Radical right-wing pastor Rick Scarborough used this week’s episode of his “Mixing Church and State God’s Way” podcast to warn Christian parents about the dangers of allowing their children to believe in Santa Claus.
Scarborough said that when his children were young, it was fun for them to believe in Santa, but as they got older Scarborough began to struggle with it because he knew “that sooner rather than later, I’d had to confess that we’d all been lying.”
“Here’s where I decided that I wouldn’t continue to embellish what I knew to be false,” Scarborough said. “At the very time they were reaching the age of accountability—around seven and eight years of age, when a child can be saved—they would discover that the one who had been encouraging them to believe in Jesus was the same one who lied about Santa. That pierced my heart to the core as a father.”
“Consider how many of our children walked away from their faith. And could it not be that we were planting the seeds of doubt in their young minds when we lied about Santa Claus?” he wondered. “After all, if you truly look at what we proclaim about Jesus, about the sovereignty of our Lord, and about who God is, it takes a leap of faith to believe it. If the authority figure in your life has been lying for years about a Santa Claus figure who has all the attributes of a god, how can you really trust him to be telling you the truth now about the revelation of the God-man?”
“Some interesting facts about Santa to consider,” Scarborough continued. “First, his name is spelled with the exact same letters that spell Satan. Coincidence? Perhaps, except I do not believe that anything with God is accidental or coincidental. Perhaps you’re thinking, ‘Well preacher, you’re way too uptight about this.’ Well just continue to listen and let’s think it through. Secondly, Santa is given all the attributes of God. He is omniscient; he knows everything that every child is doing. He’s omnipresent, allowing him to be in every [home] simultaneously around the world in a single night. And he’s omnipotent; there is no toy that he cannot create and provide out of thin air if he decides the child is worthy of it. The only problem with this is it’s all a lie.”
