This holiday season brings an extra reason to be joyful: A recent poll found that Americans’ belief in the existence of a “War on Christmas” has fallen dramatically since 2022, to 23%. Peace on earth and mercy mild!
Maybe waging a two-decade war over the Prince of Peace with imaginary grinches has finally grown wearisome.
The idea that there’s a war against Christmas has never been about the ability to practice Christianity, only the fear that America is under siege by secular liberals and their allies among Jews, Muslims and people of other faiths. It is based on the claim that saying “Merry Christmas” rather than “Happy Holidays” is culturally verboten, rather than a well-intentioned (one might even say Christian) effort at inclusive grace.
The tragedy of making up a forever war on Christmas to score political points isn’t that it’s been needlessly divisive. It’s that so many Christians spent so much time confusing a greeting with the gospel. In taking aim at secularization, they trained their fire on the most superficial and meaningless target, rather than the big prize: infusing the Christmas season with more of Christ’s spirit, in the face of the avalanche of commercialism that overwhelms it.
The work of rescuing Christianity from partisan warriors is captured in an inspiring new book, “Your Jesus Is Too American.” Its author, Steve Bezner, is the pastor of a large evangelical church in Houston, Texas, which I visited recently on a cross-country RV trip.