From Black Friday to Christmas we've heard news stories of shopping that have ranged from violent to charitable. From bad to worse, the notorious pepper-spraying officer gave way to the pepper-spraying Walmart shopper. The season of consumer coverage culminated with warm stories of anonymous donors paying off lay-away bills at K-Mart. As good as the story ends, I'm left disappointed that one of the holiest seasons of the Christian calendar can be so overwhelmed by American consumerism. A now secular habit of gift-giving, rooted in the narrative tradition of the three magi, seems to subsume the message of the season: that a child was born and the world will never be the same.
In my Christian Universalist tradition, that child, Jesus, reminds us that God is centered in love. That God's love is unconditional. And all are saved. That last precept has caused controversy throughout Christian circles for at least the past 200 years. It would be heard as either a joyous message or a dangerous heretical teaching. This teaching continues to remain alive, if not thriving, because many of us simply can't imagine our all-loving God condemning anyone to ever-lasting misery. We can imagine humans doing that to each other, but we just can't lay that sin upon God.
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