We managed to finally secularize the “holidays” a couple of years ago when the major stores began banning the word “Christmas” from their advertising. Though I thought it was lame and contrived, it didn’t bother me to the point of picketing. It was no more than an outworking of a change that had already taken place in the United States, a symptom of the problem rather than the cause.

America’s new national religion is materialism. Here’s how it works. For eleven months out of the year, we try to accumulate as much money as possible in order to buy as much stuff for ourselves as possible. And then when December rolls around, we adopt the “Christmas spirit,” which is when we are supposed to turn our focus off of ourselves and buy things for other people. It’s what Christmas is all about.

Ancient cultures worldwide invented deities to represent ideas or explain events. Most of the time, the religious leaders (shamans, witch doctors, etc.) used tricks to make the people believe the gods were real. Though the leaders themselves often didn’t actually believe in the gods, but they maintained power over the people by saying the gods would reward them or punish them based on their actions. It was nothing more than fear-based behavior control.

Is Santa Claus not the god of our new religion? I worked in the toy department at Target for a couple of weeks, and it was unreal how often I heard frantic mothers trying to get their kids to quit screaming by telling them that Santa wouldn’t bring them anything for Christmas if they didn’t stop. There is a good chance those kids are going to be seriously messed up in a couple of years when they find out that Santa isn’t real and their parents were just trying to control them with a lie.

So we have a new religion with a new god. The only thing left is to delineate a religious holiday. Christians have Easter, Muslims have Ramadan, Jews have Passover. All you need to do is read a few articles in the Sunday-after-Thanksgiving paper to understand that Black Friday is materialism’s designated day of worship. This is the one day of the year when it is acceptable for a forty-five-year-old woman to completely dehumanize herself just to get that last TMX Elmo or annoying Butterscotch Pony that will entertain her niece for about a week. The Christmas spirit is about getting your loved ones what they want by whatever means necessary — it’s okay, Santa will forgive you later for punching someone who threatens to get it before you.

One last thing to present to you as evidence: this hymn I hear playing over the muzak system at work just about every day. Pay special attention to the part about prayers. That line literally sent shivers down my spine when I heard it the first time, because it couldn’t be more accurate about the condition of modern-day America.

Don’t forget about Jesus this year as you buy presents for your loved ones.