Posted by
Billy on Thursday, December 24, 2009 1:00:48 PM
A Christian author is encouraging believers to avoid getting caught up in the
crass commercialism that surrounds Christmas.
Millions are familiar with the poem "The Night Before Christmas,"
and several years ago, it inspired poet Jim Chapman to pen a
similar work titled "The Night After Christmas." ( Twas 'The Night After Christmas' )
"About 12 [or] 13 years ago, I ran across a statement that martyred missionary
Jim Elliot made, and apparently he felt the same way about Christmas," Chapman
explains. "He was troubled by...the commercialism and all this pressure for
gift-giving and what not, and he wrote to his then finance Elizabeth one year
and said, 'It seems to me we would all have a better attitude toward the whole
thing if someone would write a realistic poem on the night after Christmas to
counterbalance the magical effects of the imaginative night before.'"
(A number of years ago my friend Cal Thomas wrote a column and did a radio commentary in which you wrote and said it is time to take Christ out of Christmas. I believe people of faith need to get away from the Christmas culture and put our focus on Jesus. No there is nothing wrong with giving a few gifts but too often in America and the West people try to buy the love of others. Lets not forget Christmas is not about going to the mall and giving or getting lots of gifts. Christmas for us who are people of faith should be about God sending his son Jesus to die for our sins.)
