation Army and Matthew 25–and so do many of my Christian friends.)
Christmas is a liberal activist fighting for the poor, condemning violence, shunning material wealth, and calling the world to live sacrificially for the common good. (OK, so Jesus was a liberal activist now. Since he is claiming Christ as his own–where does he go to worship him? The churches I have attended have also prepared boxes with warm clothes and food and a New Testament to give to homeless, sponsored a muslim family here in Cincinnati, fed and clothed a family living in a trailer park, and sooo much more) This statement by this author is especially maddening: The white Evangelical Church in America in 2018 has no use for this Christmas. In fact, worse than that—it has open contempt for it.
Yes John, I feel it similarly – we meet in church (really doesn’t matter what denomination or no-denomination), worship, smile, hug and yes help each other, but we are also able to embrace Trump because he claims he is Republican (thus for honesty?, faith?, family values?, financial responsibility?, and against unfaithfulness? against lies? against corruption?, etc.), we are able to be very SELFISH not allowing others to have what we have (rights and possessions – minorities, LGBT, women which aborted their child, immigrants, etc.), feeling very RIGHTEOUS, thinking we will be only the ones saved, not those Democrats, Muslims, those “illegals”, those non-believers, those tattooed, those LGBT, those divorced, those poor ones, those …. etc. It is really sad, how even Christ followers we get blinded, lost, deceived, fooled, lied to. As an immigrant family, I don’t feel welcome here anymore. It hurts and though I’m in nature optimist, I don’t see how we can get back to just being real human – compassionated, loving, non-judgmental, understanding, accepting…
Yes John, I feel it similarly – we meet in church (really doesn’t matter what denomination or no-denomination), worship, smile, hug and yes help each other, but we are also able to embrace Trump because he claims he is Republican (thus for honesty?, faith?, family values?, financial responsibility?, and against unfaithfulness? against lies? against corruption?, etc.), we are able to be very SELFISH not allowing others to have what we have (rights and possessions – minorities, LGBT, women which aborted their child, immigrants, etc.), feeling very RIGHTEOUS, thinking we will be only the ones saved, not those Democrats, Muslims, those “illegals”, those non-believers, those tattoed, those LGBT, those divorced, those poor ones, those …. etc. It is really sad, how even Christ followers we get blinded, lost, deceived, fooled, lied to. As an immigrant family, I don’t feel welcome here anymore. It hurts and though I’m in nature optimist, I don’t see how we can get back to just being real human – compassionated, loving, non-judgmental, understanding, accepting…
Ok. Jesus is the Greek version of His Jewish name. Mary and Joseph came from Nazareth. He was born in Bethlehem during a crowded holiday . rael. They were led to migrate to Egypt to escape King Herod. When the family was called out of Egypt, they went BACK HOME to ISRAEL.
The December 25th holiday was invented by Emperor Constantine ( a pagan convert) and institutionalized by other leaders later. Never required or instituted by Jesus or the Early church. In fact He was born in a different season of the year.
He also would have issue with throwing stones. AT ANYONE. Because “none are righteous, no not one. All come short of the glory of GOD” Throwing truth like stones kills the audience. Jesus gave masterful leadership to a harder task. Personal example of fearless insight based on Scripture, and compassion with backbone. He is the Way theTruth theLife. Diatribes are easy but they don’t get any real work done.
John-
Please buy a megaphone and get this out there to the masses. Your decription of the hypocrisy of the evangelicals is so accurate. It has been building for years but the level it has currently reached is now more like that of a cult. And as we all know, cults eventually fall under their own weight. We, as true followers of Jesus just need to keep tending to our own personal relationship with Jesus and calling them out for what they are- hypocrites. Thank you.
Amen and Amen as usual, Brother John!
What religion are you?
Jesus was killed by people like you.
You love to use non contextual examples of attempted “oppression” as your basis for defending the attempted secularization of the most universally celebrated holiday on the planet.
The truth, which you can’t seem to grasp, is that so long as the holiday is made safe and free from the beauty of the birth of Christ, the fun can be allowed to continue. But recognized as a religious observance of the holiday, Christmas becomes anathema to atheists and humanists, and must therefore be changed into something it is not, for the sake of the almighty diversity and inclusivity. Which is code for “non white, non religious, non European” in origin.
Quit trying to justify the attempt to subjugate the celebration by bastardizing the usage of the life and lessons of Christ to fit your social justice agenda.
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What a load of bullshit.
I agree to a point. If everything you say is true above, then there’s a whole list of things that Christmas and by extension Jesus is not that you haven’t touched upon….
Sing it, Brother! I saw a bumper sticker the other day which read: I say Merry Christmas.
They turned a message of good will into one filled with narcissistic snark. They literally ruined saying Merry Christmas.