Does Christmas really need to be "saved"?

On a side note - apparently on IMDB it ranks as the worst movie of all time...lol

IMDb Bottom 100 - IMDb

EZoolander said:

On a side note - apparently on IMDB it ranks as the worst movie of all time...lol

IMDb Bottom 100 - IMDb

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KC (and followers) will probably just chalk that up as evidence for how badly the world needed the movie (yet rejected it). A battle for who is delusional

Another thought: I think KC has Martin Luther to blame for so many "Pagan" influences....but, oddly, it seemed to be out of his obsession (Martin Luther's) to rid the culture of honoring saints like Saint Nicholas. I thought this was unusual reasoning:

When Luther created the Protestant church, he realized it would be necessary to wean German children off of St. Nick, so he created Krist Kindle, the winged Christ cherub, who also flew and brought gifts to good children ~ but which instead focused the celebration around Christ.

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How does a mythical "winged cherub" focus more on the celebration around Christ than an actual human that is living out compassion?

What I don't understand is......how does the love and goodness of humans *rival* Christ? Isn't that a demonstration of God? Isn't *that* what humans that follow Christ *supposed to do* (stand out--and be honored-- because of their love)?

Oh, but everything worldly and with respect to man is inherently wicked, don't ya know? Even at his most righteous, like giving a gift to a child out of selfless love, helping an old lady across the street, self sacrificing for one's family, etc...your action is nothing but a filthy rag.

A menstrual rag, even.

Because ya know, God finds the whole menses thing just filthy.

EZoolander said:

Oh, but everything worldly and with respect to man is inherently wicked, don't ya know? Even at his most righteous, like giving a gift to a child out of selfless love, helping an old lady across the street, self sacrificing for one's family, etc...your action is nothing but a filthy rag.

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Oh, yeah! *That* mindset. That kinda sucks the joy right out of everything......doesn't it? At least that's my opinion.

EZoolander said:

Because ya know, God finds the whole menses thing just filthy.

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I kinda love what Ann Voskamp wrote about Christ's birth. It puts all that into an interesting perspective (I think):

Our God who formed and delivered the heavens, He waited--patient like an embryo in a womb & delivered Himself to free all humanity

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I was raised/taught about things in a Lutheran church (WELS if that means anything to anyone...lol) - and there were a number of things that drove me away from the church as a kid. A lot of it had to do with how they broached the subject of sin/man's inherent sinfulness/etc (although fairly not all...there were a number of other issues as well).

About 12-15 years ago I remember I started to feel that maybe I jumped the gun on my opinions about church - and maybe my thoughts at the time were just those of an adolescent (and I had misread things). It was around Christmas time - which was always a particularly special time to me as a kid (I remembered all the advent wreaths, the special things for Christmas at the church/etc) - and thought maybe I'd give it another shot.

So - I went to the children's service that I used to always participate in. After all - why not go to the thing that was most meaningful to me if I'm gonna re-introduce myself to the whole thing, right?

I'm sitting there in church - and they bring out these little kindergartners to do a nativity play/scene. I remember the little girl that was playing Mary got up and started doing her spiel...

"Oh, what a filthy lowly sinner I am. How can I expect to live up to the obligations that God has chosen for me?" blah blah blah.

I remember thinking "How screwed up must church be that within 5 minutes of me going, probably at my most vulnerable and willing to re-accept it, that it has alienated me once again and made me disgusted at the whole thing?" My moral compass ain't cool with telling five year old children to bemoan what "filthy sinners" they are.

Perhaps the one saving grace is that a five year old doesn't exactly understand the implications of what they're saying. They just memorized something. But - I can't help but think that the constant drilling of that into their heads must take a toll at some point.

One thing that did impress me, though, was the number of people that remembered me. lol

I mean - I stopped going when I was probably 12-13 years old. This happened when I was about 30, 31...so I hadn't stepped foot in there since I was a 6th grader, and now I was a grown man. Yet - I was shocked by how many people recognized me and came up to welcome me back after the service.

...even though I had just sat in back and kept to myself.