Demonizing Christmas....Has Anything Changed?

 

I wrote this post at this time last year, and I am curious my gentle readers...has anything changed? My friend Francis Porretto, whose blood pressure rises at the mention of the subject, doesn't seem to think so. The inimitable Ann Althouse points to war on Christmas Chinese style. Meanwhile, see for yourselves...

This is an outrage.

Let me say this out loud and clear: "I am a devout Christian", and whilst I am at it let me proclaim that "I am fiercely pro-Israel". So there you have it. Put that in your pipe and smoke it you rabid anti-Semites, you fanatical Islamofascists, and you militant Jew hating Holocaust deniers.

Now we have that out of the way, we can continue...

"...Attacks on Christmas dominate today's headlines – judges banning nativity scenes, retailers renaming Christmas trees "Holiday trees," schools forbidding children from singing Christmas carols and even banning the colors red and green!

It almost sounds funny, but only if you're not aware of the powerful, malevolent currents beneath the "grinch-who-stole-Christmas" stories. As WND's monthly Whistleblower reveals in its spine-straightening December issue, a lot more than Christmas is at stake – Christianity itself is being undermined and attacked with increasing frequency and venom.

In the book "Criminalizing Christianity", Whistleblower reveals the length, width and breadth of attacks on Christianity – those happening now, and those just around the corner – and not just in Communist and Islamic nations where religious persecution is rampant, but right here in the U.S.

"This has become more than a seasonal witch hunt by the ACLU," said WND Editor and founder Joseph Farah. "The attacks on Christianity in America are alarming. We are witnessing more than religious bigotry now. We are entering the early stages of what could become persecution and outright criminalization of Christianity if it is not exposed and fought vigorously by all freedom-loving people."
Perhaps the most stunning revelation in this issue of Whistleblower is the extent of the attacks on Christianity in the U.S.

"It's chillling," said WND Managing Editor David Kupelian. "Our nation's founding religion is being attacked as never before. The Constitution is being twisted out of all recognition, history is being rewritten, and Christian teachings and observances are being shut out and shut up. And while we sit around watching this helplessly, we're bequeathing a different America to our children. It's time for people to wake up."

Now, the December edition of Whistleblower gives Americans the information they need, not only to understand the problem, but to effectively fight back.

RightMarch asks: "...So what exactly is going on? As Bill O'Reilly noted on FoxNews, "There is an anti-Christian bias in this country, and it is more on display at Christmas season than any other time." It's the same attitude toward Christianity as that held by Michael Newdow, who wants to ban "In God We Trust" from our currency and "under God" from our Pledge of Allegiance.

There IS a War On Christmas. Read on and take a look at a few of the most blatant examples:

• In a press release this week, "Beyond Belief Media has formally declared war on Christmas, the December 25 holiday in which Christians celebrate the birth of the mythical figure Jesus Christ, the company announced... As its opening salvo, Beyond Belief Media has purchased advertisements this week in the New York Times, USA Today and the New Yorker magazine..." BBM president Brian Flemming stated, "Wherever the mythical figure Jesus is celebrated as if he were real, we... will undercut the idea that there is any point at all to celebrating the 'birth' of a character in a fairy tale."

• The CEO of Target stores has decided to continue to ban Salvation Army bell ringers from their 1,272 stores nationwide, costing that charity an estimated $9 million (10% of their funds raised during Christmas). Two years ago, the homosexual journal the "Washington (DC) Blade" wrote that "Gay rights groups continue to target the Salvation Army's red kettles, hoping to persuade the Christian charity organization to end its anti-gay policies"; Target has apparently submitted to their demands, also banning the mention of Christmas by employees and in its broadcast and print ads, and banning the use of "Merry Christmas" from their in-store promotions. Meanwhile, Target CEO Robert Ulrich took a bonus of $31.8 million dollars from his personal stock options last year, right before the announcement banning the Salvation Army's red kettles.

• The Rutherford Institute, a Christian law firm defending First Amendment rights, received a phone call from a Michigan parent whose daughter, a second grader, was told that she couldn't mention Jesus Christ or God during the upcoming Christmas season because it might offend someone.

• The American Civil Liberties Union is again filing dozens of lawsuits nationwide to have all Christmas displays removed from government property (for violating the so-called "separation of church and state"), even if the public displays are strictly from private citizens or groups.

• Sears/Kmart has apparently banned the use of "Christmas" -- Bill O'Reilly noted that they "would not answer our questions. Spokesman Chris Braithwaite simply ducked the issue. Their website banners: 'Wish Book Holiday 2005.' They were the worst we had to deal with."

• The South Orange/Maplewood School District in New Jersey declared last year that school bands will be limited to songs such as "Winter Wonderland" and "Frosty the Snowman," because the district's policy banning Christmas songs with religious references actually prohibit the performance of INSTRUMENTAL songs that don't even HAVE lyrics!

• In yet another New Jersey elementary school, a class trip to see the Broadway play "A Christmas Carol" was cancelled under threat of a lawsuit.

• In Palm Beach County Schools in Florida teachers were warned not to allow any Christmas decorations to be displayed.

• Across the country children have been barred from giving out Christmas cards and some banned from using the greeting, "Merry Christmas".

• An Oklahoma Superintendent ordered the students and faculty at Lakehoma Elementary School to remove the nativity scene and not sing "Silent Night" at last year's "holiday" play.

• In a Plano, TX school parents were prohibited from using red and green plates and napkins and could only bring white decorations for "winter" parties.

What's going on here? The flagrant attempt to remove Christ from Christmas would never be permitted if applied to the holy days of any other religion. So much for religious "tolerance." No wonder a new poll from the Anti-Defamation League found that 64% of the American people believe that religion is "under attack" -- IT IS.

What about Santa Claus? The old fellow may have become the very symbol of consumerist culture and Hollywood sentimentality in recent decades, but it's hard to ignore the religious element, as in St. Nicholas, in his origins.

To Christians, Christmas lights themselves radiate the religious symbolism of Christ as "light of the world." Why should they be allowed on government property? And what about the "Peace on Earth" sign affixed to city halls across America? That's plucked from the New Testament.

Come to think of it, Dec. 25 is a paid holiday for hundreds of thousands of government workers -- yet this practice offends some people, too. They think the courts should outlaw any designation of Christmas as a government holiday. Their arguments have not yet won the day -- the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected one such lawsuit in 2000, for example -- but the agitation doubtlessly will continue.

