No doubt you have heard tales of the strange ways people have been sucked into the kingdom of God as they were going about their business. My brother went to India in the 70s to find Maharaji’s enlightenment, and an Indian man handed him the gospel of John on the beach. My Jewish roommate Susan was standing around Boston Commons in all her hippie weirdness and someone walked up and said, “Hey, want to meet some normal people? Suddenly, she followed. My friend Lynn was a five-year-old in Germany being read Bible stories by her mother who didn’t believe a word of it but was a highbrow intellectual who insisted on her daughter’s exposure to all Western civilization.

Now comes Christmas, and God can use that too — Allegheny County v. Greater Pittsburgh ACLU notwithstanding. Tear down the crèches and He will find another way. As Jesus told the Pharisees who tried to snuff out all Jesus hubbub, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out” (Luke 19:40).

“Hark, the herald angels sing” is part of American iconography, so they will pipe it through the mall sound system without your even asking them: “God and sinners reconciled.”

And this: “God rest ye merry gentlemen, let nothing you dismay. Remember Christ our Savior was born on Christmas day, to save us all from Satan’s power when we were gone astray.”

Someone will walk into Abercrombie and Fitch for a shirt and come out a child of God.