This Season, Greetings Are at Issue

Southern church presses store workers to say 'Merry Christmas,' not 'Happy Holidays.'

By Ellen Barry, Times Staff Writer

RALEIGH, N.C. — This year, as Christmas season swung into gear, Pastor Patrick Wooden's followers fanned out to shopping malls across Raleigh to deliver a muscular message of holiday cheer: As Christian shoppers, they would like to be greeted with the phrase "Merry Christmas" — not a bland "Happy Holidays" — and stores that failed to do so would risk losing their business. Nearly six weeks later, some citizens in Raleigh are seething over what they see as an attempt to force religion into the public square....read on

The religious right wants us to believe that there's a culture war going on by the "secularists " to wipe out Jesus Christ from their lives.

The article continues:

Mark Creech of the Christian Action League of North Carolina said:"It's a cultural war. We are in the thick of it," "It's not so much an attack on us. It's an attack on Christ."

Why is the Christian based society so afraid of a non-offensive term like "Happy Holidays" that's been used for over twenty years?

Pastor Patrick Wooden says "The greater the persecution, the stronger the church."

So by creating a problem where none exists, Christian leaders are trying to strengthen their hold over their congregations, the media and politicians to bow down to their ideology or; "no gold" to the retailers and "no votes" to the politicians.