By Douglas V. Gibbs
The delicious smells of Christmas are in the air. Cookies and Pine. Sugar and spice. Christmas Trees in our homes, or on the road strapped on the tops of tiny sedans, blowing in the wind as they proceed up the road. Children’s seasonal artwork covers the face of refrigerators, bulletin boards, and kitchen tables. Santa Claus, appearing in all shapes and sizes and colors, is ringing his bells and ho-ho-ho-ing around the stores, malls, and gathering centers. Candles line mantles, with stockings hung with care, and sparkling Christmas decorations glittering and blinking in a fun-filled festive fashion. Flashing lights hang from the eaves, blow-up Santas and snowmen wave to passersby, and Nativity Scenes line the streets. Churches host various Christmas concerts and plays, the Christmas Specials dominate the television. Radios play Christmas tunes, and retail clerks smile and offer “Merry Christmas” as the shoppers scoot out the door.
Except, some of that is not true anymore.
President Donald Trump has pointed out one of the problems of the year, and has proclaimed he’s not giving in. For him it’s not Happy Holidays. It is “Merry Christmas.” I don’t care if there are those out there who think it is insensitive, or that it is offensive. They claim that Christianity is not inclusive enough, and Christ is not the only reason for the season.
They don’t know God well enough, I suppose. After all, God welcomes everyone into His Fold, through Christ, regardless of past sins – all one must do is accept His Mercy.
The war against Christmas is just another leg of Cultural Marxism. In order to initiate their socialist revolution they need to eliminate anything traditional, Christian, or not secular progressive. It’s a war that is not new, and it has been raging in all of the states for quite a while. In fact, its raging in all of the Western Countries. Statism seeks to eliminate all traditional representations of Christmas, from secular icons such as the Christmas Tree and Santa Claus, to the Christian representations such as Christmas Carols and Nativity Scenes. If God is to be removed from our culture, they need to seek to eliminate Christmas, itself.
Christmas is under siege from people whose seeks to kill religion and morality with political correctness and WOKEism. Sure, in truth they are a minority, but they are a loud segment of society. With their noise they have convinced many that even one person offended is justification enough to eliminate the offender. All dissent must be silenced. It is, from their point of view, the job of the government to purge all things from society that even resembles religion. Therefore, any sign of Christmas, or utterance of “Merry Christmas,” opens one up to complaints, litigation, angry protests, threats, and worse. And the anti-Christmas mob gets away with it, because we do not stand up to them, and say, “Enough is enough.”
Around America, retail workers are being told, “We don’t say ‘Merry Christmas,’ it has to be ‘Happy Holidays.'” People in retail are told they will be written up for saying “Merry Christmas.” So, they proclaim Happy Holidays because their paycheck is more important.
Fearless, I tell them “Merry Christmas,” and some of them return it with the same wording. But not most of them.
A war is being waged, and a counter-revolution must be in gear to stop the madness. The war is an offensive one, led by secularists, humanists, and well-funded cultural relativists. They believe America is evil as founded, and that the Christian majority must be silenced by any means necessary. The American Civil Liberties Union and the Americans for the Separation of Church and State provide the muscle for these anti-Christmas radicals. These are people who celebrate sexual perversion in our society, and support the murder of unborn babies, yet they cannot bring themselves to allow Christians to celebrate the Birth of Jesus Christ. The Leftists claim Christians desire an oppressive theocracy in America, they call it Christian Nationalism. Of course, their claim Christians want theocracy is ridiculous. No reasonable Christian wants church leaders running the country. But, that doesn’t mean that if one achieves public office, suddenly their beliefs must suddenly be silenced. Christian office holders praying and government workers saying Merry Christmas is not a violation of the Establishment Clause. Remember, the beginning of the First Amendment begins with, “Congress shall make no law.”
Still, the secularist Marxists threaten any public official who dares even refer to Christmas in any way in a public place, for placing Christianity in the public square to them must not be tolerated.
“Keep your religion inside the four walls of your church,” they say, as they threaten the churches if they dare preach on anything considered political, including homosexuality, transgenderism, or the murder of babies in the womb. “Christianity needs banning,” they tell us, “for it is dangerous to a free society.” Therefore, Christmas needs banning, as well.
Freedom of Speech, like Freedom of religion, has become a privilege rather than a right, according to the Leftists that infest government like a voracious parasite. There are no rights to speech and religion, they argue. The appearance of anything Christian in view of anyone that can possibly be offended is treated like a chemical spill, and according to these folks on the Left, the prevailing opinion is that the cause must be eliminated. Christmas must be neutered, they believe, and Christians must be silenced.
I refuse to accept the common narrative that even using the word “Christmas” is an invitation for a lawsuit. Our right of free speech and the right to the freedom of religious expression, were included in the United States Constitution for a reason. Our faith must not be a ‘religious privilege,’ granted by the generosity of government. The mere idea that government has any hand in our right to the free exercise of religion suggests that our freedom of religion is government-granted, rather than a freedom that is God-given.
The Founding Fathers were concerned about the possibility of what we are seeing today. They feared that the inclusion of language, such as the current myth of the Separation of Church and State, would open the door for government to ‘regulate’ religious practices, language, and even question the very presence of Christmas in our society. Such language would open a Pandora’s Box that could lead to government officials wrongly believing that they are the ‘grantors’ of the freedom of religious expression (as recently articulated by Senator Tim Kaine). Such a belief by government would then give them the alleged authority to regulate it.
Thomas Jefferson was very critical of government intrusion into religious expression. In his letter to the Danbury Baptists in 1802, as well as his writings in the Kentucky Resolutions of 1798, and his participation in disestablishing the official church in Virginia in 1786, he explained that the goal was not to protect government from religion, but to protect the free exercise of faith from government. The philosophy marched hand in hand with the concept of keeping the powers of the federal government limited, and prohibited regulating or punishing religious practices and expressions. This idea, in fact, was so deeply embedded in American Thinking that it has been since the beginning a focal point of American History. Jefferson believed the federal government had no authority to interfere with, limit, regulate, or prohibit public religious expressions. In fact, none of the founders gave the slightest hint that they believed religion should be removed from the public square, or that the government should be completely secularized. The religious freedom clauses in the U.S. Constitution were put there for the purpose of trying to keep government from darkening the doors of the church.
As Alexis DeToqueville found in his visit to the United States in the 1830s, the politicians prayed, and the pastors preached politics, but government did not control the church, and the church did not control government. They were symbiotic, in America. A concept foreign to Europeans of the time.
As far as Jefferson, or any of the other founders, were concerned, the only time government should be involved in religious matters would be if religious expression were acts “against peace and good order, injurious to others, subversive to good order,” or acts by “the man who works ill to his neighbor.” In other words, things like Islamic jihad, the attempt to implement Sharia law in the place of the laws of the host country, or the disruptive “call to prayer” from loud speakers.
We have ways to win the war against Christianity, but it takes thinking outside the box, and not responding to everything in a reactive manner. Such as in the case of a high school football team that was told the banner they burst through at the beginning of a game could no longer have a Bible Verse on it. In response, after the banner became a simple piece of artwork with no Bible Verse on it, and the players burst through the banner the folks in the stands stood tall, holding up bold homemade signs, each with a different verse on them, or a positive Christian message, as the players rushed onto the field.
So, take a note from brave folks like those in the stands of that football game. Say, “Merry Christmas.” Encourage others to do so. We outnumber the tyrants who wish to destroy American Tradition. We are the majority. We are the righteous. It is high time we begin to act like it.
Welcome to The Revolution.
Merry Christmas.
— Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary
