RICHARD SANDBERG: Lighten up; it's just a red cup

Christmas movies are playing, shopping is in full swing, and the news is abuzz with the latest attempt to banish Christ from "this holiday of whose name we do not speak."

The latest aggressor is Starbucks, a corporation that had the audacity to change the design of their holiday cups to plain red. As a Christian, I would like to say that's OK because I really don't want politics and religion in my products.

I don't want Republican coffee and Democrat coffee, Christian chicken and Muslim chicken or pro-gun fajitas and anti-gun fajitas. While I don't like companies shoving an addenda down my throat, I don't need the products I buy to validate my faith or political convictions.

To Christians out there, I would gently suggest that perhaps we need to lighten up a little bit. I mean, sometimes a red cup is just a red cup. If we are not careful, we will become the proverbial "boy who cried wolf."

Eventually, our outrage and protests are ignored and just deemed as what "those Christians do" or even worse than that, rather than see the love, joy and grace of Christ in the attitudes of Christians during the Christmas season, the world may only see a group of angry and petty people who are pouting because they are no longer in the cultural majority.

Let's stop the war on the "war on Christmas" and just celebrate the joy we have in Jesus and the hope we want others to see.

RICHARD SANDBERG

Long Beach

This story was originally published November 12, 2015 at 7:22 PM with the headline "RICHARD SANDBERG: Lighten up; it's just a red cup ."