Posted on 12/22/2015 4:28:52 AM PST by massmike
The cover of the December 1970 issue of the National Lampoon showed a Chinese fighter pilot shooting down Santa's sleigh. As St. Nick tumbles from the sky, the pilot growls: "Eat Death, bloated lackey of the capitalist toy mongers!"
In 1970, the war on Christmas was just a gleam in the eye of an ACLU lawyer. Today, it's everywhere. 'Tis the season to pretend there's no reason for the season – that Ramadan, Kwanza and Diwali are just as important to the American people as mistletoe and holly.
The Wittensville, Kentucky school district announced that, based on a single complaint, it decided to purge religious references from the play "A Charlie Brown Christmas," which elementary school children there have been performing for decades. ("A Charlie Brown Winter Celebration"?) The city manager of Orange, Texas ordered the removal of a nativity scene which had been a holiday fixture for 30 years, because atheists demanded their own display.
Starbucks' seasonal beverage holder has a new look. Instead of traditional motifs like snowflakes and snowmen (dangerous encroachments on the Establishment Clause), now there's a plain red cup with the Starbucks logo (which I've always found offensive to mermaids and not inclusive of other mythical creatures).
At this time of the year, everyone expects the Secular Inquisition. The new principal of PS 169 in Brooklyn, Eujin Jaela Kim, tried to censor everything that could possibly suggest the yuletide – including Santas, trees, holiday-themed parties, stars and angels.
After The New York Post exposed Kim's obsessive/compulsive political correctness, she recanted. But, in her defense, educrats noted that 95% of the kids at PS 169 are Hispanic or Asian. Administrators want these children to go through the public schools without ever suspecting that they live in a place called the United States of America. At PS 169, Thanksgiving is the "Harvest Celebration," and Christmas the "Winter Celebration." If school were in session then, presumably, the 4th of July would be the Holiday of Pyrotechnic Displays.
We go through this every year. The left tells us that the War on Christmas is a myth – the product of the fevered imaginations of Christian zealots, while it strafes nativity scenes, dive bombs municipal Christmas trees and bombards school concerts where carols are sung. Christmas/Hanukah parties have been transformed into generic celebrations. It's reached the point where there's a resolution pending in the House of Representatives expressing the "sense" of the body that Christmas needs protection.
This seasonal derangement is usually explained as an assault on Christianity. It's also part of the War on America.
The left is intent on purging from the public square all symbols of our national identity, not just Christmas. The English language, Pilgrims and the flag are also under fire – along with the Founding Fathers and gun ownership. Ms Kim also banished the Pledge of Allegiance.
Starbucks is an avid supporter of "sexual equality." In 2013, it added coverage of "gender reassignment surgery" to its health benefits. In June of 2014, the so-called Pride flag flew over its corporate headquarters. Can a rainbow cup for Pride month be far away? The espresso, caramel macchiato-mongers have opened a front against the family too.
Not the ACLU or the American Humanist Society, but the Democratic Party is GHQ of the War on Religion and America. At the 2012 Democratic National Convention, a majority of delegates wanted to take a casual reference to God out of the Party's platform, a move overruled by the president who was running for reelection. In speeches over the past five years, Obama has regularly misquoted the Declaration of Independence, by deleting the reference to unalienable rights endowed by the Creator. The White House always explains that the president misspoke while ad-libbing. He also misspoke when he edited The Gettysburg Address, deleting "this nation under God."
The only religion Bowe Bergdahl's BFF thinks of fondly is Islam. For the man who spent his formative years in Indonesia, Christianity calls to mind the Crusades and Inquisition, and let us forthwith dismount our high horses when discussing the religion of peace and terrorism. His pronouncements on Islam are embarrassing. They sound like the high school nerd writing mash notes to the head cheerleader. ("Oh Islam, I've always loved you. Islam, I want you to have my babies.")
In keeping with his penchant for rewriting history, Obama claims: "Islam has been woven into the fabric of our country," and "Islam has always been part of the American story" – as it has, from the Barbary pirates to 9/11 and ISIS.
While the educational establishment is on a search-and-destroy mission for signs of peace on earth and good will toward men, a Virginia school decided to teach writing skills by having students copy out the Islamic declaration of faith ("There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is his messenger"). As part of their social studies curriculum, 7th graders in Byron, California were told to pretend to be Muslims, by reciting Muslim prayers, adopting Muslim names and simulating the Ramadan fast.( "A Charlie Brown Hajj"?)
