Posted on 12/11/2012 6:45:49 AM PST by Kaslin
Bill O'Reilly asked this question on his Fox News program last week: "Why do I have to be the leader defending Christmas against its attackers?" O'Reilly was criticizing Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Chafee's renaming his state's Christmas tree a "holiday tree."
Good question. It's time for Christians to realize that their religion is under attack, and they had better start fighting to win the war for religious liberty in public opinion, in the courts and in the schools.
The war against Christianity has been waged by the American Civil Liberties Union, the Freedom From Religion Foundation and similar groups. Their tactics use the threat of litigation, with the hope that supremacist judges will accept their reinterpretation of the First Amendment, as Americans have understood it for over two centuries.
The re-election of Barack Obama has made this issue even more pressing. Throughout his first term, he waged a persistent campaign to secularize America, to push all religion behind church doors and to ban all mention of religion from every public place, park, building, military facility, school and speech.
The public schools have become the front line in this battle to banish Christmas from celebrations, songs and events, and anti-Christmas public school rulings have been accelerating. Here are a few examples.
Pennsylvania fourth-graders were prohibited from handing out religious Christmas cards to classmates, Massachusetts ninth-graders were told they could not create Christmas cards that depict a nativity scene, a Georgia school board deleted the word "Christmas" from the school calendar, Minnesota middle school kids were disciplined for wearing red and green scarves in a Christmas skit and for ending the skit with wishing all a Merry Christmas, and dozens of schools banned Christmas carols, in favor of songs such as "Frosty the Snowman" and "Winter Wonderland".
A New Jersey second-grader was prohibited from singing the pop song "Awesome God" at an evening talent show, and a Colorado school counselor changed the words of the Pledge of Allegiance on the public-address system from "one nation under God" to "one nation under your belief system" (that was, fortunately, overturned). A Massachusetts elementary school censored God from Lee Greenwood's famous song, changing the line "God bless the U.S.A." to "We love the U.S.A."
A first-grade girl in North Carolina wrote a poem for her school's Veterans Day assembly honoring her two grandfathers who had served in the Vietnam War that included the sentences, "He prayed to God for peace. He prayed to God for strength." The school censored the word God out of the poem before the kid read it. A Texas high school ordered the football coach not to bow his head or kneel when the team said a prayer before a game.
Cranston High School West in Rhode Island banned a prayer banner that had hung on the auditorium wall for 38 years without complaint. The banner read in part: "Our Heavenly Father, Grant us each day the desire to do our best ... Help us to be good sports and smile when we lose as well as when we win. Teach us the value of true friendship. Help us always to conduct ourselves so as to bring credit to Cranston High West. Amen."
A Plano, Tex. school banned an eight-year-old from handing out candy canes with Jesus' name on them to classmates at a school holiday party, confiscated a girl's pencils because they mentioned "God" and banned an entire classroom from writing "Merry Christmas" on cards to be sent to our troops serving in the Middle East. Litigation followed the action of a Texas high school that tried to forbid cheerleaders from displaying a banner at a football game with the Bible verse: "And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us."
President Obama is a major part of the campaign to secularize America. For the fourth straight year, Obama again deleted God from his Thanksgiving Day address as he personally read it from the teleprompter into a camera.
Of course, there is nothing in the U.S. Constitution that requires this anti-Christmas nonsense. The purpose of all these actions is to mandate a religion of secularism, which is completely contrary to American history, heritage and constitutional law.
Christians had better wake up and realize the threat of the secularists to the First Amendment. Our answer to the ACLU and atheist lawyers who are trying to change America should be the favorite words of Scrooge in Charles Dickens' story, "A Christmas Carol": "Bah, humbug!"\
Including "Americans United for Separation of Church and State" (Americans United, for short) with CEO Rev. Barry Lynn who somehow still holds ministerial credentials from the United Church of Christ.
Can somebody please explain to me how attacking public Christinity is a ministry of Word and Sacrament?
Since 47% of the populace will agree with anything the left spouts, about half of our country believes the mythical “separation of church and state” is in the Constitution. The truth is, if the Founders had in any way intended that there be freedom from religion:
- the Constitutional Convention would not have opened in prayer ... every day
- church services would not have been allowed in the House of Representatives until after the Civil War
- Jefferson and Madison would not have attended those church services
- there would not be so many quotes from our Founders regarding the role of God in our founding or in the continued strength of our nation
- Congress would not have appointed chaplains for itself and the armed forces
- Congress would not have sponsored the publication of a Bible
- Congress would not have imposed Christian morality on the armed forces
- Congress would not have granted public lands to promote Christianity among the Indians
- Congress would not have declared national days of thanksgiving and of “humiliation, fasting, and prayer”
- Most states would not have required their leaders to be Christians
Our Constitution is supposed to guarantee freedom OF religion, but the leftists have turned this into (and, to a large extent, we have stood by and allowed it) freedom from religion!!!
