By Warren Smith

COMMENTARY--In his farewell address to the nation, Dwight Eisenhower gave a speech that became famous because it used the expression “Military Industrial Complex.” In it, Eisenhower warned of great danger if the military preparedness of our nation came to be seen as a mere “market” for private industrial interests. Eisenhower feared we would expand our military and the size of our government for all the wrong reasons. Eisenhower viewed the relationship between the military and industry as not merely symbiotic, but parasitic and pathological.

I use this historical example so that it might be easier to see a similar pathological relationship emerging between the Christian retail industry and the Christian church, what I call the Christian-Industrial Complex.

Examples of the Christian-Industrial Complex are easy to see. The Women of Faith conferences, for example, rake in more than $50-million per year and are part of a for-profit, publicly traded company. The Christian retail industry topped $4.5-billion last year. (A bit of context: $30 per month can support many pastors in developing countries. That means that Americans spend enough annually on "Jesus Junk" to support 250-thousand Third World pastors -- for 50 years!)

Another example that played out last month is the controversy over the usage of the greeting “Merry Christmas” instead of the greeting “Happy Holidays.”

Beginning in the 1990s, some conservative Christian groups have decided that the use of the phrase “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas” is a defeat of Christian values by the forces of political correctness. These groups include but are not limited to the Mississippi-based American Family Association and the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), a Christian legal aid group.

If you ask me, Christmas needs reforming, not defending. Indeed, the early church did not celebrate Christmas largely because they rightly predicted it would become what it has become, a materialistic bacchanal. In the 17th century, the Puritans attempted to eliminate the observance of Christmas altogether, believing it an unholy combination of the pagan and the “popish,” and because it resulted in much public drunkenness. For these reasons, in some New England towns, the observance of Christmas was actually prohibited by law. Indeed, such was America’s relationship with Christmas that Congress regularly met on December 25 until the 1850s.

Most historians attribute the rise in popularity of Christmas to Charles Dickens, who was no advocate of biblical Christianity. The celebration of Christmas was almost non-existent in America when Dickens – already the best known writer in the world -- wrote “A Christmas Carol,” one of his most popular stories. But Dickens wrote the story more out of an impulse toward social reform than out of any desire to promote Christianity.

This forgotten history of Christmas makes the current defense of it seem almost ridiculous. It’s hard to imagine humble Mary and Joseph being at all comfortable with what Christmas has become, let alone the carpenter from Nazareth, whose only real fit of anger was displayed by the overturning of the moneychangers in the temple. In fact, you could make a case that the Christian response to the December 25 holiday would be to keep Jesus as far away from it as possible!

So what possible purpose could be served by “keeping Christ in Christmas” when Christmas is what it is? The answer is money. The Mississippi-based American Family Association says it has sold more than 500,000 buttons and 125,000 bumper stickers bearing the slogan ‘Merry Christmas: It's Worth Saying.” The Alliance Defense Fund said it sold “about 20,000 ‘Christmas packs.’” The packs, available for a suggested $29 donation, include a three-page legal memo and two lapel pins.” You can do your own math on this one.

This story goes beyond the ridiculous to the surreal when you learn that the groups also publish a “naughty and nice” list that identifies major retailers that use the words “Merry Christmas” in their Christmas advertising as “nice” and those that use “Happy Holidays” as “naughty” – as if identifying Jesus with the worst aspects of the season’s materialism is something to be celebrated.

It’s no surprise that it also made these groups an easy target for its enemies. “It’s just a fund-raising scam,” said the Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State. “And it’s a scam in the worst sense – it’s fighting something that doesn’t even exist.”

I am no fan of Americans United, and normally I’m on the same side as the AFA and the ADF. But Barry Lynn got this one right. This is one more example of the Christian-Industrial Complex at work. I do not want the politically correct thought police telling me I must say “Happy Holidays” instead “Merry Christmas.” But neither do I want the titans of the Christian-Industrial Complex telling me I must send them money so they can fight battles that are either not worth fighting, or that put us on the wrong side of the true Gospel message.

I pray that God would deliver us from both evils.

Warren Smith is the publisher of The Charlotte World. He can be reached at warren.smith@thecharlotteworld.com