Relax, Parents: There's No Need to Put the Christ in Christmas

By Amanda Marcotte

The Rockettes don't flash their legs to celebrate the Virgin Birth.

Photo by Stephen Lovekin/Getty Images

In our age of neurotic parenting, it should come as no surprise that irreligious parents might succumb some to the evidence-free claims of many that children must be raised in a faith tradition in order to achieve some ill-defined "values". Andrew Park at Salon has a piece up about his attempts to inject a little religion into the holiday festivities. (By "religion", he of course means "Christianity", because as concerned as he is about exposing his children to faith traditions, he isn't concerned enough to start fasting for Ramadan and teaching his children about the prophet Mohammed.) 

LIVE EACH DAY AS YOUR LAST

[God] comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. 2 Corinthians 1:4

On that fateful Sunday morning in January 1996, Joy Dimerin’s beloved fiancé, Severino Bagtasos, was killed when a lone gunman stormed into the church that he pastored and shot him twice. Severino was killed on the first day of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, in the predominantly Muslim town of Alat on Jolo Island, in southern Philippines. He had a zeal in reaching Muslims for Christ. Joy and Severino were supposed to get married in May 1997.

“By the grace of God, I am doing well and still enjoying the ministry,” testifies Joy. She admits that feelings of loneliness and emptiness were the most difficult things she faced after her beloved Severino died. “I was afraid that I wouldn’t find a godly man like him again,” confides Joy. “I learned to see God’s purpose in my life,” Joy added. “I learned to accept whatever circumstances come my way and look at them as God’s instruments in molding me and in making me a better person. Through [Severino’s] life I learned commitment to the ministry and to prayer. Through his death, I learned to always be prepared to face the Author and Finisher of my faith. Through this tragedy, I learned to live each day as though it were my last.”