Posted on 12/19/2003 12:06:44 PM PST by mhking
Why Black Christians Shouldn't Celebrate Kwanzaa
By La Shawn Barber
A New Visions Commentary paper published December 2003 by The National Center for Public Policy Research, 777 North Capitol Street NE #803, Washington, D.C. 20002, 202/371-1400, Fax 202/408-7773, E-Mail Project21@nationalcenter.org, Web http://www.project21.org. Reprints permitted provided source is credited.
"Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever. Do not be carried about with various and strange doctrines." - Hebrews 13:8-9
America - the greatest country in the world - was founded on the concept of religious freedom. In America, you can be a Christian, Jew, Muslim, atheist or pagan without fear of persecution. While government cannot endorse one religion over the other, individuals can.
For decades, the media have given credence to many a self-appointed black "leader", no matter how outrageous. Now they're doing the same with a pagan ritual called Kwanzaa, a so-called African-American holiday. A made-up, anti-Christian observance, Kwanzaa is celebrated by blacks who profess Christ. In our politically correct climate, even President George Bush, a believer in Christ, feels obligated to praise this ritual.
Kwanzaa was invented in 1966 by Dr. Maulana "Ron" Karenga, a former black militant, a Marxist and a convicted felon. Claiming to have the unity of black people in mind, Karenga committed most of his crimes against blacks. Just five years after his invention of Kwanzaa, he was convicted of torturing two black women by stripping them naked, beating them with electrical cords, placing a hot iron into the mouth of one and mangling the toe of the other in a vice. During the ordeal, he forced them to drink detergent.
Observed from December 26 to January 1, this "alternative" to Christmas is based on a mixture of East African harvest rituals called first fruits - according to Karenga - and 1960s radicalism. This, by the way, is despite the fact that most ancestors of black Americans were from West Africa. Participants acknowledge their African roots and promote seven harmless-sounding principles: unity, self-determination, collective work and responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity and faith. While they sound commendable, the guiding principle behind Kwanzaa is based on race, not on faith in the one true living God and Savior - Jesus Christ.
Paganism is a "religion of nature." Those who practice it and other New Age fallacies see the divine in the created - humans, sun, moon, stars, trees - instead of the Creator. Christians who worship created beings are acting like pagans. It's that simple. Karenga and his followers worship the created - their African ancestors - in a "libation" ceremony, and believe these dead ancestors to be spiritual intercessors between humans and God. But Christians know (or should know) that only Christ is the intercessor between man and God.
Attention Christians: Kwanzaa is a made-up creed cobbled together by a man hostile to the very God you claim to worship! According to Karenga, Christianity is a myth. He does not believe in the God of the Bible. He says this about Christianity: "Belief in spooks who threaten us if we don't worship them and demand we turn over our destiny and daily lives must be categorized as spookism and condemned." He believes that the death, burial and resurrection of Christ - the whole rationale behind Christianity - is a myth.
Over the years, Karenga has altered his pagan intentions to attract more black Christians into the fold. He now claims that Kwanzaa is a time of giving "reverence to the Creator." Just what creator he refers to is unclear. Red flags should jump out at any Bible-believing Christian when someone reveres a "Creator" but denies the deity of Christ.
Christians must understand that Karenga intends Kwanzaa to be an alternative to Christmas so that blacks can celebrate themselves rather than the birth of Christ. Kwanzaa is not an innocuous celebration of black history. It attempts to spiritualize that history, replacing Christ-centered theology with pagan principles. For Christians, the only principles by which to live are found in God's word, The Holy Bible.
Pagans have argued that Christ was not born on December 25. Insignificant. While no one knows exactly when Christ was born, the fact remains that He was born. Christmas is a time for Christians to celebrate this joyous fact. Christ became a man to save men, not to lift up one race or culture in worship. As with any man-made religion, Kwanzaa is just another attempt to make gods of men. All Christians must be discerning when faced with these false doctrines.
The Fall of Man was the direct result of our determination to become gods. The pagan ritual of Kwanzaa is merely the old Lie wearing a new disguise.
# # #
La Shawn Barber, a member of the national advisory council of the African-American leadership network Project 21, is a Washington, DC-based writer. Comments may be sent to barbersview@yahoo.com.
Note: New Visions Commentaries reflect the views of their author, and not necessarily those of Project 21.
