Season’s greetings — no offense
It’s the holiday season, that glorious time of year when people everywhere embrace the spirit of brotherhood and inclusiveness by seeking to exclude anything that carries even the whiff of Christmas.
In Chapel Hill, the Christmas trees that long decorated the two main libraries at the University of North Carolina have been banished. In Wilmington, the song “Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer” was banned from a school concert — until higher authorities ordered its reinstatement. (They were secular, non-heavenly authorities, by the way; I’m not breaking big news here.)
I’m not one of those alarmists who feel there’s a multicultural conspiracy afoot to isolate and marginalize Christians. I tend to agree with my pal J. Peder Zane, who points out Christmas remains deeply rooted in our society, and that the removal of a Christmas tree from a public place hardly constitutes a threat to the faithful. But I also wonder how anyone these days can, with a straight face, conflate the orgy of spending and self-indulgence that Christmas has come to represent and the somber religious occasion it formerly was. The Christian underpinnings of Christmas are barely apparent and easily overlooked these days. Easter remains much more of a religious event than does Christmas, which has morphed into a secular winter holiday.
I also stay chronically puzzled about the ongoing war of attrition that surrounds Christmas displays on publicly owned property. I understand about the separation of church and state, but I also understand that the Founding Fathers didn’t intend to strip religion entirely from society. Recall that the First Amendment says only this on the matter: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof … ”
Government’s sole function is to get out of the way and let you practice whatever faith you choose. It’s not required to protect you from the sight and sound of others practicing their faith. Public officials in even the most backwater burgs know that any Christmas-related display at the town hall flirts with the “establishment of religion” — which is why they typically take pains to make clear that other faiths are welcome to likewise establish a presence. Unless you’ve specifically been denied that presence, your rights haven’t been abridged by the simple sight of a Christmas tree.
Here’s a word of advice to both sides of the divide: Ease up. Only a fool works hard to turn a non-issue into an issue.
December 15th, 2008 at 11:09 am
I have to agree with you on the ‘ease up’ advice. As a Muslim I am not bothered by trees and wreaths, or menorahs. But then, I was raised as an Episcopalian. I am vastly amused at the ‘war on Christmas’ folks who want to boycott those that refuse to put Merry Christmas on their store’s advertising. A sure sign Christmas has become too commercialized when someone believes the commercial part of the holiday is too p.c.
December 15th, 2008 at 11:34 am
Considering that both Christmas and Easter are syncretic holidays co-opted from pre-Christian traditions, these appeals to “Christian underpinnings” are nearly as amusing as the efforts to eliminate Christian overtones from Yule.
Whose former Christmases were “somber religious occasions?” The Puritans in England and the early American colonies despised Christmas as Catholic idolatry, and Christmas was outlawed in Boston until 1681.
December 15th, 2008 at 1:07 pm
How many Douglas Fir trees were there in Bethlehem anyway?
December 15th, 2008 at 4:11 pm
“Here’s a word of advice to both sides of the divide: Ease up. Only a fool works hard to turn a non-issue into an issue.”
Tell that to Bill O’Reilly.
December 15th, 2008 at 4:22 pm
“Only a fool works hard to turn a non-issue into an issue. ”
Problem is, there is not a shortage of fools these days–if there ever were.