Posted on 12/20/2016 8:05:10 AM PST by Kaslin
Where I live (near Los Angeles) you can drive for blocks without seeing a single home with Christmas lights, let alone a manger scene or some other religious decoration. And you can drive miles and see fewer than a dozen.
I grew up in Brooklyn, New York, in an area where most residents were either Italian or Jewish. So many homes had Christmas decorations that you could almost be sure that if the home wasn't decorated, a Jewish family lived in it. And while I was -- and remain -- a committed Jew, I loved -- and still love -- those decorated homes. It makes December special.
But today, December is not special in large swathes of America. Secularism has taken its toll. And the lack of color this time of the year compared to decades ago perfectly exemplifies some of its consequences.
Secularism literally and figuratively knocks color out of life.
Without God and religion there is, of course, much to enjoy in life. You can enjoy Bach without believing in God (though Bach would not have composed anything if he didn't believe in God); you can enjoy sports, books, travel and so much more.
But there is a monochromatic character to life without God and religion. And you can literally see it this month. When I compare blocks of homes without Christmas decorations to blocks filled with homes with Christmas decorations, I think of my trips to the Soviet Union and other communist countries. One of the first things that struck any visitor from the West was how gray everything looked. There was essentially no color -- just as today's decoration-free homes appear.
Secularism in the West has a deadening effect. It tends to suck the joy of life out of individuals and the larger society. It is particularly noticeable in young people. Secular kids are more likely to be jaded and cynical than kids raised in religious Christian and Jewish homes.
(Conversely, secularism has an enlivening effect in fundamentalist Muslim countries, which tend to suck the joy out of life even more so than secularism does in the West. That's one reason one can root for secularism in Iran and against secularism in the West.)
What secular joys can compare to a family putting up Christmas decorations and a Christmas tree, going to church together, singing or listening to Christmas carols and engaging in the other rituals surrounding Christmas? None.
The same question can be posed to Jews. What secular joys compare to having Shabbat meals every week with family and friends, or building a sukkah (the holiday booth) with your children for Sukkot (the Feast of Tabernacles)? None -- for adults or children.
A Christian caller on my radio show told me about his son-in-law who doesn't celebrate Christmas but does celebrate "the first snow." With all due respect, celebrating the first snow, or the winter solstice, does not bring the joy to an individual's life or a family's life that celebrating Christmas brings.
The indoctrinated -- better-known as the well-educated -- have been misled to believe that because secular government is good and theocracy is bad, secularism must be good. But it isn't.
Secularism not only knocks out joy but also destroys ultimate meaning.
Without God and religion, life is ultimately no more than random coincidence. You and I have no more meaning or purpose than puffs of clouds. The only difference is that clouds don't need to believe that they have meaning.
This lack of meaning in secular society is the reason for the development of the post-Christian isms and movements in the West. They give people meaning. Marxism, communism, fascism and Nazism -- not to mention all the nonviolent but socially destructive left-wing movements of our day -- are all secular substitutes for what religion once gave: meaning.
Secularism also destroys moral absolutes. Without God and moral revelation, morality is entirely subjective -- "What you or your society says is good is good, and what I or my society says is good is good." Is it any wonder that the most secular institution in the West, the university, is also the place of the greatest amount of moral idiocy?
Secularism also destroys art. Contemporary art museums are filled with nihilism and talent-free meaninglessness masquerading as art. And worse, they are increasingly filled with the scatological. One of the Guggenheim Museum's latest featured works is a solid-gold toilet that's usable by visitors. It's titled "America" so that one can literally urinate and defecate on America -- and feel sophisticated while doing so.
America is a society in decline because Americans have abandoned the religious foundations of their country. The colorless and joyless Christmas manifested in the increasing number of homes without Christmas decorations is a clear and dispiriting example.
Lazy, yes. And also depends on where you live. Here if you put decorations out they’re stolen. Nothing is sacred anymore.
It’s one thing to not enjoy stringing up the lights, it’s another when you humble brag that “you celebrate everyday” unlike we “secular” rubes out here. But whatever, not worth the argument.
Winter can be brutal and bleak in northern states-Christmas lights add an atmosphere of celebration to and otherwise dark and cold season. For that reason I like them. I wish we had more, but for now we have only candles in the windows and lights on the tree and railing inside.
Maybe next year I can convince my husband to put up lights on the exterior of the house. I can’t do it myself-he bought a Little Giant ladder and it’s too heavy for me to use!
Mr. Douglas, I agree, although I do celebrate because my family does. The few I’ve spent alone, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed. I also celebrate Jesus all year and am very grateful for what his coming has meant to me personally, and to humanity as a whole. But I dread December every year and just wince through the whole month. I also get much poorer! Maybe I’m just at that age (bah humbug sixties).
But I guess that that is not the point of this article. :)
I fondly remember the Christmas decorations everywhere on homes,businesses and the towns light poles in the 1960s and 1970s;then they began to slowly disappear under pressure from the ACLU and other humbugs.Cities also claimed it cost too much. Now locally, there are colorless white lights along most streets for the Winter Festival.Although the bright spots are do cities did have quite nice displays in the parks.
I couldn’t agree more. I think of that verse in the Old Testament where the Lord says, “I hate your festivals and feasts.” I do think he honors Christmas for those who acknowledge it for what it’s supposed to be, though.
People can’t see our house because we are on a hill, and we are a ways from the road. However, you can just make out the top of our house from the road. I’ve thought of surprising my wife with a lit 5 foot star to place up there. The problem is that we only get two or three cars driving by per day, if that. And one of them is the mail man.
I do think he honors Christmas for those who acknowledge it for what it’s supposed to be, though.
I agree with that. It’s why I’m in the Choir on Wednesday. :-)
New York City is one of the most pathologically secular places in the U.S., but it's really a sight to behold at Christmas time.
That would be a sweet thing to do for your wife. It might be worth it if one of those three cars had a child like my three year old in it. She gasps with delight and says “Christmas lights!” at every single decorated house we see. Every house, every time, every day.
We go to “Celebrate The Light” every year; a local family donates their large yard and the electricity for a huge drive through Christmas light display that is set to music (on the radio), on weekends they have drive in Christmas movies, and there is an ice skating rink. It’s all a fundraiser for the Salvation Army. Our daughter will probably pass out from excitement there!
Reminds me of an old cartoon from fifty five years ago. A man is on his knees in front of a Christmas decoration. he says to his wife...”To YOU they are THREE WISE MEN! To Me they are the PATRON SAINTS OF ADVERTISING!”
I never understood the need to go out in November and catch pneumonia putting up Christmas decorations, just so I could catch Pneumonia in January taking them down!
My wife loves Christmas and decorating!
There is a correlation between displays of flags and Christmas lights in our neighborhood. There have been many more flags since election day.
Now choirs I love!
With the election, I feel more hopeful.
MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!
no traditions....
Is Christmas still legal?
As a Christian, I sort of get what you're saying--Jesus should be in our lives every day.
Still, even the Bible recognizes that there are seasons. Much like our agrarian past, there's a time to reap and a time to sow.
As a Catholic, I single out some particularly special seasons and prepare for them. We don't just spring Christmas or Easter out of the blue; we prepare during Advent and Lent. The seasons don't end on Christmas or Easter either. These preparation and celebration periods lend themselves to traditions such as fasting, reconciling, and praising the Lord through song and hymns, and there's certainly a number of popular culture traditions as well.
I'm not going to tell you how to pray to, or recognize God, but for me, those traditions are not just niceties. They support the cyclical nature of us as human beings-being born, living and dying, working and resting, and so on.
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