The meaning of "Christmas"

[CountDeMoney]

I think we can recognize Lutherans, Presbyterians and Anglicans are far superior to Baptists, Pentecostals, Nazarene and etc ilk.

:nods head in papist agreement:

[CountDeMoney]

Not taking the bait.

Speaking of bait, feed your snake yet this week? NYUK NYUK NYUK

[Admiral Yi]

If Protestant ministers started wearing attractive dresses do you think the Pope would change his mind?

[derspiess]

If Protestant ministers started wearing attractive dresses do you think the Pope would change his mind?

I would agree with the contention that some denominations' clergy are more professional and educated than others. I'd put Methodist and Lutheran up at the top.

[Caliga]

I come from a family of Lutherans (Dad's family) and Methodists (Mom's family).

[Neil]

The difference between Unitarian Universalism and Protestantism is one of degree, not kind.

I disagree.  Protestantism strives to be a meaningful religion, wheras Unitarian Universalism strives to be hippie bullshit.

[OttoVonBismarck]

America makes it complicated Yi, but yes a "professionally ordained clergy" is part of what I use to rank one Protestant Church above another.

On some extremes, Assembly of God and many Baptist churches basically anyone can be hired as preacher as the individual churches are really basically independent. Further, these denominations have a high incidence of what I would call "degree mill seminaries", seminaries that I do not feel are academically or theologically rigorous and that any baboon could get through.

The Anglicans on the other hand have both professional training and centralized control of their clergy, which makes them quite professional in my mind.

The Presbyterians have professional training and a degree of centralization of ministerial control. But the central Presbyterian body in the United States doesn't actually have clergy-level control, instead individual "Presbyteries" are in charge of ordination and assigning/removing from congregations (a Presbytery is IIRC similar in size to a diocese.)

Lutherans are more complicated. The main group of Lutherans in the U.S. has a professional priesthood but individual clergy are selected on a congregation by congregation level through differing methods (some use open election by the parishioners, some have a committee etc.) But the central Lutheran body runs all the seminaries so there is a degree of centralized control of education at least. But where Lutheranism gets a little dicey here is there are splinter Lutheran groups from the main group here in America and some of them are quite simply what I would consider a type of fundamentalist Christian and thus I wouldn't look on them as favorably as the other Lutherans.

[Admiral Yi]

   I was getting all geared up for a smack down.

Coincidentally I was talking to a bar buddy of mine last week, and we ended up on Lutheran wacky splinter groups.  I had always thought that Lutherans were the whitest of white bread denominations, but he said his family (he's from South Dakota) used to host little mini-revival/culty kinds of deals.  The way he described it it was clearly more than your plain vanilla bible study group.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Yeah, back in the 80s if you remember Cheers Woody was marrying the daughter of a super-rich family. Woody reveals to Sam one day a problem has arisen in their potential marriage:

Sam: "Hey, what happened?"

Woody: "Kelly and I found out we're from different religions."

Frasier: "I thought Kelly and you were both Lutheran."

Woody: "Oh, well, that's what I thought. It turns out she's the Lutheran Church of America, I'm Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod. But if we had children we'd have half-breeds."

Interestingly, the LCA is mainline and the Missouri Synod is one of those Fundie splinter groups. Which fits in exactly with Woody's characterization on the show.

Edit to add: Missouri Synod is more conservative at least, but they aren't one of the true crazy Lutheran groups. I think a lot of the crazier splinter groups actually split off of the Missouri Synod when the LCMS decided to become a bit more progressive and have friendlier associations with the more liberal Lutherans.

[Josquius]

there should be more of a movement to take it back to its yule roots.
despite there being no religious aspect at all in my family its still a special day when youre meant to see yoiur family

[Neil]

Why?  Most of the people who celebrate Yule are douchebags, whereas most of the good things in our society come from Christians.

[Barrister]

Definitely...the Pope basically said recently that Protestants do not have true church because they do not have a true priesthood nor do they have proper sacraments. Basically he views them as ecclesial communities of Christian lay people operating without proper guidance. In the same declaration he stated Orthodox had true priesthood/sacrament but suffered an imperfection in that they didn't properly acknowledge the authority of the successor to Peter.

I think that's a fair assessment. The only church I can even see having a real beef with that is the Anglicans and Lutherans, who to my mind have what I'd consider a professional priesthood and true sacraments.

I think we can recognize Lutherans, Presbyterians and Anglicans are far superior to Baptists, Pentecostals, Nazarene and etc ilk.

Pretty words, but you're still going to burn in hell for following the Nazi Antichrist of Rome.

[merithyn]

To re-address the core of the subject of the thread if not actually what the question was in the first post, Christmas has two meanings.

It's a day of obligation to me, and an important (second most important) holy day on the liturgical calendar. But almost everything else is unrelated to that, and is instead related to a modern, secular celebration that has very little to do with the Holy Day, at least to me as a Christian. I don't particularly know or care why non-Christians think the secular Christmas is intrinsically Christian, because it isn't. But I see no real problem with calling it Christmas since that's basically what everyone does.

Thank you for your opinion. It won't change mine, but I appreciate you spelling out your own.

[merithyn]

I don't like what I perceive to be semi-strawmanning going on here. I do not believe a single person in this thread has tried to tell anyone how to celebrate or not celebrate anything. Nor have I at least said you have to call anything a specific thing. All I have said is it's simply immature to be annoyed by the overwhelming majority in a society celebrating a cultural tradition. I can and have celebrated cultural traditions around the world that are rooted in beliefs I do not hold.

Well, when it annoys me, I'll be sure not to tell you so that you don't think that I'm immature. It would be a travesty for that to happen.

[dps]

I'm not implying that she's standing in the middle of Times Square shouting I AM NOT A CHRISTIAN I DO NOT CELEBRATE CHRISTMAS I CELEBRATE YULE YOU FUCKING FUNDIES LEAVE ME THE HELL ALONE

What I am saying is that her response to some people complaining about the de-Christianization of Christmas is disproportionate.

Which response was that? Saying that I agree that Christmas has meaning for many - myself included - and therefore, I prefer not to use that term for my own celebrations? That's disproportionate to... what? How should I handle this? Just go along, even though it goes against my own, personal understanding? Why? Because it's easier for... who? How does it affect anyone other than me? 

*BTW, I just learned that if you hit tab in the middle of a post, your incomplete post gets posted.

Good to know.

Has grumbler hijacked your account?  'Cause it seems to me that you're arguing semantics.  Modern Christmas in America (OK, not just in  America) is a commercialized, secularized holiday--that's a fact.  That it has a spiritual meaning above and beyond that to many people doesn't change that fact.  You want to call it something else, fine, but don't expect other people to change their terminolgy to match your preconceptions, or agree that your terminology makes better sense.