TX Megachurch Launches Campaign to Publicly Shame Stores Not Celebrating Christmas

Pastor Dr. Robert Jeffress is warning all retailers in the Dallas metro area that his congregation is on the lookout for "naughty" businesses who don't show outward signs of supporting Christmas -- and supporting those "nice" businesses that do.

Jeffress' 13,000-member First Baptist Church launched its "Grinch Alert" campaign Thursday, a web-based declaration of war on those who have declared war on Christmas. The pastor says his megachurch was motivated to create www.GrinchAlert.com after a number of businesses had removed Christmas trees and replaced traditional Christmas greetings with generic "holiday" language.

Gawker reports:

It all started when a local Christian radio station heard about a Southlake, TX bank that had "fallen into the trap of political correctness" and elected not to display a Christmas tree this year. They took this as a personal affront. (Martyrdom complex?) They did a broadcast shaming that bank, which relented and put a tree in its lobby.

Heartened by this success, First Baptist Pastor Robert Jeffress launched GrinchAlert.com, a catch-all message board for publicly shaming those who fail to "show outward signs of supporting Christmas."...

"I wanted to do something positive to encourage businesses to acknowledge Christmas and not bow to the strident voices of a minority who object to the holiday," Jeffress told KCBI-FM, one of the largest Christian radio stations in the country. The church is enlisting the help of the whole community in adding names of stores to the online "naughty" and "nice" lists, which the radio station pledged to read on the air each morning at 7:40 a.m. CST.

Update: Fox News reports this naughty vs. nice pressure on retailers is not limited to Texas, but seems to be a growing movement across the country: