To be brutally honest, I hardly ever give this guy a passing thought.
However, he has thrust himself into the news yet again. David Grisham, the Repent Amarillo “pastor” who likes calling attention to himself, has done so in splendid fashion.
He went to Westgate Mall this past Saturday, according to the Dallas Morning News, and berated children waiting to sit on Santa’s lap. Santa Claus “doesn’t exist!” he told the children and their parents.
Really, “pastor”? Not in anyone’s heart? Not in their imagination?
Oh, no. This guy wants Christmas to be strictly, solely, exclusively about celebrating Jesus Christ’s birth. Hasn’t anyone ever informed this fellow that one can do both? I’m going to presume for a moment that when he was a child he got to sit on Santa’s lap and tell the Jolly Old Man what he wanted for Christmas.
As the Morning News article points out, Grisham has paraded himself in front of the media before. He once tried to launch a boycott against the city of Houston because voters there elected an openly gay mayor, Annise Parker; he also sought to burn a Quran, but had the copy of the Islamic holy book taken from him at the last minute at Sam Houston Park in Amarillo by a skateboarder.
No Santa Claus, eh?
Well, now is a good time to bring back the classic essay that dispels for all time the no-Santa farce. Perhaps you’ve heard of the piece that was written by Francis Pharcellus Church. It was published on Sept. 21, 1897 in the New York Sun.
http://www.newseum.org/exhibits/online/yes-virginia/
http://www.newseum.org/exhibits/online/yes-virginia/
Take that, “Pastor” Grisham!
Blogger’s Note: I refuse to refer to David Grisham as a pastor without putting quote marks around the word, as in “pastor.” To my way of thinking and to my understanding of the Bible, he is nothing of the sort.