Path: utzoo!mnetor!tmsoft!torsqnt!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: tony@nexus.yorku.ca (Tony Wallis) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Mammon and "Christmas". Message-ID: Date: 25 Nov 89 09:21:10 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: York University Department of Computer Science Lines: 28 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu This year the "Christmas" decorations went up in a local department store in the last week of October - before Hallowe'en ! For me, that was the last straw. It is probably not necessary, in this newsgroup, to belabor the point about the crass commercialisation of Christmas. [C.S. Lewis wrote an excellent satire on the issue many years ago when he compared Christmas (the real thing) and Exmas (what is happening, by and large, in the local mall).] There are responses to this on the individual and small group level. What I suggest as a corporate Christian response is that we acknowledge that Mammon has occupied the *word* "Christmas" and let us, therefore, cease to use it. We retreat from the letters c-h-r-i-s-t-m-a-s and rejoice that we have left our flag in the form of the prefix "Christ". If the enemy secularises the name to Seasons or Holiday then let us rejoice in our enemy's honesty at least. We will not have retreated from the spirit nor the meaning. This would require us to use an alternative term for the Dec. 25 festival celibrating the birth of Christ. One obvious possibility is Christ Mass (pronounced differently from Christmas). Another is Nativity. -- Tony Wallis tony@yunexus.UUCP (York U. Toronto Canada)