Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Xmas or Christmas: Feel free to save space

Yesterday I saw a church marquee marquee that reads, "Merry Christmas, not Merry Xmas." Now that is by no means in the same category as this "Eat me Jesus Hater's Trollcat (that's seriously what the picture is called!). But I have recently noticed a bit of confusion on the origin of Xmas from a number of well meaning Christians. Or I should I write "Xians" to save space? I can.

In fact that's what I did on my resume to save space. During one of my interviews, one woman actually asked me why I put on my resume "Xmas" instead of "Christmas" to refer to my "Xmas Outreach parties" that we hosted at our house.

Now I found it incredibly counter-intuitive (to put it nicely) to think I was embarrassed to put Jesus name when it was He who our youth would be proclaiming during the gospel presentations! Needless to say, all doubt was removed in regards to my desire to not work for this church.

I explained to her that "Xmas" saved space on a one page resume, and that "X" is the first letter in "Christ" in the Greek spelling of it. Here's a helpful explanation by R.C. Sproul of why you may with good conscience write "Xmas" to save space on a resume or Xmas card. It is not dishonoring to Jesus in the least.

So please don't put "Xmas" in the same category of the I-don't-want-to-offend-anyone-"Happy Holidays"-even-when-Hanakah-is-over category.

On a side note, Good Morning America introduced the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir this morning as singing a "Holiday Medley." The beautiful irony of it all was that "Holiday" was said not to offend anyone, yet the choir sang nothing but Xmas carols, and concluded with a singing something to effect of "I'm not ashamed to proclaim His name...Jesus, there is no other..." I love irony!

1 comment:

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