As noted in an editorial last year by the Rocky Mountain news, "The First Amendment's ban on the establishment of religion is a critical safeguard of liberty, but there is a point at which attempts to sweep anything associated with religious faith from the public sphere become offensive, punitive and indeed absurd. At their extreme, they are the equivalent of writing America's history without describing the religious motives of some of its protagonists."

But even our President is trying to be politically correct. The White House Christmas cards greetings this year, as every year since The President took office read: "Happy Holiday Season". Many are offended but if the truth be known I would like to receive a card from The White House no matter what it said.

This fascination with The White House goes back to the time when I became a staunch Democrat for a day at the tender age of six, falling in love with the handsome President Jack Kennedy, watching him give a speech in a TV documentary: "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country" Heh.

Never say pressure does not work, and never delude yourself the problem did not and does not exist. But as usual  "money talks bullshit walks", as our leftie bloggers remind us constantly, and the retailers are the first to cave in. 

Daily Kos last Christmas, giving the uber Bolshevik's perspective including quoting prolific pearls of wisdom on the subject of Judaism, calling Jews "scum", which by definition excludes him from conversation with grown ups. See what happens when you link to limited minds, your view starts leaning like the Tower of Pizza. Democratic, my proverbial behind. Lovely Kos, there is a little bit of the token English language you understand, give him another vote why don't you....

So I ask again...a year later, has anything changed? Apparently not.

Merry Christmas and Happy Hannukah everybody! And remember generosity of spirit goes a long way at this time of the year, so reach out and touch somebody's heart. That's what Christmas is all about. God Bless you and keep you.

From my friend David Needham @ TWC:

When you gather Christmas Eve beneath the Natal Star,
Make sure the greatest blessing is held within your heart.
For the birth we celebrate with tinsel, lights and joy
Was more than just the birth of one small Jewish boy.

Comments

[Daniela Boata]

In other words, what is the spiritual value of Jerusalem (and Israel) "below"?

The previous scripture informs us that there is not. Therefore, there is no reason to fight over Jerusalem as the "holy city" or Israel as a "holy land" because they are neither holy nor is Jerusalem "below" the place of worship anymore according to the new covenant.

Would the crusaders have understood this they would not have committed the murders they did out of their zeal for the "holy land". Crimes that most people that identify themselves as Christians would condemn. Yet supporting Israel now as a political entity on the basis that it is the land given by God to the Jews is acting out of the same ignorance. It is the source of hate and violence that is being perpetuated and acted out by the Islamic fundamentalists particularly. The spiritual value of Jerusalem vanished away with the resurrected Christ who IS Jerusalem above. The Temple which he spoke of when he was in the temple that he prophesied would be destroyed and was by the Romans in 70AD (John 2:19).

In that he saith, A new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away.
(Hebrews 8:13)

It WAS a God given land.

22 Ye shall therefore keep all my statutes, and all my judgments, and do them: that the land, whither I bring you to dwell therein, spue you not out.
23 And ye shall not walk in the manners of the nation, which I cast out before you: for they committed all these things, and therefore I abhorred them.
(Leviticus 20:22-3)

Since the time that there has no longer been spiritual value in the once God given land, peoples that are now at war with Israel and America for its support were living there for hundreds of years until it became a country again in 1947. It is not their fault the Hebews lost their land because of their disobedience as God promised by Moses his servant.

It is important that those of us who identify ourselves as Christians be for Israel according to the knowledge of God.

[Daniela Boata]

21 Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law?
22 For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other by a freewoman.
23 But he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh; but he of the freewoman was by promise.
24 Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar.
25 For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children.
26 But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all.
27 For it is written, Rejoice, thou barren that bearest not; break forth and cry, thou that travailest not: for the desolate hath many more children than she which hath an husband.
28 Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise. 29 But as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it is now.
30 Nevertheless what saith the scripture? Cast out the bondwoman and her son: for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman.
31 So then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman, but of the free.
(Galatians 4:21-31)

Tell me, ye that are zealous for the holy land, how are you better than the crusaders?

[gringoman]

Peter Piper says, Either add holiday pentangles, buddhas, minhoras, crescents, cockatoo feathers and naked dancing in public places, or forged abahd it!

PP, thank you for your contribution. It perfectly illustrates either (1)the secular prog mindset hoping to vanquish the soul of America and/or (2) what the liberal Teacher's Union monopoly has done to public (sic) education today, teaching the young that blood-thirsty Aztecs and muslims who sold Africans to America are morally superior to white Founding Fathers who studied Cicero and Polybius when devising the world's longest-standing Republic and Constitution.

I'm not singling you out. I don't even know if you went to a U.S. public school. I do know that you seem clueless about American history. Check it out sometime, especially the non-Teacher's Union post-Stalinist variety. You will find that this land, beginning with (but by no means limited to) a particular Christian sect we call "Puritans"--- who of course had certain theocratic tendencies--- has four centuries of continuing Judeo-Christian tradition. This would include many different branches or sects or Christianity. It does not include---in any significant number---Buddhas, Islamic fanatics, Sharia lovers, circumsizers of women, cockatoo feathers,and naked dancing in public places. You can look it up. You don't have to take the word of the Gringomanic Historical Society.

ps The secular progs, in their attempt to drive out 4 centuries of American heritage from Government structures which are supported and paid for by the taxpayers---under the specious prog claim of Church/State separation---are playing with a fire they don't really understand. Unfortunately, they are unlikely ever to understand it---at least until they can feel the flames which they themselves are stoking.

The essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic and a killer.---D.H. Lawrence

[Boxer]

Nothing new indeed!
The poor Puritans, (a particular brand of reformationist), had managed to survive the English civil war but after Oliver Cromwell kicked over I guess they saw their chance to bug out to the New World.

A great deal of the early settlers in America were Puritan's who adamantly and occassionally violently prohibited the celebration of Christmas. Yes, seriously.

What you recognize as our celebration of Christmas stems from a largely Unitarian inspired anti-Calvinist effort to introduce the old world Christmas celebration in America.
Christmas trees, secular music and an emphasis on peace and on children - all Unitarian inspired. Talk about a liberal conpiracy to undermine religion! lol

And of course, such festivities were outlawed in Puritan settlements in the first place because the Puritans realized that these festivities were a blatant attempt by the Catholic church to incorporate pagan customs into Christianity. Obviously, Santa Claus, yule logs and feasts, Christmas trees, holly and ivy...have NOTHING to do with the birth of Jesus. Even the date of the celebration was an afront to Puritans because it was obviously chosen by the Pope to coincide with the pagan solstice shindig.