That would be true if we worshiped the day, but we worship The Reason for the day. The day could be any one of 365 and it would still be honored by us because of what it would represent, and unbelievers would still find fault and try to obscure The Reason for the day.
O’Reilly is stuck in the pagan past; it is the Christians that are done with the christmas myth. December 25 was the birthdate of Tammuz, Jupiter, Mythra, Osiris, and Constantine.See what some here believe. Very odd. The fruits of PROTESTant heresies on full display.Yeshua was born in the fall just as all the OT prophecies said.
O’Reilly is stuck in the pagan past; it is the Christians that are done with the christmas myth. December 25 was the birthdate of Tammuz, Jupiter, Mythra, Osiris, and Constantine.See what some here believe. Very odd. The fruits of PROTESTant heresies on full display.Yeshua was born in the fall just as all the OT prophecies said.
Watching the the non-Catholic folks who play ‘Silence is Golden’ while the government methodically attacks the Catholic Church and the First Amendment, there's not much doubt that we're already close to there being only Catholic Church and pagans.
I’ve been in Australia for a couple of months now and they are not ashamed to say, or print, or put up banners with Merry Christmas. There’s even a water tower prominently stating Merry Christmas. It’s quite a pleasant change from the US’s attempts to be politically correct (or, more to the point, erase Christ from Christmas and Christianity from our society).
“..God says the day does matter...
Yes the day does matter - Jesus was born on the longest night of the year - the Light of the World came on the darkest night.
See John Chapter 1 verses 4 and 5. He was born on the pagan holiday to bring light to the pagan minds. Google 1622 painting by Gerard van Honthorst, Adoration of the Shepherds for a visual.
The true day is important.
It is part of YHVH’s plan to keep his elect ready for Yeshua’s return, so those that are deceived into disregarding the true day will be lost at the time of his return; they won’t be ready and waiting, like the foolish virgins of the parable.
The catholic church is the bulk of the pagans in the western world. They are following the pagan traditions to the hilt. Using the ancient pagan titles, Mother of god, and queen of heaven, some even baking cross cakes; I understand that they are even planning to return to eating fish on Dagon’s day (Friday).
I hope you’re joking!
Christ was born at Sukkot, as was prophecied. He was even born in the sheep fold of the passover lambs.
Please do not tarnish the great apostle John’s name by accusing him of speaking lies; they are in your own mind.
>> “In Judaism, the Tetragrammaton is the ineffable name of God, and is not pronounced.” <<
.
Yes, that is one of thousands of ways that Judaism mocks Torah, which commands that it be pronounced.
What on earth gave you that half-baked notion?
Would anyone who is really a Christian rather than a Self-Worshiper blaspheme The Holy Spirit who is the same yesterday, today, and forever, by claiming the Holy Spirit changed what it teaches as Truth?
No. No Christian would blaspheme the Holy Spirit, and yet the anti-Catholic crowd do so in numerous ways.
When such Self-Worshipers who follow Eve rather than Christ attack The One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church Jesus Christ Himself founded, they're doing so because they accept the same lie Eve accepted and from the same source.
I pity those who believe all those anti-Catholic lies and half-truths. They're under a strong delusion that teaches them to worship their own, Most High and Holy Self rather than Christ. Such folks refuse to accept clear, simple, Scripture that shows them how wrong they are and instead accept the rebellion of Core that leads to destruction.
The only lie about the catholic church is that it is Christian.
The Holy Spirit has never had anything to do with the RCC.
Mystery Babylon the Great.
>> “What on earth gave you that half-baked notion?” <<
Oh, its fully baked, its been in the oven since the 4th century.
They follow pagan oral traditions, which were thoroughly rebuked by Christ, claim that he was born on the most deeply pagan day of the calendar, celebrate Ishtar, and Dagon in place of the passover, and reject YHVH’s appointed times.
Other than that, they’re just wonderful.
The catholic church is the bulk of the pagans in the western world. They are following the pagan traditions to the hilt. Using the ancient pagan titles, Mother of god, and queen of heaven, some even baking cross cakes; I understand that they are even planning to return to eating fish on Dagon’s day (Friday).And pray tell, what sect does the poster think is the one, true church? Hmmmm? What does editor-surveyor say?
The catholic church is the bulk of the pagans in the western world. They are following the pagan traditions to the hilt. Using the ancient pagan titles, Mother of god, and queen of heaven, some even baking cross cakes; I understand that they are even planning to return to eating fish on Dagon’s day (Friday).And pray tell, what sect does the poster think is the one, true church? Hmmmm? What does editor-surveyor say?
At this point, all of the ‘sects’ consist of the Whore and her daughters.
The body of Christ has been ordered out of ‘her’ lest they partake in her punishment.
The true church has never been a part of any ‘sect.’ The true church is when and wherever two or more are gathered in his name, just as he said.
The true church has never owned anything but the fervor of its members.
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