A pastor in Amarillo, Texas, was attacked by a parent for playing the Grinch outside a local grade school.
David Grisham, who calls himself a member of a “small group of street preachers who take the Gospel to those who will not step into a church,” donned a Dr. Seuss “The Grinch” costume and stood outside Sleepy Hollow Elementary School, holding a sign telling kids that Santa isn’t real.
“Santa is Fake Jesus is Real,” the sign read, according to KVII-TV.
Neither the parents arriving to pick up their young children, nor the school administrations, though, appreciated his message attacking Christmas.
According to video recorded by Grisham, one father of a Sleepy Hollow school child crossed the street and tore the preacher’s sign out of his hands and threw it on the ground.
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Another parent told the station that Grisham “shouldn’t be pushing his agenda any people’s kids.”
Parents called the Amarillo Police Department on Grisham, but officers did not make an arrest.
A department spokesman said that Grisham was standing legally on a sidewalk across the street from the school and was breaking no laws, so they had no cause to detain him.
Should Christians tell their children the truth about Santa Claus?
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A KVII news crew confronted the street preacher and asked him if he understood why some parents would be angry at him for ruining Christmas, but his reply was defiant.
“I understand why they’re upset,” he said, adding, “They’re upset because they’re prideful and don’t want to admit that lying to their child is wrong in spite of what God’s word says.”
“They’re more concerned with the traditions of men rather than the truth. And they double down on the lie because of pride, and they are angry because they want to blame the person telling the truth than the one who told the lie that prompted the truth to expose the lie,” he exclaimed.
“They don’t want to be seen as a liar in the eyes of their child,” Grisham said of Christmas tradition.
He concluded, saying, “But the facts say they are.”
The reporter went on to ask why he felt the need to ruin the “magic” of Christmas for little children.
“I’m not concerned about the ‘magic’ of Christmas but the miracle of Christmas in the virgin birth of Jesus Christ,” Grisham retorted.
Sleepy Hollow Principal Kelsey Williams told parents that Grisham’s intrusion was “unwanted and uninvited.”
“I’m saddened by the fact that some of our kiddos and families were frightened because of him,” the principal said.
The man that Santa Claus is based on was a real person, of course. KVII noted that Saint Nicholas of Myra, the patron saint of children, lived from 270-343 AD.
