Lady Macbeth wrote:First of all, congrats to carneman for your group's efforts. It is wonderful to see pro-active young people out and striving to be heard.
To GhostontheNet:
I can appreciate where you're coming from]does[/b] seem like it will burn bridges with some and alienate others. And it will. There will be people who see that on the news and get all up in arms and rant to their family about "fundies" and will then go back to their mundane lives until the next news bite that ticks them off comes along.
But take it from someone who knows - fifteen minutes on the news and a few t-shirts now is well worth what might be saved in the future. Trust me - you do not want to let apathy swell until such a time as arguments over a holiday name become legal restrictions against it.
What today is people looking at you with a snide, secular contempt and dislike of minor protests will later be a serious infringement of rights and constant court and civil battles - take it from someone who knows.
But merely admitting the existence of the insulting term "fundies" opens a can of worms - they have over a period of time acquired a bad reputation, rightfully so, of jumping into all the wrong battles and ignoring the truly right ones - a state well imortalized in the Christian Goth group Dead Artist Syndrome's songs
Christian America and
The Bride Song, the latter of which I will now quote from,
Jesus I love you
But I don't understand your wife
She wears such funny make up
And she always wants to fight
Every time I turn my back
She's waiting with a knife
In a world of black and gray
She argues shades of white....
She's always burning bridges
Even ones she's standing on.....
Always hear me complain
And you're listening once more
I know everything your bride's against
But I don't know what she's for
So don't mistake my anger for bitterness and strife
Cuz on bended knees
I'm begging you please
Jesus talk to your wife
Bridges are implements that people use to cross over to the other side, usually to both ways, but without them you have an island. This is exactly the problem, here we have loud complaints against a mere public acknowledgement that people celebrate other stuff around this time on the allegation that it somehow defames the name of Yeshua to acknowledge that. I say its better to wait until some group actually steps forward to throw political power behind some kind of anti-Merry-Christmas action before campaigning against it. And to counter secularization of Christmas, a more gentle hand would suffice - write letters to stations requesting they play movies about Yeshua like The Miracle Maker, when so many songs and even Sandy Claws (too much Nightmare Before Christmas) declare the high message of "Peace on earth and good will torwards men", we would be seen working torwards the breaking of the thick spider's web of hate and opression and men vivisecting each other in the fields, when we learn to really understand and preach and enact torwards the whole of Isaiah 9:
1 But there will be no gloom for her who was in anguish. In the former time he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the latter time he has made glorious the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations.
2 The people who walked in darkness
have seen a great light;
those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness,
on them has light shined.
3You have multiplied the nation;
you have increased its joy;
they rejoice before you
as with joy at the harvest,
as they are glad when they divide the spoil.
4For the yoke of his burden,
and the staff for his shoulder,
the rod of his oppressor,
you have broken as on the day of Midian.
5For every boot of the tramping warrior in battle tumult
and every garment rolled in blood
will be burned as fuel for the fire.
6For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given;
and the government shall be upon his shoulder,
and his name shall be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
7Of the increase of his government and of peace
there will be no end,
on the throne of David and over his kingdom,
to establish it and to uphold it
with justice and with righteousness
from this time forth and forevermore.
The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this.
And, if we act to bring honor upon ourselves within the land, we need not fear negative social sanctions like laws against us.