Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Fun with Polls Do we need to take Christ out of Christmas?

I found this on the net and just had to share it.

StrangerHood: Holiday Wishes

It's from a new online series called "the Strangerhood," which spoofs reality shows and sitcoms. It's really funny!

Since this topic primarily pertains to Christmas in the US, this post is written from that point of view.

To me Christmas is about the children. It's in watching my son's face as he opens his gifts on Christmas Eve (in the Swedish tradition on my wife's side, Christmas is always celebrated on the Eve). It's in knowing that I gave someone something nice. But yet there are many who are trying to turn "Merry Christmas" into a political hot-potato. I, personally, am an agnostic with an agnostic wife, two kids who don't even know religion exists, and with two parents who are recent born-again Buddhists.

As Jonah Goldberg, a Jew with an Episcopal mother, put it in his latest opinion piece, the minority have to be as tolerant of the majority as the majority is of their beliefs. Yet that is increasingly not the case in this country. All in the name of being "not offended", we are all forced to tread on eggshells, afraid if a well-intentioned "Merry Christmas" leads to an attack of intolerance. Tolerance needs to be a two-way street. Why should Christians always get the short end of the stick?

As for public displays of Christmas trees, nativity scenes, Santa Claus, or just the words, "Merry Christmas," I have no problems with that. In no way do I believe the government is trying to establish a religious theocracy. Yet nobody seems to have problems with menorahs or other religious symbols appearing. Only the Christian ones are under attack. Are people so uncertain of their own faith that they equate these displays to the thousands of years of religious persecution that has gone on in history?

Any day now, I expect a lawsuit by the chief intolerants, the ACLU, to force a ban on Christmas as a national holiday. It made me happy to see all those people singing Christmas carols outside of the ACLU's offices in Washington, D.C.

Beyond the public displays is what's going on in the rest of the country. Federated Store employees are forbidden from saying, "Merry Christmas" as are Macy's employees. Kids are forbidden from singing Christmas carols. Target stores ban the Salvation Army kettles. Floats are banned from parades because they have nativity scenes. None of those have anything to do with the separation of church and state. Is this intolerance really what we want to teach our kids?

What also concerns me is that we are losing our history. Text books are increasingly being changed to dismiss our founding fathers and to show political correctness. Fewer and fewer young ones know just why we celebrate Independence Day. Thanksgiving's history is being distorted to shine more favorably on the natives. How many people know that Veterans Day was originally a celebration of the end of World War I, known as Armistice Day? How many young ones know that Presidents Day was originally two separate holidays, George Washington's birthday (Feb. 22) and Abraham Lincoln's birthday (Feb. 12)? Instead we watered it down and celebrate Herbert Hoover and William Henry Harrison on the same day as we honor Washington and Lincoln. Kids these days don't even know what those two great men did.

To turn Christmas into a secular holiday, even though it is one to me, is a disservice to our children. Regardless of whether you believe the story of Mary and Joseph, it is important to know why Christians honor that event in their celebration of Christmas. It gives insight into the very founding of our country by very religious people.

As I said, it's all about the kids.

Well said, Roger.

I also found this editorial in the Boston Globe -- A Jew Says "Merry Christmas" .

Rivka, I checked up that Jew FAQ you linked to -- that was really very interesting, so thanks for posting. (And for the record, I had heard about Purim. Didn't really remember what it was, but I'd definitely heard of it.) But that guy who says he gets hassled for not celebrating Christmas sounds to me like he lives in a tough neighborhood -- we've lived in our current house 12 years, and I don't think we've put up any outside Christmas decorations ever. We usually travel for Christmas -- most years we don't even bother to put up a tree. And I've never had anyone question me about it.

I do sympathise about the pressure for the kids to have Santa, though. As a fairly religious person, at first I wasn't really comfortable with the idea of telling my kids about Santa. When they find out there's no such person, they might start wondering about those other invisible people I've talked about -- like God. But it would have been very very hard to keep Santa out of the picture; my husband's family is all secular, and give Santa presents every year, even when it was just us grown-ups We've ended up compromising -- some presents are from grandparents or other relatives (this year, I took the kids shopping to pick out gifts for their dad), and those go under the tree whenever we get them. But then, some others are from Santa and don't show up til Christmas morning.

So from my perspective, Santa is secular, not religious. It was rather startling to hear that some districts are getting rid of Santa altogether. A creche is obviously religious, but Santa? That's a stretch.

PJ

I've enjoyed reading the various links, but the Santa Claus part surprised me, too, Pam. In our household, Santa, Rudolph, and elves are just as religious as the Easter Bunny, the tooth fairy, and the Great Pumpkin (okay, so I always liked Charlie Brown ). They just aren't religious symbols. I like driving through town and seeing all the beautiful lights, though.

