Santa Died For Your Sins?

[Update on this story below]

In Loudoun County Santa came to town, but it is not what you think. Here is a display that appeared on the Loudon County courthouse grounds one morning. As you can see it is a skeleton dressed up like Santa hanging on a cross.

Are you offended?

I don’t like it, but my briches aren’t in a twist about it. As you can imagine, it has caused quite an uproar. According to this article, skeleton Santa was meant:

“to depict society’s materialistic obsessions and addictions and how it is killing the peace, love, joy and kindness that is supposed to be prevalent during the holiday season.”

Uh, uh, uh, not so fast. Over the years, the Christmas season has brought several controversies to this county. The article also reports:

The issue of holiday displays — which have grown increasingly eclectic in recent years, representing Atheism, Jediism and the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster alongside traditional displays — first sparked a heated debate in November 2009, when a resident-led committee decided the county should ban unattended displays outside the courthouse because of a rising number of requests to use the space.

That decision drew the anger of local residents after a rotary group’s application to place a Christmas tree on court grounds was denied. The county Board of Supervisors addressed the matter by creating a policyallowing as many as 10 groups to place displays on the courthouse grounds at any time, on a first-come, first-served basis.

My gut tells me this isn’t some social commentary on materialism. It isn’t an “Occupy the North Pole” or “Occupy Christmas” movement. There is more to this.

It is a mockery plain and simple. Yes, it is a form of protected speech, but my guess is that this is a nonreligious person (or group of people) making a statement about the Christian religion.

*yawn*

The sad thing here is that nonreligious movements usually involve mockery and destroying. Not debate. Not true social interaction and commentary. Just destroying what people value most. It is quite an irony since the main complaint from those who are nonreligious (who I have no problem with) is that religion is destructive.

Merry Christmas!

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[Update: This post was published at 6:30 AM Dec. 7th. As of this afternoon, crucified Santa has been removed. Ho! Ho! Ho!]