I received yet another mass email today urging me to fight “political correctness” during the holiday season by wishing everyone I know a “Merry Christmas.”  The pro-”Christ” movement has even spawned a website, called Stand for Christmas, that rates retailers by how Christmas-friendly, -negligent, or -offensive they are.

Several things bother me about the “Stand for Christmas” movement:

• If there is a more un-Christian holiday than Christmas, I would like to know what it is.  Even a casual reader of the New Testament, much less regular church-goers like the “Stand for Christmas” people, should know that Christ was concerned with assisting the less fortunate, not in assuring that people who already have too much receive even more in the way of worldly possessions.  I’m pretty sure Christ would not want His name associated with the spectacle we call Christmas.
• I do not like the implied message being sent to my Jewish and Muslim friends: We are a Christian nation; either join us or leave.  That message seems very un-Christian to me, especially given the long tradition of individuals from these faiths adding so much to America.
• The movement runs counter to basic notions of religious liberty upon which our nation was founded.  As generally understood, religious liberty means that we live and let live when it comes to religion.  If a store wants to embrace religious diversity, we should embrace the store, not punish it.
• I actually grew up in a Christian church in which a minority did not celebrate Christmas because we don’t actually know whether it is Christ’s birthday.  Is there no room for such Christians in the “Stand for Christmas” world?

As for me and my house, we stand firmly AGAINST Christmas as it is practiced by far too many American households, and we will avoid stores that attempt to use Christ as an excuse to support conspicuous consumption.

And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow, stood puzzling and puzzling how could it be so? It came without ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes or bags. And he puzzled and puzzled ’til his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before. What if Christmas, he thought, doesn’t come from a store? What if Christmas perhaps means a little bit more…

In his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” Martin Luther King wrote: “In the midst of blatant injustices inflicted upon the Negro, I have watched white churchmen stand on the sideline and merely mouth pious irrelevancies and sanctimonious trivialities.”  I wish the tax-exempt status of prosperity ministries were my only concern, but I also am concerned that the social impact of these ministries extends far beyond mouthing pious irrelevancies and sanctimonious trivialities.

Georgetown University professor and ordained minister Michael Eric Dyson recently explained the prosperity message this way: “The civil rights movement said you are responsible for your brother and sister; you ought to bring them along.  The prosperity gospel says your brother or sister is responsible for him or herself, and what they should be doing is praying right so God can bless them, too.”  In light of what they are taught, I wonder whether prosperity congregants are less likely to perform community service, support charitable causes financially, or support social services than their counterparts in other churches.  If so, the impact of their message is far from irrelevant or trivial.

Despite having grown up in a fundamentalist church, I generally am very open to and accepting of others’ religious beliefs.  But there is one set of religious leaders for whom I have no tolerance whatsoever: prosperity ministers.

Exemplified by Kenneth and Gloria Copeland, Joel Osteen, Benny Hinn, Joyce Meyer, Paula White and T. D. Jakes, these ministries teach that there’s no reason to await your heavenly reward; you can have it right here and now.  And have it right here and now they do.  ”Private airplanes and boats.  A motorcycle sent by an anonymous supporter.  Vacations in Hawaii and cruises in Alaska.  Designer handbags.  A ring of emeralds and diamonds,”  said the New York Times in a recent article on some of these prosperity ministers.

What do you have to do to earn these earthly rewards, according to the prosperity ministers?  ”Their message,” says the New York Times: “[I]f you have sufficient faith in God and the Bible AND DONATE GENEROUSLY, God will multiply your offerings a hundredfold.”  (Emphasis mine.)  And lest you forget, those donations are tax-free.

Fortunately, my favorite curmudgeon Senator Charles Grassley has started a little crusade of his own, questioning the tax-exempt status of several of these ministries.  Despite being a firm believer in freedom of religion, I hope he and others continue their efforts to expose these ministers for what they are: spiritual pickpockets.