Willem "bubba" Meiners and PublishAmerica hates Christmas and Chritianity

He may not hate Christmas and Chritianity but judging from his latest letter he doesn't respect them either. My opinion is his letter reeks of hatred for Christianity. Meiners' views are very Pagan in nature and no Christian should let a man with such vile views go near their book. Since Publishamerica posted this on their website, the company also shares these views. No coropration or officer representing it should put their personal religious or political views out there. It's really amateurish and is terrible PR as this letter demonstrates. He published this on the holiest day of the year. Surely he could have mentioned Christmas traditions or a simple Merry Christmas would have sufficed. Also Meiners thinks southern culture begins and ends with Bubba. If he knew the real meaning of Bubba he wouldn't have mentioned it in the same sentance as Jesus Christ...or maybe he would since tacky seems to be his style. It is obvious that hanging out with the low class at flea markets has rubbed off on Willie. This letter should anger and offend Christians. http://www.publishamerica.net/ceo122412.html Letter from PublishAmerica's CEO: What they didn't tell you about Christmas December 24, 2012 Good Morning: If you have one of the nation's 30 million real Christmas trees in your living room, get this: The average Christmas tree harbors approximately 30,000 bugs and insects, including fleas, lice, spiders, beetles, midges and other critters. Not to worry, most of them are invisible to the eye. But it's enough for researchers in Norway to share this with us, a country where they know a thing or two about spruces and mistletoe. Here's another one for you: There's nothing wrong with sending cards that say Merry Xmas. The Greek word for Christmas begins with a character that looks like an X. It's how the Greek write the Ch sound. In the 1500s Xmas was being used all over Europe, just after book printing was invented. But then the Reformation broke out, and the X was suddenly seen as a sign of disrespect. If that's what you have been taught, that Xmas is a sign of disrespect, you may drop that opinion. When St. Peter founded the Christian church in Rome, just about everyone spoke Greek. There has never been anything unusual about using the sign of the cross to spell Christ. Special advertisement, click on this cover, only $9.95 today! On that note, Christ was as much Jesus' first name as Bubba is Bill Clinton's: not at all. In the same way people in the South used to nickname every firstborn son Bubba, people around the Mediterranean nicknamed each firstborn son Christos. As you may have learned in church, it's Greek for anointed. The Greek word for ointment, balm, oil is chrisma. Christos is its adjective. It's rooted in a verb that means to rub, to spread. Our word cream comes from the same Greek root. Balm, cream, Christmas? What does the number one storyline in the Bible, the first bestseller that was ever printed, have to do with rubbing oil? Read no further if you don't have the stomach for it because what was supposedly sacred two thousand years ago we now consider gross and demeaning, if not outright hazardous. In those days, religion dictated that a man could not be the first to lay claim to his bride's body. Heaven had first dibs. The bride-to-be was expected to give herself to God before she could give herself to a mere mortal. So that's what they did, quite literally. On the day before the wedding she was escorted to the local temple where the priest or priestess introduced her to the sacred phallus. The thing was made of stone, penis shaped, polished if she was lucky, of a frightening size. And, yes, it was inserted into the poor girl, amidst their chants and her wails. It was an incredibly painful way to lose one's virginity. To ease the pain as best they could, the priest would rub an oily balm on the blessed instrument first, to help to lubricate the invasion. The next day the wedding took place, and that night when husband and wife consummated their union she would, ideally, become pregnant at their first attempt, now sanctioned by God. The resulting baby, her firstborn, would enter the world through the birth canal that had been opened with the help of the ointment. And since the local word for anointed was (and still is) christos, each first baby boy was nicknamed Christ. Really, you ask, is fertility that closely associated with Christmas? Answer: you bet. Birth and rebirth is what Christmas tradition is all about, and always has been. Down to the holly, down even to the mistletoe. There was no Christmas until three centuries after Jesus' death. Early believers celebrated the heavenly death and resurrection, not the all-too-physical birth. But when they finally picked the week of winter solstice, when daylight starts to increase, to celebrate that the divine child first saw the light of day, they added one symbol after another to ritualize the condition that's essential to every birth: fertility. Holly, with its red berries, was an obvious choice. Only later, when purists protested the sexual implication, people insisted that holly became a Christmas staple because of its pointed, thorny leaves (Christ's crown of thorns), and that the berries symbolized his drops of blood. Not true. Originally the blood-red berries signified a woman's menstrual blood, a not-so-subtle reference to her fertility. Decorating your house with holly, that was like praying for good luck and a large family back when having many children (= cheap labor) was vital for your survival if you lived long enough to grow old. Mistletoe: similar background. Disregard that it's a parasite. What counts is that it penetrates a tree like sperm penetrates an egg, that its drops are sticky, and that they're an opaque white. Young couples started hanging mistletoe wreaths in their homes at Christmas time for one reason only: so that they would stand below another not-so-subtle symbol of male fertility, embrace, and root for Heaven to precipitate and bless a pregnancy. The first ones to introduce this ritual to Christianity: the Norse folks from what's now Norway. Don't be surprised that their scientists research all things Christmas. Spruces may be cut freely there and exported to all around the world, bugs and all. But the first species they protected by law was the mistletoe. I wish you a wonderful Christmas. The more you know about a holiday, the more reason you have to celebrate it. The first time I wrote about this subject was 15 or so years ago when a European edition of Penthouse magazine asked me to pen a monthly column about the mythology of men and fertility. Most people are surprised to learn how much of what they take at face value in their daily lives was originally inspired by man's urgent desire to generate healthy, plentiful offspring. Who would've thought. Christmas? Holly and mistletoe, that's kind of cute even today. But bridal mutilation? Surely we have thrown symbols of the more ugly traditions overboard, have we? Think again. The reason we burn candles at Christmas is not that they spread light in the dark. Anything that burns can light up the dark. The sole reason we burn candles is their shape. It's why we put them on birthday cakes. It's why they are synonym with Christmas (and in my childhood still adorned our Christmas tree). Two thousand years later your Christmas candle is still a direct descendant of that very same stone tool in the temple, on wedding's eve. The priest's utensil that, covered with an ointment to make the experience not more excruciating than it already was, gave every firstborn son the adjective Christ = facilitated by that lubricant. That's what your candle tells you. And the mass by which we celebrate this whole beautiful mystery of fertility and birth, is therefore named Christmas. I invite you to talk back to me. I don't guarantee a response, but I do guarantee that we listen. You can reach me by email at ceoletter@publishamerica.com. In the subject line write Attn. Willem. Have a wonderful day! --Willem Meiners