It was Puritans arguing amongst themselves about how to maintain their micro theocracies in the New World that inspired the "separation of church and state" idea. It's mostly the Puritan's that we're talking about when we say the original American's were seeking religious freedom!

So this claim that Christmas is under attack is sort of "in your face you stupid Puritan's"...isn't it? Isn't that just the funniest thing?

I know I get a big kick out of it.

[Crusader.NoRegrets.]

Yo, Peter Piper.

It's...wait for it....part of our cultural identity. Don't like it? Move.

Who the hell appointed you the architect of the new American culture anyway?

[Crusader.NoRegrets.]

bzedman

That is precisely how to deal with this sort of menace. And by the way I'd boycott stores that disallowed religious expression of any kind. As a somewhat struggling Christian, I demand freedom of worship for others too. (But I reject the notion that any one religion may call upon the law to "protect" it from mere 'offence' - That GD is what separation of Church and State actually means!!!)

The vast majority of the US population is Christian. A Christian boycott in the US would be catastrophic for any business. By the same token, when Muslim populations demand the right to segregate their women, they must be denied, and organisations that pander to Islamic gender segregation should be mercilessly boycotted.

[bzedman]

WALMART has reinstituted using the word "CHRISTMAS", or so I'm told. Guess who got my business this year?

TARGET is permanently OFF my list.

Wherever the Salvation Army bell ringers aren't allowed, I boycott; I have for years.

[Ghost Dansing]

I told you I wasn't arguing... the proposition that Christmas was being demonized is an incorrect proposition, so I could not to proceed to an argument whether or not "anything had changed".

I was not even tacitly implying Alexandra is or was a Bircher... I think she's a Liberal... but she might not even know that because of some of the company she keeps and because of the demonization of the term Liberal (and liberal)in America... despite the fact that the Nation was founded on Liberal principles.

The allusions to John Birch Society and Pat Robertson's "Christian Coalition" show the political and "pseudo-religious" etiology of the "Christmas under Attack" theme... a myth developed and perpetuated, not in response to real governmental oppression of Christians, but within a wholly partisan political context.

So, I guess if I were to actually address Alexandra's question: "Has anything changed?"... My answer would be no.

The theme is the same... is a continuing theme among those who practice a particular kind of partisan politics using religion as a hot button, and the theme does not reflect reality... thus it was always essentially a lie (since at least around 1959), and continues to be so.

I guess I was discussing whether or not "Christmas Demonization" was a real phenomenon or myth in the first place... providing more historical context then formal argument.

[David]

Wardrobe check, GD: your Freduian slip is showing.

"I'm not arguing... I'm rejecting the proposition."—G.D. arguing that Alexandra's proposition is meaningless. *heh*

Yes, GD, I understand your (unconsciously honest) argument that nothing you said is really an argument with Alexandra's post, since you failed in all attempts to actually address any point raised by Alexandra with any argument whatever, relying instead on *ad hominem* slurs like a thinly-veiled accusation that Alexandra is a closet Bircher, therefore nothing in her argument--or anyone advancing similar propositions-- is valid.

That alone is enough to invalidate your whole line of "not an argument" (*heh*) argumentation. But that nearly everything else, including your responses to others in this thread, has been *non causa*, red herrings or similarly non-factual, non-responsive or derisive, rather than argumentative, does support your *ignorantia elenchi* assertion that you are "not arguing"...

Finally a ([n] unintentionally?) sound proposition from GD: "I'm not arguing... "

Truer words were never spoken by you, GD. Thanks for the confession. It'll be good for your soul.

Merry Christmas, GD. (I'll be celebrating Christmas at least through Epiphany, so "Merry Christmas" on "Boxing Day" is still appropriate, I think. :-))

[Professor Plum]

What those who support the suppression of Christian expression don't seem to understand is that:

1. Christians aren't suppressing the expression of members of any other faith. You don't see Christians ordering department stores to take down pictures of menorrahs.

2. An attack on Christian expression by the self-appointed and self-inflating culture police is an attack on all freedom of religious expression.

Does it really make sense to obey these demi-nazis?

3. Christians have done real well when persecuted. So, let the culture police bring it on. Eventually, some school teachers will begin to tell them to go bugger themselves, and a resistance movement will begin.

[Peter Piper]

Adding to GD: Teilhard de Chardin, a Jesuit priest oppressed by Catholic See, that is, by an organized Church-State, said, "A religion found to be inferior to our ideals as (wo)mankind, whatever the miracles surrounding it, is a Lost Religion."

There is nothing in Jesus' parables, and having found no mention of Santa Claus, Schwarte Pete or Der Onklin Elven in the Bible either, (with our reliance on a bastardized rewrite by that tithe-pirate King James), then how is general society supposed to view oppressive tinsel ornamentation in the public place as anything but what Jesus might describe as, 'slapping lipstick on the money-changers'?

English Christmas worshippers are minorities in most of the US counties as it is.
Who died and made them Pope? What gives them a right to deface the public place?
What gives Christmas worshippers legal status to claim a right never given to them by either the Bible or the US Constitution, except within their own home privacy and then only with "equal rights under the law"?

Either add holiday pentangles, buddhas, minhoras, crescents, cockatoo feathers and naked dancing in public places, or forged abahd it! There are 1M Americans rotting in prison for shop lifting and smoking herb, 2M Americans homeless in the urban jungles behind those Christmas shopping malls, with another 2.2M homeless soon, thanks to ARM Home-Loan-for-Xmas-Gift Federal Government money-printing programs.

[gringoman]

By GD's tired guilt-by-association logic, Bill O'Reilly must be either a John Bircher or a JB running dog. . Hey, the JB's said there was a "War on Christmas." O'Reilly says the same thing. Ergo, by logical "If A is C and B is C, then B must be C." Got it, kiddies? Poor lefties. If they're as smart as they assure us they are, why don't they realize that the guilt-by-association ploy was one of their favorite accusations against "Red-baiter" Senator Joe McCarthy? What does it say about lefty integrity when they now use the very same flypaper they denounced their right-wing enemies for using? By GD's "reasoning," an American denouncing the UN for rapine, genocide tolerance, pedophilia, not to mention its epic fraud and looting in the Oil-For Food
larceny, makes you a John Bircher or wingnut---since the old John Birchers denounced the UN long before Kofi Annan ever had piles of UN incriminating evidence either shredded or otherwise disappeared, and covered for his son's smuggled Mercedes.

