Christmas falls on a Sunday this year, which, in my day, would’ve meant killing two birds with one stone and only having to go to church once this week. But not in 2011, The Year of the WTF. Rather than rolling out the red carpet for Baby Jesus’s magic birthday, some churches are actually canceling or scaling back services on Sunday so that their parishoners and clergy can spend the day doing more Christmassy things like opening presents, eating, and watching Wal-Mart commercials with The Nutcracker Suite playing in the background.
Quibbling over the accuracies of when Jesus was actually born or if he ever really existed or was a bunch of guys who were all doing similar things at about the same time in the same general geographic region aside, there’s no denying that, for practicing Christians, Christmas is generally thought of as, well, a religious observance. But maybe not so much anymore.
According to a Lifeway survey, about 10% of Protestant pastors plan to cut back on or cancel church services this Sunday, due to the fact that it’s Christmas and people want to spend time with their families and honor Santa and stuff.
Who would have thought that the secularization of Christmas would be aided by the very religious folk who have been lamenting the secularization of the holiday?
And if churches aren’t really observing their own religion’s holidays anymore, can we really call them churches? Wouldn’t it be more accurate to just call them Song Singing Judgment Societies and be done with it?
No church, it’s Christmas [WaPo]