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Is it wrong for a Christian to dislike Christmas music?
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When Movin’ 101.1 FM suddenly switched to Christmas music, I almost collapsed. The ONE station that I can listen to for an extended amount of time all of a sudden changes its format. Those of you in St. Louis who listen(ed) to Movin’ know that it wasn’t a simple format change. They didn’t just stop playing pop music and start playing country music or rap music. No, they went further than that. They started playing Christmas music! Of all things to start playing, they play Christmas music.
I will admit that when I heard it and when I felt my total disdain for their decision to play 24 hours of Christmas music, I felt a little guilty. After all, I’m a Christian, aren’t I? Shouldn’t I enjoy Christmas music? And, even if the song is about Santa Claus and reindeer and mistletoe and such, that's still pleasant music, wholesome and nice. So why do I dislike it so, and is it sinful or a bad thing to dislike Christmas music?
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t totally dislike all of it, but Christmas music is like horseradish sauce – you only need a little bit. For you, I don’t know how much is enough, but for me, surely 24 hours of it, day in and day out for months, is overboard, overkill, and overdoing it! I turned my dial to Y-98FM (www.y98.com) immediately.
Now that my station choice had been settled, there was still that pesky part about the guilt I had for not liking Christmas music. To understand the guilt, I went back to God. The answer is always in God. He talks to us a lot in the bible. I say this frequently and I’m sure I’ll mention it many more times as I write to you more often, but the Bible is ‘a book of God’s Thoughts’. Well, I wanted to know what God thinks about the fact that I don’t like Christmas music, and should I feel guilty for not liking it.
Guilt stems from one of two places. Either The Holy Spirit is rousing our conscience because we have done something that does not align with the Word of God. It’s simple to recognize that one if you know God and know what He says because you have read His word. When you read the Bible and when you involve yourself in Christian activities, you become very sensitive to the things that ARE OF God and the things that ARE NOT OF God.
The other place guilt comes from is the devil. Remember in Revelation 12:10 (www.biblegateway.com) where we are told that the devil accuses us before God day and night. He not only accuses us before God, he also accuses us via our minds. He communicates with us without words. The devil cannot read our minds, but he makes educated guesses about how we might react to different thoughts he supplies to us. What does he get out of doing that? He wants to disturb our peace. Jesus has given us peace, but the devil wants to take away our peace and make anything God does for us ineffectual. When you know that you are not living outside of the will of God, then you have no reason to feel guilty about anything.
God isn’t upset with me because I dislike Christmas music. There is nothing in His word that says that everything that is good and wholesome, we have to like. Everything that’s good doesn’t have to be your cup of tea. God does tell us that the things we do like must be good things, but He doesn’t say we have to like everything that fits in that category. I like artichoke hearts but I do not like and will not eat peas. They’re both good.