But who wants to pick on GD, at least on this day? Secular progressives (as O'Reilly calls them) and even their occasional Christian cheerleaders, need a day off. Secular progs (as gringoVision calls them)aren't going away, and I doubt that even Pat Robertson wants to behead them, even while they do their silly mental contortions with the so-called doctrine of church-state separation, digging up their unofficial Thomas Jefferson quotes, inventing non-existent prohibitions, and now, in the last 60 years, now that cultural Marxism has achieved undreampt of power in the U.S., imposing its politically correct straight jacket on a nation, these progs even manage to stop the majority of taxpayers from seeing some of their funds used for Judeo-Christian symbolism on government property which exists only due to the taxpayers. Incredible? Are the progs so smart, or Americans so dumb? It's hilarious when you think about it---but they're confident that most can't think about it clearly enough. Besides, secular progs who get through law school and make it to the bench or the ACLU wolf pack, know that the proggies in cocktail Media have their back.

But really, I don't want to bother with their nonsense right now. This comment was meant to be, if you'll pardon a bit of holiday heresy, focused on something that unites Jews, Christians and muslims: the monotheist disrespect for pagans and the pagan contributions to mankind. I'd like to see them get over their chronic intolerance. I suspect that Alexandra, more so than your typical Christian, Jew, muslim or even the faithful of Marxianity and its progeny the secular progs, has an inkling of what I'm getting at. And it's not just Christmas, which after all is in many ways a celebration of pre-Christian Europe. Of course you know about the mistle toe, the holly, the deeply Germanic tannenbaum (also known as a Christmas Tree.) The sophomore atheists will chortle that Dec 25 is almost certainly not the birth date of Jesus. To which grown-ups must add, so what? The day is not about precise dates, dummy, it's about the celebration of a birth. Early church fathers could even demonstrate exceptional wisdom---the kind the sophomores do not get. The Dec. 25 date is obviously a tie-in, maybe not exact, but close enough, to the great European Winter Solstice. It too is about re-birth.
Arguably, according to the gringoThink Tank, Spring would have been more logical for celebrating the birth of Jesus. But Spring was already taken up with the central event of Christianity, the Crucifixion, Easter, (which is about birth too, re-birth with the rising.)

Frankly, gringoVision would like to see more, not less, of Western tradition in the public places which the secular progs have managed to steal from the taxpayers, cheating them out of their heritage. That means, by the way, not just Judeo-Christian heritage. It also means the great Greco-Roman heritage, of which even the progs are forced to admit is a vital part of the U.S. Constitution and U.S. law, both descendants of ancient Rome (which Hollywood portrays as the Gladiator Belt, playing into the monotheist dishonoring of what the West came from.) Want to take it even a little further? I suspect that Alexandra will concur, for example, that Germany's greatest Jewish poet, Heinrich Heine, also happened to love the Greek gods (yes, the godesses too, you may be sure.)

How to sum this up as succinctly as possible, without spelling it out totally, crossing every little t, dotting every i. How about this, as an extended comemmoration of this day?

For unto us a Son is born,
A Son is given,
A light unto the world.

As for the not insignificant winter solsticean alternative:

For unto us a sun is born,
A sun is given.
A light unto the world.

The Sun God and the Son of God---will ever the twain meet, and wish each other a

Merry Christmas?

[Ghost Dansing]

"It means, GD, that George W. Bush may NOT be the Head of the Church of the United States of America, as Elizabeth II is the Head of the Church of Engalnd (in the sense that there is an official state religion in England, with the reigning monarch as "defender of the faith"). Learn some history."

I would say that is only part of what Church-State separation means.

I'm sure you do the Danbury letter from Jefferson... discussing the meaning of the First Amendment and coining the idea of strict Church-State separation... I think he referred to a "wall", to be exact.

"Believing that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their Legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church and State." (Letter to the Danbury Baptists, 1802).

But check this out even with respect to the logic of those who would have it otherwise... written by a guy who obviously knew his history.

..."The morality of the advanced nations to-day is commonly called Christian morality, but only with the same disregard of truth which is implied in denying the existence of virtue and goodness before Christ and outside of Christendom. The morality of this age does nor owe its existence to any religion, to any book, to any historic character, however much or little any one of these has influenced mankind. Our present conception of morality has grown through many centuries of human experience, and exists now only because by many mistakes and much suffering man has learned its adaptedness to his wants. It is the result of the coinbined influence of our natural character and education. To ascribe it to the dominant religion were as absurd as to attribute the enlightenment of the ancient Creeks to their mythology, orthe enlightenment of the Saracens of Spain in the ninth and tenth centuries, when darkness enveloped Christian Europe, to the Koran. The fact is, with the advancement of the human mind, with the discoveries in science and progress in morality, believers in all systems of religion modify their views so as to adjust them to the new order of things, always claiming, in ancient and in modern times, in Egypt, India, Rome, Turkey, England, America, that they find authority for the new ideas or reforms in their sacred books or religious systems. Soon they claim these religions are entitled to the exclusive credit of having produced the beneficent change which they have been powerless to prevent. Thus, while the Bible teaches the subordination of woman in plain and unequivocal language, sanctions and authorizes human slavery, and condemns to unresisting submission to their condition the subjects of oppressive governments, today in this country the Orthodox believers deny the plain signification of the Bible on these points, and claim that it has been effective in the destruction of all kinds of political and social bondage; this, too, in spite of the fact, that its most zealous advocates, within the memory of men who are yet young, were quoting its texts to show the wickedness of the reforms which they now have the hardihood to claim as the outgrowths of that book! Those portions of a religious system or book revelation which are shown to be false, or which come to be repudiated by the enlightened moral sense of the age, are either absolutely ignored or twisted out of their obvious and natural meaning. By keeping in the background the teachings of the Bible which have been outgrown, by giving prominence to the precepts of morality which are attached to all systems of religion, by stamping them all as Christian, although they were known and practised before Christianity was ever heard of, theologians impress the masses with the conviction that the Bible and the Christian religion are the foundation of all virtue, and the only hope of the world. It then presents the theological dogmas -- which have nothing whatever in common with morality (such as that Jesus Christ is Ruler among Nations) --which indeed have been the faith, the sincere, unquestioning faith of multitudes of the most cruel and vicious men of all ages since they have been taught, and demand their acceptance and incorporation in our Constitution from purely moral considerations!"...