Concerning the Christmas tree, one tradition is it that it comes from St. Boniface who chopped down a large oak held sacred by the pagans to show that the oak had no power. A fir tree sprung up where the oak was felled.
The tradition of lights on the tree comes from Martin Luther.
Man, this guy makes even Mohammad look good.
Right?
Don't give me the old 'anti-semitic' threat. I stated the simple fact that Hanukkah is not nearly as theologically important to the Jews as the Christian Holy Day and Holy Season of Christmas is to Christians. And the same goes for Kwaanza. You can twist those words to fit whatever shape you chose, but they are simple facts.
Chanukah has assumed increased attention in North America only since a certain element in our society has been trying to take the CHRIST out of Christmas. You know it, I know it, and so does everyone else, including the CANADIAN JEWISH NEWS, of whom openly admits to it.
By MORTON WEINFELD The holiday season has come and gone. I am referring to Christmas, New Year's and Chanukah. It is worth reflecting on how Jews react to all three, and indeed how Canadian society has changed its attitude to them.
Christmas is not a Jewish holiday. But I can remember distinctly as a young child having some red Christmas stockings filled with small gifts.
But never a tree, unlike the 20 percent of American homes with at least one Jew in them that nowadays do have a tree. I also recall sitting on Santa's knee in Eatons department store in Montreal, cleverly passing as a non-Jew in order to get one of the cheap gifts the store would hand out.
I once attended a late night Christmas Eve mass at St. Joseph's Oratory, though not to celebrate but to gawk. My father, a Holocaust survivor who worked as an office manager, first for the Yiddish paper the Kenader Adler and then for the Lubavitch yeshiva, loved singing along with Christmas carols, as much as he did with zmirot.
But nothing could change the fact that Christmas would always be alien. And in my own home today, there are no stockings and of course no trees, but rather a heightened celebration of Chanukah. Indeed Chanukah has increased its importance in Jewish religious life far beyond its theological significance, as a direct response to the seductive challenge of Christmas. It has all the important features for a successful Jewish holiday: It is child-centred, with latkes, dreidels, candles and gifts. It celebrates a struggle for freedom, which makes it universally appealing to and easily defended for non-Jews.
It comes only once a year, albeit for eight days. It does not involve restrictions or onerous duties. As a result, more Jews in both Canada (87 percent to 77 percent) and the United States (78 percent to 64 percent) claim to light Chanukah candles than to fast on Yom Kippur!
New Year's poses difficult challenges for Jews. It is not religious, but Jews already have their own Rosh Hashanah. I know I will wish other Jews a Happy New Year on occasion, but it never sounds just right. So I try to avoid it, which also makes me feel silly. But Jews attend and host New Year's parties without a thought.
The responses of non-Jews to these holidays have been as interesting as the Jewish responses. Political correctness now reigns, and Christmas is in full retreat. Office parties and holiday cards now resound with the neutral Happy Holidays and Seasons' Greetings, with nary a Merry Christmas to be heard or seen.
No one wants to give offense, and everyone wants to be culturally sensitive. Certainly many Christian colleagues go out of their way to wish me a Happy Chanukah. Day care centres and schools now give Chanukah ( and in the United States Kwanza) almost equal time with Christmas, lest any Jews or other minorities feel offended. My dilemma is that I am not anti-religious, or anti-Christian. I feel no antagonism, no slight, when I hear a Merry Christmas directed my way by someone who does not know me, but certainly means well. No one is threatening me with forced conversion. And I make a point of wishing Christian friends and colleagues a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year unless I know they are passionate atheists.
A Jewish colleague once told me some years ago how she took offence at Air Canada staff who would wish her, and all the passengers, a Merry Christmas as they deplaned. I wonder if Air Canada has now cleaned up its act? I would never find that offensive; maybe my skin is not thin enough.
What hurts more is to see how Christians themselves have expunged Christmas, and certainly Christ and his message, from their seasonal vocabulary. This is not surprising. Christians have also abandoned their churches in record numbers in recent decades. Weekly church attendance in Canada declined from 53 percent in 1957 to 23 percent in 1990, and church membership declined from 82 percent to 29 percent in the same period. These rates of decrease are much greater than anything facing Canadian Jewry.
First Christmas and now Chanukah face the danger of over-commercialization and of having the original message of the holidays lost in an avalanche of gifts and hype. The good news is that unlike many of their Christian neighbors, Jews are not yet too inhibited to wish each other Happy Chanukah!
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