Joy Stephenson: Don't Dare Wish Me a Happy Holidays!

Some Christians are growing increasingly upset that their religion and their religious holidays aren't being privileged as much as they used to be in American culture. More and more are getting to the point where being wished a general "Happy Holidays" is seen as an insult while saying "Merry Christmas" has become akin to a battle cry.

Such Christians don't want to be wished well for the holidays; all they are interested in is having their religious beliefs and customs reaffirmed by strangers and businesses. I think that a person would have to be very insecure in their beliefs and religion for them to need others to remind them about their own holiday in that manner. Why else would anyone need a stranger or a for-profit business to reinforce the fact that they happen to be celebrating Christmas?

Joy Stephenson complains about how Christmas is losing some of its special status during the holiday season:

In recent years, decorating the home for Christmas holidays has become a national pastime. Many families spend hundreds of dollars and hundreds more hours making their homes remind their neighbors and passers-by that they celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ and are not in the least ashamed of that fact. Will this ultimately be outlawed?

Source: Navasota Examiner

I find it very illuminating that Joy Stephenson sees the purpose in spending hundreds of dollars and hundreds of hours on decorations is to "remind their neighbors and passers-by [i.e., complete strangers] that they celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ." Why would Christians feel a need to do that? Why would they need to shout out "Hey, look at me, I celebrate Christmas"? Why wouldn't Christians want to mark the birth of Jesus by spending money and time helping the poor rather than displaying kitsch made in Chinese sweat shops?

Then again, maybe not all Christians are like Stephenons says — I suppose some may be, but perhaps she's just projecting her own fears and insecurities onto others. Maybe she needs to spend money and time every year to remind everyone what she celebrates, but surely not all Christians do. These personal insecurities are surely a major reason for Stephenon's paranoid delusion that anyone would try to outlaw private holiday decorations.

Joe Stephenson is clearly worried about secularists banning decorations, but the only actual threat to Christmas in America has only ever come from Christians themselves. Some denominations don't celebrate Christmas at all, regarding it as little more than a dressed-up pagan holiday. In fact, Christmas was banned in some areas. The Scottish Presbyterian Church banned it in 1583 in England and James I had to reinstitute it by force of arms.

In America, the Massachusetts Bay Colony legally prohibited the celebration of Christmas for a long time and other Protestant-dominated areas generally frowned upon it. Sometimes, Christmas was dangerous: in 1706, a mob of Puritans surrounded an Anglican church in Boston hurling stones and shouting threats at the people inside who dared to celebrate the Nativity. Puritan mobs in England were also known to attack people celebrating Christmas.

In their book The Making of the Modern Christmas, J.M. Golby and A.W. Purdue examined the December issues of The Times from 1790 to 1835. Would you believe that in twenty of those forty-five years, they found no mention of Christmas? And when Christmas was mentioned, it received only the scantest of attention — nobody really cared.

Even into the late 1800's, Christmas was not a generally popular holiday, nor was it an officially recognized state holiday. It wasn't such an odd thing that Scrooge might require poor Cratchit to work on Christmas day — even the US Congress seems to have met on some Christmas days in the nineteenth century. The Christmas which Joy Stephenson seems to want to preserve is not a traditional Christian celebration but instead a relatively modern commercial one — and she doesn't even seem to know it. I wonder if she cares? I have my doubts because I question her commitment to truth and reality:

We learned a while back that any reference to Christianity is prohibited on public property. There can be no nativity scenes, no star in the east on the courthouse lawn, no shepherds, no Magi. Don't even try to put one near the city hall or on any government plot of ground. Currently, such displays can be had on your own lawn but don't count on that trend continuing.

What Joy Stephenson says here is completely false. She never "learned" that any and all references to Christianity are prohibited on public property. She might have been told this by someone who knew better or didn't care themselves, but Stephenson apparently never cared enough to research a little to learn the truth. In reality, all that's prohibited is for the government to sponsor, support, or promote religious displays and messages on public property.

Even then, religious images are still permitted so long as they are part of a larger secular display. Moreover, private religious displays are usually allowed — the government can't endorse them, but private individuals or groups can erect something like a nativity scene for the duration of the Christmas season. I have a lot of trouble believing that Joy Stephen is ignorant of all this, but completely and utterly ignorant she must be if we aren't to conclude that she is lying through her teeth.

There is little to be done about all this except take individual action. We could refuse to say “Happy Holidays” and insist on “Merry Christmas”. We could not trade with merchants who refuse to recognize the reason there is a celebration which allows them to make a lot of money each year. We could choose not to buy items which denigrate the holiday or the Christian religion. We could refuse to see the movies which make fun of our beliefs or which portray Christians as simple fools who believe in fairy tales.

Let's take a closer look at Joy Stephenson's recommendations. Christians who dislike the general "Happy Holidays" greeting and prefer the specific "Merry Christmas" greeting should refuse to address anyone in anything but the specific "Christmas" greeting — regardless of what they might celebrate. In other words, rather than "do unto others as you would have them do unto you," Stephenson wants Christians to behave in an even worse manner than what they are complaining about.

Joy Stephenson also claims that retailers who try to acknowledge the existence of multiple holidays this time of year are "denigrating" Christmas and Christians. Yes, that's right, Christians are being "denigrated" when they aren't singled out for special attention. Anyone who dares to treat non-Christians like Christians is "denigrating" people. Somehow, I suspect that exactly this attitude was behind the recent attack on Jews by Christians in New York — why else would the attack have occurred unless insecure Christians believed they were being "denigrated" because some stranger failed to say "Merry Christmas"?

At the very least, we can greet each other with “Merry Christmas” and refuse to acknowledge “Happy Holidays”. Should we meet on the street, don't you dare say “Happy Holidays” to me. Say “Merry Christmas” or silently walk on by.

So, unless you are prepared to reinforce Joy Stephenson's religious beliefs, she'd prefer that you not acknowledge her at all; if you do have the temerity to greet her improperly, she won't deign to even acknowledge your existence. That's sure a good demonstration of Christian love and grace, isn't it? I know that not all Christians are like Stephenson, but a growing number are: people who willing or even eager to demosnstrate their own inhumanity by throwing a temper tantrum whenever they or their ideology isn't specially privileged.