Benjamin F. Underwood: "The Practical Separation of Church and State (1876)"
This address, presented to the 1876 Centennial Congress of Liberals, is a ringing call for the separation of church and state. This address is important not only for it's philosophical and practical arguments on behalf of separation, but for it's historical arguments that separation was intended by the framers. Additionally, Underwood argues against what turned out to be an unsuccessful attempt amend the Constitution to officially acknowledge Christianity.

And now... for another act of Civil Disobedience!

MERRY CHRISTMAS :)

[Old Dad]

Merry Christmas,

May God grant us all the good sense and common decency to know when to leave each other the hell alone.

Peace on Earth, good will to men.

[Crusader.NoRegrets.]

Ahem, GD you (as do most) fabulously misunderstand the intent of the separation of Church and State in the US consitution.

It does NOT mean as the International Left likes to claim, that there is no place for religion in state life. It means, GD, that George W. Bush may NOT be the Head of the Church of the United States of America, as Elizabeth II is the Head of the Church of Engalnd (in the sense that there is an official state religion in England, with the reigning monarch as "defender of the faith"). Learn some history.

I am growing weary of explaining this concept to people. Now if GD the Left is unilaterally re-interpreting that concept in the way you describe, then you can't lean on the consitution to back you up. You are then stating a desired end-state, in the guise of a "universal truth", and NOT a consequence of the constitution.

But anyhow, Merry Christmas all, and may the grace and love of our risen Lord be with you all, even though I am mostly the Christian equivalent of a failed state!

[Ernesto Ribeiro]

GO GO ETHIOPIA !!!

I hope they make a TRIUMPHAL CHRISTMAS !!!

They're Christians, so...

…they can be heroes…

…as the mithic Ethipian demigod hero Menmon, who fight in Trojan War.

[Ghost Dansing]

Yes igout... I personally posted "Merry Christmas" in my posts several times in bald-faced defiance of the governmental censors and ACLU risking retribution of the greatest magnitude!

America is not a place for the faint of heart... Courage will prevail over injustice!

As a matter of fact, I'm going to post it again... to all my friends at ATB:

MERRY CHRISTMAS! (And the defiant cry rang out across the land, echoing over hill and dale... America is free... free at last... free at last!)

Let Freedom Ring!

"She's a rebel
She's a saint
She's salt of the earth
And she's dangerous...

...She's the symbol
of resistance
and she's holding on my
heart like a hand grenade...

She sings the revolution
the dawning of our lives
she brings this liberation
that I just can't define
nothing comes to mind"

Green Day

[igout]

Anybody noticed a lot more "Merry Christmas's" being exchanged by people this year? I have.
So; Merry Christmas all who want one.

[Darrell]

Merry Christmas, Alexandra and all her denizens!

Just avoid hearing the lyric change in "Walking in a Winter Wonderland" as the pc folks now sing it. "In the valley we can build a snowman...and pretend that he is Parson Brown" has become "...and pretend that he's a circus clown." Clowns, indeed! And that reminds me Ghost, have a Merry one as well.
Whatever that may be. . .Ms Ghost Danser!(hint, folks)

[mac brachman]

To all, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. My resolution is to lay off GD; he's a good person, well-meaning with his heart in the right place, and no dummy, but a little naive/idealistic. I am sorry if some Christians feel persecuted in this country, but I do feel a lot of the hubbub is trumped up. We all sometimes revel in a sense of victimization; I certainly do. I say "Merry Christmas" as a largely agnostic (but deeply ethnically-identified) Reform Jew, but I mean it in the spirit of universal brotherhood/sisterhood. Let the message stand as is or think of it as "Happy Holiday" if you prefer. Shalom, Mac Brachman

[Ghost Dansing]

Well David, it is like this... I understand what Alexandra's "argument" is about.

However, those who are "arguing"... I'm not... want to begin with the proposition that there is now (or ever was) persecution of the Christian majority on the issue of "Christ in Christmas".

And, as we know in any debate, if the proposition itself is in error, the "argument" is meaningless.

I'm not arguing... I'm rejecting the proposition. The fact there are legal challenges to things like religious symbols on public property, or that retailers use generic "holiday" language appealing to a wider demographic, and extending the the "holiday" season for mercantile purposes, does not equate to persecution of Christians or undermining the religious observance of Christmas.

I've indicated that the theme of "Christmas under Attack" has a long history in rightest propaganda in America, using as an example the John Birch Society entry of 1959.

Then I indicated that the perpetuation of the theme has political roots within the Republican Party, exemplified by the extraordinarily unChristian former Republican Presidential candidate and leader of the "Christian Coalition" political king-makers of the 80's and 90's... Pat Robertson.

The proposition sets up a straw man argument. The ulterior Republican political motives include 1. Servicing the sectarian demographic voting block called the "religious right", and 2. Eroding the Constitutional prohibition against the government favoring any particular religion... Church-State separation; which also services that voting block who are tacit advocates of theocracy.

The basic psychology of the political propaganda encourages the so-called "christians" obsession with their own sense of persecution, which they use to justify their compulsive persecution of others... unsatisfied, of course, with simple denunciations from the pulpit, but desiring the real power of government.

And my point is that they are not Christians, and are politicized... and I advocate both Christianity and the Constitution of the United States.

Merry Christmas

[Angel]

Sweet and safe holidays to you and your loved ones Alexandra...keep shouting..trust me..we are listening!:)

[David]

In the spirit of "peace on earth, good will toward men" I'll not spend a lot of time fisking Ghost Dansing's comments today.

:-)

Oh, OK, a small fisk of one paragraph, at least--and done gently, so as not to stir the waters too badly. Do note, though, that I am no fan of Pat Robertson. I view him to be a charlatan, but on the basis of other evidence than Ghost Dansing cites.

"Robertson has frequently denounced the religion of Islam and Muslim people. During a 1995 taping of The 700 Club, he called the religion a "Christian heresy". ..."

