{"id":299,"date":"2008-11-24T06:12:00","date_gmt":"2008-11-24T06:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/omeoflittlefaith\/2008\/11\/dear-christians-this-is-a-bad-idea.html"},"modified":"2008-11-24T06:12:00","modified_gmt":"2008-11-24T06:12:00","slug":"dear-christians-this-is-a-bad-idea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2008\/11\/dear-christians-this-is-a-bad-idea.html","title":{"rendered":"Dear Christians: This Is a Bad Idea"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/store.afa.net\/images\/PRODUCT\/medium\/10000310.gif\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"cursor: pointer;width: 400px;height: 400px\" src=\"https:\/\/store.afa.net\/images\/PRODUCT\/medium\/10000310.gif\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span>Dear Christian consumers,<\/span> Christmas light-decorating aficianados, and people from the American Family Association who come up with products that are <a href=\"https:\/\/store.afa.net\/pc-10000310-11-christmas-cross.aspx\">completely tone-deaf when it comes to American culture<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: bold\">1. Crosses are appropriate yard decorations<\/span> for those wishing to express their devotion to Jesus. Even crosses that are 5.5 feet tall.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: bold\">2. Christmas lights are appropriate yard decorations<\/span> for those wishing to participate in a holiday tradition. Even Christmas lights expressing a religious theme.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: bold\">3. Brightly lit crosses, placed in the yard, are probably NOT appropriate decorations<\/span> given our nation&#8217;s racial history. If you must buy one, please keep it out of the yard. Keep it out of your neighbor&#8217;s yard, too.<\/p>\n<p>Just a helpful holiday and\/or racial harmony tip from your friendly <span style=\"font-style: italic\">Pocket Guide<\/span> author.<\/p>\n<p>From the <a href=\"https:\/\/store.afa.net\/pc-10000310-11-christmas-cross.aspx\">&#8220;Christmas Cross&#8221; product description at the AFA online store<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12\"><\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Looking for an effective way to express your Christian faith this Christmas season to honor our Lord Jesus? Now you can&#8230;. with the &#8220;Original Christmas Cross&#8221; yard decoration.   Light up your front yard, porch, patio, driveway, business, organization or church this holiday season with a stunning Christmas cross.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Yep. I&#8217;d say &#8220;stunning&#8221; is probably the right word.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dear Christian consumers, Christmas light-decorating aficianados, and people from the American Family Association who come up with products that are completely tone-deaf when it comes to American culture: 1. Crosses are appropriate yard decorations for those wishing to express their devotion to Jesus. Even crosses that are 5.5 feet tall. 2. Christmas lights are appropriate&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","category-religion"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Dear Christians: This Is a Bad Idea - O Me of Little Faith<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2008\/11\/dear-christians-this-is-a-bad-idea.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Dear Christians: This Is a Bad Idea - O Me of Little Faith\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Dear Christian consumers, Christmas light-decorating aficianados, and people from the American Family Association who come up with products that are completely tone-deaf when it comes to American culture: 1. Crosses are appropriate yard decorations for those wishing to express their devotion to Jesus. Even crosses that are 5.5 feet tall. 2. Christmas lights are appropriate&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2008\/11\/dear-christians-this-is-a-bad-idea.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"O Me of Little Faith\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-11-24T06:12:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/store.afa.net\/images\/PRODUCT\/medium\/10000310.gif\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jason Boyett\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Dear Christians: This Is a Bad Idea - O Me of Little Faith","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2008\/11\/dear-christians-this-is-a-bad-idea.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Dear Christians: This Is a Bad Idea - O Me of Little Faith","og_description":"Dear Christian consumers, Christmas light-decorating aficianados, and people from the American Family Association who come up with products that are completely tone-deaf when it comes to American culture: 1. Crosses are appropriate yard decorations for those wishing to express their devotion to Jesus. Even crosses that are 5.5 feet tall. 2. Christmas lights are appropriate&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2008\/11\/dear-christians-this-is-a-bad-idea.html","og_site_name":"O Me of Little Faith","article_published_time":"2008-11-24T06:12:00+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"https:\/\/store.afa.net\/images\/PRODUCT\/medium\/10000310.gif"}],"author":"Jason Boyett","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2008\/11\/dear-christians-this-is-a-bad-idea.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2008\/11\/dear-christians-this-is-a-bad-idea.html","name":"Dear Christians: This Is a Bad Idea - O Me of Little Faith","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2008\/11\/dear-christians-this-is-a-bad-idea.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2008\/11\/dear-christians-this-is-a-bad-idea.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/store.afa.net\/images\/PRODUCT\/medium\/10000310.gif","datePublished":"2008-11-24T06:12:00+00:00","dateModified":"2008-11-24T06:12:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/#\/schema\/person\/f69eb4f788db541ff47d2f5d01cad5e7"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2008\/11\/dear-christians-this-is-a-bad-idea.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2008\/11\/dear-christians-this-is-a-bad-idea.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2008\/11\/dear-christians-this-is-a-bad-idea.html#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/store.afa.net\/images\/PRODUCT\/medium\/10000310.gif","contentUrl":"https:\/\/store.afa.net\/images\/PRODUCT\/medium\/10000310.gif"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2008\/11\/dear-christians-this-is-a-bad-idea.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Dear Christians: This Is a Bad Idea"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/","name":"O Me of Little Faith","description":"A blog by Jason Boyett about Doubt, Christianity, Culture &amp; Writing","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/#\/schema\/person\/f69eb4f788db541ff47d2f5d01cad5e7","name":"Jason Boyett","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/a5a\/a5a647d97bed4014325bf9a1fb0b6900x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/a5a\/a5a647d97bed4014325bf9a1fb0b6900x96.jpg","caption":"Jason Boyett"},"description":"Jason Boyett is a writer, speaker, and the author of several books, including O Me of Little Faith (Zondervan), and the Pocket Guide series (Jossey-Bass). His work has appeared in Salon, Paste, The Daily Beast, Relevant, and a variety of other publications. He has also appeared on the History Channel and National Geographic Channel. Jason lives in Texas with his wife and two kids. 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