In the left's indoctrination factories, Christmas and patriotism are out, Islam is in. In 2010, administrators at the Live Oak High School in Morgan Hills, California sent five students home for wearing American flag t-shirts on Cinco de Mayo, which they called "incendiary." The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld both the Muslim brainwashing and the ban on U.S. flag t-shirts.
For the left, it makes perfect sense. America was founded by Christians inspired by the Jewish bible. International Islam is trying to destroy America. So Christianity is bad; Islam is good.
Today, Christmas is as much an American holiday as a religious holiday. While 70% of Americans are Christians, 90% celebrate Christmas. In a 2013 Pew poll, half of respondents said they consider Christmas as a religious holiday, while a significant 32% said it's a cultural holiday.
Christmas represents many of the things that make America special – home, family, giving, sharing and hope for the future.
In October 1943, Bing Crosby recorded a song that became his fifth gold record, and the most requested song at USO events – "I'll be home for Christmas," with its sweet ("Please have snow and mistletoe and presents under the tree"), sentimental ("Christmas Eve will find me, where the love light gleams") and sad lyrics ("I'll be home for Christmas, if only in my dreams").
Many GIs who heard it on troop ships and military bases in 1943 would never be home for Christmas again. Over the next two years, they fell at places with names like Monte Casino, Anzio, Normandy, Bastogne, Saipan, Iwo Jima and Okinawa. By holding the line in the Cultural War, we honor their memories.
America needs to come home for Christmas – home to family, faith and freedom; home to caring and good will. Keep the love light gleaming and the torch of liberty burning brightly.
I've come to believe that there's been more damage done to the whole religious aspect of Christmas by the crass commercialization of the holiday over the years, than by the lawyers and bureaucrats who are looking to stamp out all references to Christmas in the public square.
What is with the teeth on the Chinese pilot? Is there some weird cultural reference I am ignorant of?
Usually they’re portrayed with buck teeth - these are vampire teeth!
The “war on Xmas” is a war fought at a level of culture.
I am waging a war of truth: I challenge every Christian who observes Xmas to strictly observe it exactly as it is carefully documented in the Gospel accounts and to not add nor take away a single aspect.
I also challenge people who reject God and especially those who do not need to be saved from death for all eternity to stop any observation of Xmas whatsoever. If you reject Jesus, what do you think you are doing when you put up lights or a tree, or send cards to your friends? If you reject Jesus, get the hell out (so to speak) and get your own holiday. There are plenty to choose from. The Solstice is a popular one with the Druids.
Yes, the crass commercialization of Christmas is tedious, but no nearly as annoying as the attacks by leftards.
My problem with leftards is that they are miserable souls and the seek to make everyone else miserable too. There is no joy in their lives except to annoy others when the others are having a celebration.
...more damage done to the whole religious aspect of Christmas by the crass commercialization of the holiday over the years, than by the lawyers and bureaucrats...
Really? People buying a few gifts strikes you as more culturally damaging than the removal of a nativity scene in the town park, due to a single complaint from some dyed in the wool, attention seeking killjoy...? That’s what happened in my home town...
Very well said. I have noticed the car commercials are particularly bad about calling Christmas everything in the world except NEVER using the word Christmas. I have heard two local Ford dealers use the Christmas word in local commercials. Otherwise, NOTHING! Bottom line, I don’t buy from companies who won’t use the C word.
((((Giggle)))))
"Exactly as it is carefully documented in the Gospel accounts," here are the very same Flash Performances which were put on by the Seventy-two Disco Disciples, the Cheering Cherubim and their back-up band the Cha-Cha Chachamim, the Twelve Apostles, their lovely wives the Twelve Epistles:
The famous Hallelujah Food Court Flash Mob. Classic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXh7JR9oKVE
Wonderful - Ode to Joy, from Sabadell, Spain:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87qT5BOl2XU
Air Force Band doing Christmas at the Earth & Space Museum. They're good!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gu53onuBOXw
USAF again, from 2014, very nice:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vniBBT7nRJg
This one looked like it had some shoppers singing, and it also had a Mary, Joseph, and Jesus baby (live), pretty cool IMHO!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vniBBT7nRJg
150 Students from Thomas Aquinas College at a mall in Ventura, CA):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vniBBT7nRJg
Another amazing one: a song called "Wana Baraka" in Swahili, as spoken in Kenya, as sung in Spain, in praise of Jesus. Name of the group: "Coro de Gospel Good News". Wow.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsPDY606Joo
Special thanks to FReepers SES1066 and Seattle Conservative.