As a point of fact, every single allegation made by Robertson (as quoted, I assume accurately, by Ghost Dansing) is historical fact. Citing those words as evidence of Robertson's supposed religious bigotry simply undermines Ghost Dansing's case, since, well, what is stated is simple hisotrical fact, easily verified by anyone who can read and who searches for material as close to source as possible.

That Mohammed was excommunicated from his _membership_ of the Christian community by the Bishop of Antioch for attempting to promulgate his heresies among the Christian church is historical fact, and easily verified by anyone willing to do their own homework with an open mind (the essence of true liberalism).

Tell the Jews of the Qurayzah tribe that Muhammed, the Butcher of Medina, was not "a robber and a brigand". Oh, wait. You can't because Muhammed had them all--except for the ones he had raped and enslaved--killed.

And on it goes. In word and deed, the founder of the Cult of Death established by clear example and teaching that "conversion" via violence was the gold standard for Islam.

Now, in partial support of Ghost Dansing, my opinion of Pat Robertson, from long observation, is that he and Muhammed are brothers under the robes, that Robertson is at his core NOT at home with the conversion by persuasion--persuasion by word and deeds of kindness--that the founder of the religion he claims to follow espoused.

But, let it be noted that GD's tirade against Pat Robertson has nothing--a big zero with the rim kicked off--to do with his overall thesis that derides the claims that Christianity is under attack.

OTOH, what if Christianity is (and it is) under attack? So? Let me quote myself (Kicked Outa the Manger):

So, an ACLU mentality wants to “kick the baby Jesus out of his lowly manger”? If Philippians 2:5-8 is a true witness, then He’d just sleep on the floor... [and if]...the secular world finds less and less room for Christ in Christmas, in public displays, in store greetings and product labels, etc.? There’s always room to keep Christ in Christmas where it counts.

BTW, "where it counts" is not just in some quiet, hidden, out-of-the-way place "in our hearts". No, it is out in the open in our daily lives, as living, breathing, speaking, singing, acting reminders of the Christ of the nativity and the Cross. After all, He commanded his followers to do so (Matthew 28: 19-20).

"Christians" who do not emulate the One they claim to follow by doing good are less to be admired than the honest Muslims who, in honest, forthright, dedicated following of the clear and unequivocal example and teachings of the Butcher of Medina, maim and kill and enslave and destroy in genuine devotion to their damned (and I do not blaspheme here: Muhammed is indeed damned by his own choice, not mine, and has found his eternity in hell) prophet and his religion of violence, rapine, theft and lies. That there would be so many who would choose to actively, honestly and enthusiastically follow the Butcher of Medina to hell while so many so-called Christians live lives of committed hypocrisy is sad, but again, NOT what Alexandra's argument was about.

Oh, well. In the spirit of the season, I'll leave the rest of the *non causa* arguments made by our favorite firebrand lie.

[Jeremayakovka]

"Solstice worshippers" and other cocky individuals who skate though the holidays often complain of Christmas's rampant commercialism. Yet posts like this drive home the strongly non-commercial aspect to honoring the birth of Jesus. I think the complaining is often an excuse to not look deeper, with care, into the question -- into our own hearts, especially. They, should ask harder questions of themselves. (We all should.) That they, or we, don't exercise their spirits (souls) betrays a profound weariness of spirit (mind).

Thanks for your gracious militancy, Alexandra. This post is almost evangelical!

And a very merry Christmas to ATB.

[chrys]

Residual effects of the "Christmas Wars" is the fact that we are settling for the right to say "Merry Christmas" playing into the anti-Christmas hands - just as they'd like things to be. Make money - DO NOT remember Christ. Vanishing the word "Merry" and maybe picking up the word "Blessed" for Christmas would have a better effect. "Happy Holidays" and "Blessed Christmas." The "fluff" must vanish and the Nativity must return. You may like my hesitant "rant" at the bottom of THIS post.

[Alexandra]

Merry Christmas and Happy Hannukah everybody! And remember generosity of spirit goes a long way at this time of the year, so reach out and touch somebody's heart. That's what Christmas is all about. God Bless you and keep you.

From my friend David Needham @ TWC:

When you gather Christmas Eve beneath the Natal Star,
Make sure the greatest blessing is held within your heart.
For the birth we celebrate with tinsel, lights and joy
Was more than just the birth of one small Jewish boy.

[Ghost Dansing]

Christmas and Christianity hasn't been expulsed from America's lexicon Francis... what nation do you live in?

Christianity has been desecrated by the likes of Pat Robertson, however.

Merry Christmas especially to you Francis. :)

http://www.stillspeaking.com/default.htm

[Francis W. Porretto]

Ghost is near to foaming at the mouth. Suddenly the topic isn't the expulsion of Christmas (and Christianity) from our national lexicon, but the unacceptability of televangelist Pat Robertson. All that cutting and pasting must be getting to him. One might almost suspect that the dear fellow is becoming a bit unhinged about it all.

Does anyone have another Christmas wish?

[Ghost Dansing]

Things haven't changed much since the days of Longfellow either, WillPower. One wonders how those who mock the new commandment of Jesus Christ to love one another can mock notions of tolerance, peace, love, understanding, "The Common Good", that arises in Liberal politics, and then worry about whether Walmart has a "Merry Christmas" Greeter.

"As I walk through
This wicked world
Searchin' for light in the darkness of insanity.

I ask myself
Is all hope lost?
Is there only pain and hatred, and misery?

And each time I feel like this inside,
There's one thing I wanna know:
What's so funny 'bout peace love & understanding?"

Nick Lowe

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pat_Robertson#Remarks_concerning_Ariel_Sharon

"Marion Gordon "Pat" Robertson (born March 22, 1930) is a televangelist from the United States. He is the founder of numerous organizations and corporations, including the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN), the Christian Coalition, Flying Hospital, International Family Entertainment, Operation Blessing International Relief and Development Corporation, and Regent University. He is the host of The 700 Club, a Christian TV program airing on channels throughout the United States and on CBN affiliates worldwide.

He is opposed to abortion and gay rights. Robertson is a supporter of the Republican Party and campaigned unsuccessfully to become the party's nominee in the 1988 presidential election.

He is a Southern Baptist and was active as an ordained minister with that denomination for many years, but holds to a Charismatic theology not traditionally common among Southern Baptists.

As a result of his seeking political office, he no longer serves in an official role for any church. Despite this, his media and financial resources make him a recognized and influential, albeit controversial, public voice for conservative Christianity in the United States.

