Santa Claus is Coming to Town
“So long as Christians continue to focus on Santa Claus coming to town to deliver gifts rather than on the birth of their savior, they will remain part of what they see as the problem. Dispensing with, or even just limiting, the role of Santa Claus and other secular elements of Christmas probably won’t be easy, but that only demonstrates just how deeply enmeshed in secular culture Christians have become. It also reveals just how much of their own religious Christmas they have abandoned in favor of secular celebrations. In effect, the harder it is the more this shows that they need to do it if they want to claim that Christmas is religious rather than secular.”
–from the article ”Secular Santa Claus is Coming to Town: What’s so Christian about Santa Claus?” by Austin Cline
I think it’s interesting that the author of this article is actually an atheist calling into question the Christian inconsistency of celebrating the birth of their savior with a secular figure like Santa Claus as the foremost symbol of the season. While I disagree whole-heartedly with the author’s theology (or his lack thereof), I say a hearty “Amen!” to his comments about the role of Santa in truly Christian homes and religious-oriented celebrations.
~Ed
Read the entire article here: http://atheism.about.com/od/christmasholidayseason/p/SecularSanta.htm
