Wal-Mart brings back ‘Merry Christmas’
Wal-Mart, which recently upset some Christians over its partnerships with homosexual groups, has announced that it will use “Merry Christmas” in its stores again this year.
“We, quite frankly, have learned a lesson from last year,” Linda Blakley, a Wal-Mart spokeswoman, told USA Today. “We’re not afraid to use the term ‘Merry Christmas.’ We’ll use it early, and we’ll use it often.”
During last year’s Christmas season, several groups, including the American Family Association and the Catholic League, protested retail stores’ decisions to ban the religion-specific Merry Christmas in favor of the more general “Happy Holidays.”
So this year, Wal-Mart said it will air television ads mentioning Christmas, change the name of its seasonal decorating department back to “The Christmas Shop” instead of “The Holiday Shop,” post signs in stores counting down the days until Christmas, play Christmas carols on speakers throughout their stores, and carry about 60 percent more merchandise with the label “Christmas” rather than “holiday,” according to USA Today Nov. 8.
Time magazine examines youth ministry
Time magazine’s recent look at youth ministry in American churches concluded that, during the past 20 years or so, youth ministers have figured the way to attract teens to their groups was to package biblical content in pop-culture gimmicks. The magazine then identified what it calls a new trend in churches to offer more Bible-based truth than entertainment.
“Their conversion has been sparked by the recognition that sugarcoated Christianity, popular in the 1980s and early ’90s, has caused growing numbers of kids to turn away not just from attending youth-fellowship activities but also from practicing their faith at all,” Time said Oct. 31.
Scholars have said the spiritual drift among young Christians can be attributed to a lack of knowledge about their faith, the magazine added, and now churches are trying to “reverse the flow by focusing less on amusement and more on scripture.” As a result, Bible-based youth ministries are enjoying great success these days.
Allen Jackson, professor of youth education at New Orleans Baptist Seminary, said the Time article “doesn’t seem to allow for the notion that a healthy youth ministry is balanced between fun and intense Bible study, fellowship and mentoring, age-appropriate activity and inclusive activity.”
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