The lead story on the January 5, 2006, edition of The 700 Club was Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's hospitalization for a severe stroke. After the story, Robertson said that Sharon's illness was possibly retribution from God for his recent drive to give more land to the Palestinians. He also claimed former prime minister Yitzhak Rabin's 1995 assassination may have occurred for the same reason.

On January 11, Israel responded by announcing that Robertson would be banned from involvement in a project to build a Christian tourist attraction and pilgrimage site near the Sea of Galilee known as the Christian Heritage Center. The plan had called for Israel leasing 35 acres of land to a group of evangelicals (including Robertson) for free to create several tourist attractions and pilgrimage sites in exchange for the evangelicals raising 50 million dollars in funding. A spokesman for the Tourism Ministry commented, "We cannot accept these statements, and we will not sign any contracts with Mr. Robertson."

On January 12, Robertson sent a letter to Sharon's son Omri, apologizing for his comments. In the letter, Robertson called Ariel Sharon a "kind, gracious and gentle man" who was "carrying an almost insurmountable burden of making decisions for his nation." He added that his "concern for the future safety of your nation led me to make remarks which I can now view in retrospect as inappropriate and insensitive in light of a national grief experienced because of your father's illness...I ask your forgiveness and the forgiveness of the people of Israel." Omri and the Israeli government accepted the apology.

In March 2006, Robertson lost a bid for re-election to the board of directors of the National Religious Broadcasters.

Robertson has frequently denounced the religion of Islam and Muslim people. During a 1995 taping of The 700 Club, he called the religion a "Christian heresy". During a September 19, 2002 episode of FOX News Channel's Hannity & Colmes, Robertson claimed that the Muslim Prophet Muhammad, was "an absolute wild-eyed fanatic … a robber and a brigand." He claimed on the September 14, 2004 episode of The 700 Club that "Islam is by the gun, by the fire, by the bayonet, by the torch."[citation needed] On the July 14, 2005 broadcast of the The 700 Club, he claimed that "Islam, at its core, teaches violence."

Pat Robertson has been harshly criticized for his numerous insensitive and brash remarks towards the religion of Hinduism.

On March 23, 1995, Pat Robertson led a television program in which he attacked the religion of Hinduism. He called it "demonic" and said that Hindus should be barred from entering the United States. He said that they worship "idols" and "hundreds of millions of deities," which "has put a nation in bondage to spiritual forces that have deceived many for thousands of years." He spoke against the doctrines of karma and reincarnation.[

On the March 21, 2006 broadcast of The 700 Club, while reviewing The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America by David Horowitz, the subject of which is radical academics in American universities, Robertson went on to say that the 101 professors named in the book are only but a few of "thirty to forty thousand" left-wing professors in the United States, all of whom he accused of being "racists, murderers, sexual deviants and supporters of Al-Qaeda", further labeling them as "termites that have worked into the woodwork of our academic society"."

Unfortunately, the Evangelical's concerns about Robertson was more about "how it looks" and giving them a bad name, than about an actual departure from what they believe in their heart and are taught by their pulpits.

(caveat... Evangelicals also include mainstream congregations... I am referring to the 'televangelist, mega-church, fundamentalist, dominionist sect that has been involved in rightest politics in America... not "Evangelical" Catholics, Episcopalians and Presbyterians... or even mainstream fundamentalist Methodist and Baptist).

People like Pat Robertson are not only not Christian... they are also un-American having major major problems with the Constitution of the United States.

Mr. Robertson is a bigot... and if you want to discuss the warning about "false prophets" in the Bible... here would be a good place to start.

And if you want to talk about anti-Christmas... perhaps even the anti-Christ... here too would be a good place to start.

I know what Christmas is all about and I don't need a Walmart greeter or a Nativity scene on the front porch of the public library to tell me.

Merry Christmas again :)

[Ernesto Ribeiro]

Alexandra, Crusader, everybody in this side if war.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

HO-HO-HO-HO!!!

FELIZ NATAL!!!

[John Werntz]

Francis W. Porretto [0729 AM]

From the post you linked to: "my secret heartthrob Alexandra von Maltzan."

We all know you have long ago joined the throng, Frankie. Congratulations.

Please permit me to add my ancient wheeze to your critique of the Compulsive Contrarian GD.

And a very Merry Christmas to all.

[Willed]

Christmas Bells

I HEARD the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along
The unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Till ringing, singing on its way,
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime,
A chant sublime
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Then from each black, accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,
And with the sound
The carols drowned
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

It was as if an earthquake rent
The hearth-stones of a continent,
And made forlorn
The households born
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And in despair I bowed my head;
"There is no peace on earth," I said;
"For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!"

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
"God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men."

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)

[Allen Patterson]

Hmmm - no, not much has changed. And thanks much for your inspiration.

You've been tagged with the Christmas Meme. Although I'm sure you have better things to do - but in the spirit of Christmas, at least see the details on my blog post titled, "Christmas Meme."

[Ghost Dansing]

The point was the "Christianity under Attack" theme has been with us for quite a while and is traceable through rightest rhetoric going back some time in America and Europe.

I America, the issue is Church-State separation... displaying religious favoritism on public properties and public supported institutions.

That secular Constitutional position is not against any religion.

And when I drive through town and see a dozen Christian churches with Christmas displays on their property... and homeowners displaying just about anything they want... I don't see where there is a "war" against Christmas.

Its all a big myth used to rally a wedge "christian" demographic to vote Republican.

The separation of church and state is a political doctrine which states that the institutions of the state or national government should be kept separate from those of religious institutions. The concept has been a topic of political debate throughout history. The term separation of mosque and state is sometimes used in context when referring to an Islamic or Muslim-majority country, separation of synagogue and state is sometimes used in context when referring to Israel, etc. These substitute terms are often used facetiously.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_of_church_and_state

[Francis W. Porretto]

We can always count on Ghost to offer smears, irrelevancies, and false equivalences in response to any conservative concern, can't we? And at such length, too. This slander-by-association is particularly egregious: the conspiratorialist Birchers think there's an attack on Christianity in progress, and everyone knows they're nuts, so they must be a hundred eighty degrees wrong on this subject, too. You'd almost think he was trying to suppress discussion.

Careful, Ghost. Cutting and pasting that much can wear out your mouse.