And Merry Christmas to you, theBuckwheat!
"O King of the nations, and their desire,
the keystone of the mighty arch of man:
Come and save the human race,
we whom you fashioned from the dust.
I have absolutely no idea how the removal of secular symbols from a coffee cup that will be in the trash in 20 minutes equates to a war on Christmas.
Or how the inclusion of said secular symbols demonstrates that one is sympatico with Christmas.
You can always buy the Christmas Blend of coffee at Starbucks by the pound. Or a Merry Christmas gift card at the exact same Starbucks.
It would great if the authors of these war on Christmas articles actually delved into the topic they wish to trumpet, instead of the incredibly superficial approach currently taken.
/rant off
Hah waging that war too. No such account of course. The ONLY holy days Christ ever created or ever was in are in Leviticus 23.
I also challenge people who reject God and especially those who do not need to be saved from death for all eternity to stop any observation of Xmas whatsoever.
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Why are using Xmas instead of Christmas? Seems at odds with your thesis.
Why “Xmas”? Because if you closely research the accounts in the Gospels, there is no Christ in December 25. The weight of the evidence is extremely strong for Jesus having been born either on the Feast of Trumpets or some other day related to the Feast of Tabernacles.
There is very little evidence that Jesus was born on December 25. Where people raise it, they never give any due consideration to His birth during the Holy Days in the Fall. And they never give any weight to how December 25 falls suspiciously close to the winter solstice. In short, what I see are very strained attempts to justify observing something that they just really want to observe for other reasons.
Then there is the issue of the vast number of opportunities that the text of the New Testament gives to mention how to celebrate the birth of Our Lord, but there is not a single passage. The early Church did not observe it.
For my part, I am trying to observe the faith that was “once delivered” without adding to it or detracting from it. I am no more interested in what new thing some “early church father” may have added hundreds of years after Jesus conveyed the body of knowledge to His Disciples than I am interested in what Justice Ginsburg may have added to the Constitution hundreds of years after it was debated and ratified.
I don’t fault people for liking Xmas. There is a lot of family and personal focus on it. It takes a lot of courage to break from that sufficiently to fully evaluate all the evidence. But as Jesus said, the truth will set you free.
If it was just "buying a few gifts" then there wouldn't be a problem. Here in America we've managed to turn a holy season into nothing more than an extended retail season -- complete with overworked UPS drivers and Amazon warehouse workers, and quasi-humanoid mutants trampling each other in a rush to get into Wal-Mart at midnight on Thanksgiving.
I wonder what would happen in your town if a group of private citizens went out and put up their own Nativity scene in the park.
There was in the days of Herod, the king of Judea, a certain priest named Zachariah, of the course of Abia: and his wife was of the daughters of Aaron, and her name Elizabeth. And they were both just before God, walking in all the commandments and justifications of the Lord without blame. And they had no son, for that Elizabeth was barren: and they both were well advanced in years. And it came to pass, when he executed the priestly function in the order of his course before God, according to the custom of the priestly office, it was his lot to offer incense, going into the temple of the Lord.
This practice would have been carried out on the Day of Atonement, which would take place sometime between mid-September and mid-October by the Gregorian calendar.
From Luke 1:11-15 ...
And there appeared to him an angel of the Lord, standing on the right side of the altar of incense. And Zachariah seeing him, was troubled: and fear fell upon him. But the angel said to him: Fear not, Zachariah, for thy prayer is heard: and thy wife Elizabeth shall bear thee a son. And thou shalt call his name John. And thou shalt have joy and gladness: and many shall rejoice in his nativity. For he shall be great before the Lord and shall drink no wine nor strong drink: and he shall be filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother's womb.
So at some point in September or October that year, Zachariah is told that his wife Elizabeth will conceive a child who would be John the Baptist.
The Annunciation is then described in the passages starting with Luke 1:26, when the angel Gabriel visits Mary to announce that she will give birth to Jesus Christ. This is described as taking place in Elizabeth's "sixth month," at which point Mary goes and visits her. So this visit would have taken place sometime between mid-March and mid-April of the following year.
Assuming Mary carried Jesus to full term, she would have given birth to Him between mid-December and mid-January. December 25th fits right into this timeline.
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