Posted on 12/04/2003 10:30:05 AM PST by quidnunc
If anyone ever doubted the veracity of David Limbaugh's latest book,Persecution (How Liberals Wage the War Against Christianity), then all you have to do is see the all-out assault on the very holiday of Christmas this year. I don't know if you've noticed it or not but the word "Christmas" is being used less and less as time goes on, and I'm not only talking about public school programs. I'm talking about corporate culture and media programming. It's not just kids getting the full court anti-Christmas press but now it's each and every one of us. No matter where we look, whether it's on HGTV or ABC, you will rarely if ever, hear "Christmas" said in reference to what we celebrate the world over in December.
For a country whose Founding Fathers acknowledged the great debt owed to Christianity, and who understood that freedom of religion was a vital right for everyone, we are being systematically stripped of any Christian reference in the name of religious tolerance by the highly intolerant left. As stated in the Communist Manifesto, "Communism abolishes eternal truths, it abolishes all religion, and all morality." To accomplish that goal the leftists hooked onto and hyper inflated a hypothetical "Separation of Church and State", which is now so beloved by the professional Constitutional penumbral rights hallucinators of activist judges and the ACLU.
Now, instead of wishing everyone "Merry Christmas", we are subjected to "Season's Greetings", "Happy Holidays", and "Winter Festival" to name a few drippy, gray, generic tags dreamed up by the Take-Christ-out-of-Christmas crowd. I've actually heard the word "holiday" used without any reference to what is being celebrated.
Don't believe me? When popular FOX News host, Bill O'Reilly, recently interviewed NYC Public Advocate, Mark Green, on The O'Reilly Factor about the assault on Christmas, Green actually refused to even say "Christmas" until O'Reilly verbally bludgeoned him into saying it. Take a look at your corporation's Christmas displays or party invitations and just try to find the word "Christmas" anywhere. You'll see "holiday" this and that or maybe "Winter" so-and-so but "Christmas"? No way! How about on TV? I'd estimate that 85% of all commercials and programming are in the "Season's Greetings" vein rather than "Merry Christmas". Newspapers are no better although small, family owned shops, which purchase advertising, still speak of Christmas.
In fact, I can't remember when the very name of Christmas was so reviled. In the '50s that dreadful "Xmas" popped up but it was so blatant an assault on the name of Christ that it fell out of favor eventually. However, this did not stop the secularists. They have an agenda and Christmas has got to go right down to attacking the quasi-religious Santa Claus. Thanks to the formerly family-friendly Disney studios, which owns Miramax, Billy Bob Thornton is hammering that right jolly old elf, Santa Claus, in ugly obscenity in Bad Santa.
The most blatant example of anti-Christmas corporate advertising is Target. In their TV ad this year you see the usual frenzy of gift giving for them but without any reference to why the buying orgy is taking place. The music, lest it be identified even subliminally as a Christmas carol, is instead Toni Tennille singing, "Love will keep us together". So … what event are we celebrating? Valentine's Day?
Things are no better over in the UK either. The International Red Cross, which was founded to show Christian charity on the battlefront by the devout Henri Durant, who also founded the Young Man's Christian Association (YMCA), banned Nativity scenes and any reference to Mary, Joseph, and the Magi in their stores during the Christmas season lest they "offend" minority sensibilities. As one wag put it, "Does that mean the Red Cross is now the International Plus Sign?"
What is so sad about all this religious censorship is that nearly every aspect of Christmas has a religious meaning. This means eventually the very celebration of Christ's birth will have to be destroyed. The New York public school system is doing just that by claiming that Christ's birth never happened!
-snip-
This morning on the way to work, our local radio station was playing a commercial with "Joy to the World" in the background.
Actually, there IS something more idiotic . . . it's the bizarre use of the phrase "Turkey Day" instead of "Thanksgiving" -- as if we're engaging in some kind of pagan worship of a freakin' bird.
The weird thing is that my Jewish boss uses the term "Christmas" all the time when discussing holiday preparations for the company, sending greeting cards to clients, etc. LOL.
I have no liberal friends. If you're a liberal, you're not my friend.
What seems really stupid is that it's not like any Jews, Muslims or Atheists or whatever else are fooled by this, if they've got two brain cells to rub together...they know good and well what holiday the ad is talking about! Grrrr.
All that said, I don't have a huge problem with, say, personally wishing people a "Happy Holiday," since oftentimes Chanukah coincides with with Christmas (as it does this year).
Snidely Snidely
A clever conflation of the Greek letter chi (the first letter of "Christos") and the cross is a "blatant... assault on the name of Christ"?
Somebody needs to ease up a bit.
Last year, I suggested "Happy Birthday, Jesus!" He passed.
The following is an actual letter to the editor and was printed in yesterday's rag. Read the last line. And this from a man of the cloth.
Alaskans can help beat spears into plowshares this holiday season
Did you know that 80 percent of those killed by land mines are innocent civilians and one-third of land mine victims are children younger than 15 years of age? Today marks the sixth anniversary of the opening for signature of the 1997 International Mine Ban Treaty. By honoring this treaty, you can beat spears into plowshares and save lives of innocent victims! Currently, 150 governments have signed or acceded to the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty -- more than three-quarters of the world's nations. Forty-four governments, including that of the United States, are not a part of the treaty.
According to Pentagon records, a significant percentage of total U.S. casualties from the Vietnam conflict and the 1991 Persian Gulf War were from anti-personnel land mines. Ninety percent of those mines were originally made or laid by U.S. and South Vietnamese forces. Current reports indicate that land mines are still causing havoc throughout Iraq and Afghanistan.
Consider honoring the intent of the 1997 International Mine Ban Treaty by visiting the U.S. Campaign to Ban Land Mine Web site, www.banminesusa.org. The site represents a nationwide coalition of nearly 500 nongovernmental organizations. Since the early 1990s, the number of mine-producing countries has dropped from 59 to 14, and more than 34 million anti-personnel land mines have been destroyed.
Consider honoring this holiday season by "Beating spears into plowshares" (Micah 4:3)!
-- Dennis Holway
United Methodist minister
Anchorage
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