Pastor Ryan Gaffney

The other day as I was perusing the small Bible section of my large Christian Books and (Especially) Gifts Store I happened upon a tome that arrested my attention.

It was plain and unadorned. A simple red book with the title and nothing else. I was immediately offended by the cover, because it was politically correct, and didn’t say anything anyone should be offended by. And even though it was November 8th a mere 46 days until Christmas, there was no hint of green, no holly, no nativity scene. Nothing like anything else in the store.

If you are a good Christian like me, You know that between All Saints Day and Epiphany, everything in the world has to be red and green and make explicit reference to Christmas by name. It does not matter if it is at church, or in government or at the tire shop, if anyone does not say “Merry Christmas” to you it is persecution. It says so in the Bible.

But it doesn’t say so in THIS Bible.

I bought it. And I immediately took it home and read it cover to cover, because I feared that this would be a dangerous book that would hurt the fragile consumerist faith of younger weaker disciples. And I found to my horror that all my fears were confirmed. This abominable politically correct translation of the once-holy-scriptures has scrubbed any reference of the word “Christmas”, from it’s pages.

And Jesus, who Real Christians like me know, would always greet everyone he met for a third of the year with either “Merry Christmas” or “Happy Birthday Me” does not breathe a word about his birthday, in four gospels full of plain, offensively inoffensive, red text.

This plain red Bible makes no mention of Easter either, or Veteran’s Day, or any other Proper Church Holiday but other “Happy Holidays” and feast days are all over this book. Just none of the right ones. That’s why I call it the Holiday Bible. It mentions Sabbath, and Passover, The Day of Atonement,. There is a holiday for tents, a holiday for trumpets, a Feminist holiday for a politician I’d never heard of named “Esther” and  nothing but a footnote for Christmas among this multicultural postmodern jumble of Hippie Parties.

There are one thousand one hundred and eighty nine chapters in this book (I counted). Only one of them gives any hint of glory to the Lord of all the earth in the way everyone is required to by telling the story of a baby who was born in a manger. It’s in Luke 2. And even that chapter leaves out most of the important stuff.

The Red Book I looked at was a NIV “New International Version” but the corruption had somehow spread to every Bible on that little shelf. No “Merry Christmas” could be found on any of them except on the packaging.

I fell down and wept. I looked and looked through tear soaked eyes, but my blessed Christmas was nowhere to be found. No shopping advice, no Christmas trees. Just pages and pages of ways to do justice and give and receive mercy. They even got to Granny! I called her and checked our KJV Family bible from 1611. I could not believe my eyes.

As I drowned my sorrows in a delicious Triple Venti Starbucks™ Gingerbread Latte with extra sprinkles. I realized that my enemies had won. Sure, I had lied to them about my name to get them to say “Merry Christmas” when they gave me the cup, but one person can only lie, and shop, and manipulate so much to get something done.

It looks like whoever is responsible this crazy red book is going to have their way in society after all.