[Ghost Dansing]

"In 1959 the John Birch Society issued an urgent alert: Christmas was under attack. In a pamphlet titled "There Goes Christmas?!" a writer named Hubert Kregeloh warned, "One of the techniques now being applied by the Reds to weaken the pillar of religion in our country is the drive to take Christ out of Christmas -- to denude the event of its religious meaning." The central front in this perfidious assault was American department stores, where the "Godless UN" was scheming to replace religious decorations with internationalist celebrations of universal brotherhood."

http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2005/11/21/christmas/index_np.html

The so called "christians" that feel persecuted in America are what I call the "christians" of the "rock-throwing" variety... Evangelical fundamentalists and dominionists are a heretical sect; not Christianity.

Furthermore, they are a politicized rightest heretical sect that call themselves "christians".

The so called "war on Christmas" is a political wedge theme designed to attack a central tenet of Americanism... that is Church-State separation... where the notions of tolerance and benevolence inspired by the real Christendom inspired Liberal governmental structures that prevented the State from interfering with an Individual's practice of his religion, and from religious hegemons from persecuting others on behalf of their "faith".

"Nothing has changed... at least since the 50's, when America also included a religious theme in their anti-Communist rhetoric to demonstrate moral superiority over the atheistic Communists... as if the fact that Stalinism engendered levels of butchery rivaling the NAZIS wasn't sufficient to establish moral superiority. That theme later manifest itself in terms surrogate war fighting supporting Islamic Fundamentalist militancy in the former Soviet Union, and particularly in Afghanistan."

"The John Birch Society was established in Indianapolis on December 9, 1958 by a group of 12 "patriotic and public-spirited" men led by Robert Welch, Jr., a retired candy manufacturer from Belmont, Massachusetts. A transcript of Welch's two-day presentation at the founding meeting was published as The Blue Book of the John Birch Society and became a cornerstone of its beliefs, with each new JBS member receiving a copy. "According to Welch," writes Political Research Associates in its analysis of the Birchers, "both the US and Soviet governments are controlled by the same furtive conspiratorial cabal of internationalists, greedy bankers, and corrupt politicians. If left unexposed, the traitors inside the US government would betray the country's sovereignty to the United Nations for a collectivist new world order managed by a 'one-world socialist government.' The Birch Society incorporated many themes from pre-WWII rightist groups opposed to the New Deal, and had its base in the business nationalist sector..."

"The JBS was viewed by mainstream journalists and politicians as an extremist, wing-nut organization of conspiracy theorists. Much of its early conspiracism, according to Political Research Associates, "reflects an ultraconservative business nationalist critique of business internationalists networked through groups such as the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). The CFR is viewed through a conspiracist lens as puppets of the Rockefeller family in a 1952 book by McCarthy fan, Emanuel M. Josephson, Rockefeller, 'Internationalist': The Man Who Misrules the World. In 1962 Dan Smoot's The Invisible Government added several other policy groups to the list of conspirators, including the Committee for Economic Development, the Advertising Council, the Atlantic Council (formerly the Atlantic Union Committee), the Business Advisory Council, and the Trilateral Commission. Smoot had worked at FBI headquarters in Washington, DC before leaving to establish an anticommunist newsletter, the Dan Smoot Report. The shift from countersubversion on behalf of the FBI to countersubversion in the private sector was an easy one. The basic thesis was the same. In Smoot's concluding chapter, he wrote, 'Somewhere at the top of the pyramid in the invisible government are a few sinister people who know exactly what they are doing: They want America to become part of a worldwide socialist dictatorship, under the control of the Kremlin.'" Birchers elaborated on an earlier Illuminati Freemason conspiracy theory, imagining "an unbroken ideologically-driven conspiracy linking the Illuminati, the French Revolution, the rise of Marxism and Communism, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the United Nations".

"Republican mainstream unhappiness with the Birchers intensified after Welch circulated a letter calling President Dwight D. Eisenhower a "conscious, dedicated agent of the Communist Conspiracy.""

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=John_Birch_Society

I always liked Ike... don't think he was a Communist and really don't think Christians are under attack in America. I also think America righests are a much bigger concern for 21st Century America than Communists, or even Islamic extremists.

Merry Christmas :)

[gringoman]

A great peculiarity of this Republic is that, despite its massive Judeo-Christian foundations, it also makes room for the anti-Christs. The anti-Christs understand this well. Very well. Many of the ones who can get into and out of a law school will even make a career out of it. Even the tenured Trotskyite can dig out his Thomas Jefferson quote to show how superior he is to Bible Belters who are so ignorant and bigoted that they may even oppose a United States of Islamerica. But despite a certain degree of Constitutional support---especially when interpreted by de facto or budding anti-Christs basking in elite media adoration---few of them are manly enough to own up to what they are and what they want. E.g. Last year their ideology managed to eliminate "Merry Christmas" even from great retail outlets which, intimidated just like the ACLU knows how to intimidate schools etc---wimped into the politically correct "Holiday Greetings" et al. This year it's a little different. "Merry Christmas" is making a come-back, by popular acclaim, thanks largely to hated "culture warriors" like the rambunctious Bill O'Reilly of "fascist Fox News."

And how do the zealous little anti-Christs (and even their sophisticated allegedly pro-Christ supporters) react? Do they admit a setback? Forget about it.

"What do you mean there was a 'war on Christmas'?" they will say. "What are you, crazy? Don't be a moonbat?"

[Michael]

I believe that abortion will be the next "unmetionable" in a church ( give it about 5 years )...This has been a religious issue for two thousnad years. It entered into the political spectrum about 40 years ago . the ACLU will be going after any preacher in church ( and hence that Church) who makes statements against it. They will first try to take away the " tax stauts " of that church.

[Francis W. Porretto]

Thank you for this post, Alexandra. Clearly, the enemies of Christ have been "feeling their oats." Fortunately, it's possible to fight back.

Have a wonderful Christmas, dear.

[Alexandra]

And a very Merry Christmas to you too Joseph.

[Joseph Marshall]

No nothing has changed. This post still remains the tissue of urban, media, and internet myths, unsupported by any real facts, that it was when you first printed it.

Chirstmas comes but once a year. Christians celebrate and worship, non-Christians celebrate without worship. Neither constitutes an "assault" on the other. And all willingly participate in the "commercialism" involved so no "holier than thou" attitude about it is appropriate.