I guess I haven't actually published my thoughts on Christmas here. I think I post entries on them a lot and then they don't get finished, which means they don't get published.

I'm still trying to understand why W and S aren't celebrating Christmas. Today Stephen said the bottom line is that W sees no mandate from the Lord to celebrate Jesus' birth in the Bible. There is a mandate from the Lord to remember his death. (Is there one to remember his resurrection?) But not to remember his birth.

And there's something about Christmas being all tradition and no Scripture. That's the part I haven't quite wrapped my head around. Why does it matter? What especially boggles my mind is that W sees no problem celebrating the 4th of July. I can't figure out how that's okay and Christmas isn't. I guess it must be just that he dismisses the 4th of July as entirely secular.

Stephen told me a story once. He knew a girl at a Presbyterian church who wanted to marry a nonChristian, and she wanted the pastor to marry them. The pastor was against marrying believers with nonbelievers, but he let them come talk to him about it anyway. At the end of the meeting, he said to the couple, "Well, I'll marry you. But only because I don't think either of you are believers."

I think that must be how W sees the 4th of July. It's still weird, though.

On a different, but slightly related, note, lately I've been realizing how steeped I am in Christian culture, so much so that I don't even know how to talk to people who have not been part of Christian culture. I'm not sure if that's good, bad, or neutral. I've always had a hard time being friends with people who don't share my same values. It makes me feel very threatened. That, I know, is wrong. My surety of Christianity shouldn't depend on other people agreeing with it. :/ I don't know how to fix that.

Um... I think that's enough rambling for today. There, I finally posted about these things that have been floating around in my head.

-Stephanie

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