It's December and the "Christmas Wars" have begun once again. Christmas trees are renamed "Holiday trees" and companies instruct their employees to say "Happy Holidays" in place of "Merry Christmas." Public displays of Manger scenes or tableaux come under sharp criticism. Some wags are now suggesting that the Menorah which symbolizes Hanukkah be renamed a "Holiday Candles" display.
Elected officials, cowering in confusion, are besieged by atheists demanding a place for anti-religious signage alongside displays - whether the displays bear the name "Christmas" or not. Although radio stations air traditional Christmas carols - including ones with specific Christian themes (Hark! The Herald Angels Sing!), saying or displaying anything with "Christmas" in the message is open to assault. Parents in one Arkansas school district - a few parents, that is - objected to their children being taken to see a stage performance adapted from A Charlie Brown Christmas because little Linus recounts the Christmas story. To these parents, the shcool's bringing the kids to the performance is an attempt at "coercion" of their young minds.
That is their intent. Secularists are convinced that there is no higher God than the human mind and that religion is a hoax. They are so convinced in their own rightness that they are deaf to anything contrary - much like militant Islamists are deaf to any contradiction of Sharia law. And like militant Islamists, secularists and their fellow travelers will punish any who oppose their world view until they succeed - through liberal judges in this country and through force in Islamic nations.
All of this is undertaken in a broad and biased interpretation of Establishment Clause (the First Amendment: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. - emphais mine).
Unfortunately, Christians and others of faith sit still and let this nonsense largely pass uncallenged. Like a cliff being worn away by waves, our Judeo-Christian foundations are eroded little by little. We barely notice. A regular church attender, I have yet to hear a sermon in opposition to the secularist agenda or an attempt to rouse the faithful in protest. Ministers and priests have, for the most part, decided to remain silent out of fear of being misunderstood or appearing insensitive. (Dang, I wish secularists and atheists were equally concerned about being misunderstood or appearing insensitive!)
And that's the shame (quaint word, shame; hardly ever used any longer).
Christians themselves are not immune to the core of the secularist message. As I wrote a few days back, religion - faith - is being seen increasingly as an option, a "take it or leave it" choice. And when taken, large doses of political correctness and that touch word of Progressivism, sensitivity produces faith a la carte. "I believe - but not everything that comes from the pulpit or the Bible." Secular Christianity. Christianity Light.
Sensitivity works only one way in a secular dominated culture. Christians and Jews are fair game in the eyes of secularists and atheists. We don't protest and if we do, we can easily be labeled as extremists, wing-nuts or fanatics attempting to impose our values on the rest of society.
In my sixty-eight years, I have never heard anyone or seen anyone wince when my parents, friends or I wished them a Merry Christmas. And I mean to include in that audience Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Taoists and not a few atheists. Whether they believe in Jesus Christ or not, they understood (a) that He was a man of goodness and peace in the world and (b) wishing Merry Christmas is a way of extending His message of goodness and peace.
Proclaim it loudly: Merry Christmas!
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