{"id":42920,"date":"2019-05-16T10:14:34","date_gmt":"2019-05-16T14:14:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/?p=42920"},"modified":"2019-05-16T10:14:34","modified_gmt":"2019-05-16T14:14:34","slug":"merry-christmas-at-the-drive-thru-yes-were-still-talking-about-that","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2019\/05\/merry-christmas-at-the-drive-thru-yes-were-still-talking-about-that.html","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;Merry Christmas&#8221; at the Drive Thru (Yes, We&#8217;re Still Talking about That)"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p>Right Wing Watch recently <a href=\"https:\/\/friendlyatheist.patheos.com\/2019\/05\/09\/this-christian-claims-no-one-said-merry-christmas-at-drive-thrus-under-obama\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\">posted a video<\/a>\u00a0by Trump-supporter Matt Couch. Here\u2019s a transcript:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>President Trump is a chosen man. And if you don\u2019t believe that, you just don\u2019t understand how things are working out in this country, in this world. You don\u2019t have to like him, but unfortunately for you, facts matter. Facts unfortunately matter.<\/p>\n<p>People say \u201cMerry Christmas\u201d now when you go through the drive-thru. That didn\u2019t happen eight years ago, folks. And, once again, if you say it did, you\u2019re a liar. I\u2019m sorry. I hate to be that mean. But if anyone tries to tell me that, eight years ago, when Barack Hussein Obama was in the middle of his eight-year run, if any of you really think that people were saying \u201cMerry Christmas,\u201d hell no, they weren\u2019t. They were not!<\/p>\n<p>And I\u2019ve noticed the last two years, it doesn\u2019t matter if I go through an Arby\u2019s or a Chick-fil-A. People are saying \u201cMerry Christmas.\u201d They weren\u2019t doing that four or five years ago. President Trump has brought that back.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I dearly hope one one is saying \u201cMerry Christmas\u201d in the drive thru right now, because it\u2019s May. And yes, it may be one of the coldest Mays in record in many parts of the country, but that doesn\u2019t make it Christmas.<\/p>\n<p>More seriously, there are two things here worth noting.<\/p>\n<p>To start with, if your top priority is having people verbally recognize your religious holiday\u2014and that\u2019s so important that you\u2019re okay with a corrupt president who imprisons children and lies repeatedly, because he\u2019ll make sure your holiday is verbally recognized\u2014I have questions about your priorities.<\/p>\n<p>This is one of the central problems with evangelicalism: priorities. Evangelicals talk a good talk about the importance of helping the poor, for instance, but when it comes to politics they care far more about banning abortion or keeping trans people out of public bathrooms. They talk about Jesus\u2019 love, then turn around and call for closing the border with Mexico and turning asylum seekers away. Whether people say \u201cMerry Christmas\u201d in the drive thru matters more than whether we have a president who tells the truth.<\/p>\n<p>The term \u201cevangelical\u201d is related to the term\u00a0<em>evangelize.\u00a0<\/em>Evangelicals are supposed to be those who spread the \u201cgood news\u201d of the gospel\u2014salvation through Jesus Christ. I don\u2019t think most evangelicals understand how very unattractive they are making that gospel. With priorities like these, who wants to stay to hear the gospel? No thank you! If your priority is whether people say \u201cMerry Christmas,\u201d I know all I need to know!<\/p>\n<p>(This is, of course, a bogus controversy. People still said \u201cMerry Christmas\u201d during the Obama years. Besides, saying \u201cHappy Holidays\u201d is not somehow disrespectful of Christmas\u2014or mutually exclusive of celebrating it.)<\/p>\n<p>Couch\u2019s words lay bare a desire for religious dominance. Consider two things. First, Couch thinks people\u2014regardless of their religious beliefs\u2014should verbally recognize his holiday, and becomes angry if they don\u2019t. Second, he thinks people should be <em>politically compelled<\/em> to verbally recognize his holiday.<\/p>\n<p>Despite this, I\u2019m still most bothered by the priorities. I mean, <em>for real.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p><b>I have a <\/b><a href=\"https:\/\/www.patreon.com\/lovejoyfeminism\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"><b>Patreon<\/b><\/a><b>! Please support my writing!<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If your top priority is having people verbally recognize your religious holiday&#8212;and that&#8217;s so important that you&#8217;re okay with a corrupt president who imprisons children and lies repeatedly, because he&#8217;ll make sure your holiday is verbally recognized&#8212;I have questions about your priorities.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Click through to read more!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":845,"featured_media":42944,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[107],"class_list":["post-42920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-evangelicalism-fundamentalism","tag-holidays"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>&quot;Merry Christmas&quot; 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