I knew about Purim since the last chapter of Esther explains why it is celebrated on one day in the city and another day in the country, so I wasn't surprised to read that Chanukah isn't "a very important religious holiday. The holiday's religious significance is far less than that of Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, Passover, and Shavu'ot. It is roughly equivalent to Purim in significance" (http://www.jewfaq.org/holiday7.htm).

Nonetheless, I always thought of Chanukah as the Jewish equivalent of Christmas--not because of the reason the holiday was celebrated, but in terms of the secular add-ons of feasting, decorating the home, and gift-giving. After all, in Christianity, Christmas is of less religious significance than Easter, but that has nothing to do with the secular celebration, which is huge for Christmas and fairly small for Easter. So I'm sorry if I got that completely wrong.

Anyway, Paul and Rivka, some of us Christians feel the same way about the relentless pushing of Santa and Rudolph and Frosty the Snowman and buy-buy-buy, spend-spend-spend that seems to be the main message of Christmas in America. But at moments I feel more of the spirit of love and joy when strangers smile instead of scowl, say "Merry Christmas" instead of pushing rudely past, empty their change into the Salvation Army pots, and deliver Christmas dinners to poor people.

And did I mention that I like the pretty lights?

I've always had the notion of believing that holidays such as Christmas and Easter have become way too commercialised and taking away the true meaning of those two important events in the Christian calender. Christmas because it is the birth of our Saviour and Easter of course his death and resurrection.

Okay I am guilty of receiving presents and eating Easter eggs but they were not part of why we celebrate these two holidays and it saddens me to see that people are so caught up in that rush to find the perfect present without stopping to think about the true meaning of it.

I know that in today's multicultural society that many don't celebrate it because it isn't part of what they believe in and that is fine with me too, but I think that Christainity has been the subject of a lot of bad press lately and I firmly believe that there is nothing wrong with displaying the Nativity scene anywhere just like people display Christmas trees.

See, this is what happens when you take a perfectly good word -- a compound of 'holy' and 'day' -- and make it mean something else. Silly Brits.

*runs*




*giggle* With the exception of Yom Kippur all Jewish holidays involve "feasting"! Chanukah actually does less than most, for while there are special foods (latkes and sufganiyot (potato pancakes and filled donuts)), there is no special meal. Most of the other holidays have one -- even Yom Kippur has a special meal on its eve.

I applogize for the wording of some of the 'options'. I admit that this poll is part serious, part tongue-in-cheek, part holiday stress of cranking out 8 photo calendar for various family members for gifts, and mostly a reaction to various comments made by both secular radio and Christian radio, most of it along the lines of Pam's links.

I have loved the comments made by the participants and have been surprised by some.

Thanks for your input, but don't let this post stop y'all. Please continue.

James

Speaking as a non-Christian...

I love Christmastime in the States because there is a lot of genuine happiness and joy, and that's a wonderful thing to see. I am honestly happy for and respectful of this Christian holiday that means so much to many of my friends.

However.

There is a line, and sometimes people (often unwittingly) cross it, becoming obnoxious and horribly insensitive of my (and my family's) non-Christmas celebrating ways. Please remember that as much as taking the Christ out of Christmas imposes upon your religious views, so does your forcing Christmas -- in any form -- upon me infringe upon my religious views.

As for Santa Claus and Christmas trees... these things are primarily for children, and it is for my children that I am mostly worried. I worry that seeing these symbols, symbols that are not theirs, in their schools and from their teachers, will make them feel less worthy than the Christian children for whom all the fuss is being made. I understand that neither Santa nor the tree have any religious grounding, but they do symbolize a religion that is not one I want to pass along to my children. Please put yourself in my shoes and think about how you'd handle it if YOU were the minority religion.

Also, religious decorations in a government building? Grossly inappropriate. If you must, hang up some lights or ribbons or a garland or two, but please keep the nativity scenes for the church or your front yard.

I don't remember who said this (and am too tired to scroll down and find out), but this quote makes me so incredibly sad. Helga said it best, so I'm just going to word her and move on.

As far as there being no separation of church and state in the Constitution, while it's true the document does not explicitly outlaw a religious state, it does make pretty clear that the government cannot promote (or exclude) one religion over another. At the same time, it does not ban religion outright (as I expect the "communist constitution" does). If that's not separation between church and state, I don't know what is. If the argument is that the declaration is made in the amendments and not the core Constitution, please remember the amount of compromise necessary to get the Constitution to a point where it would be ratified by all the states. The founding fathers knew it needed more guidelines than it provided, and that's why they added the Bill of Rights, in one chunk, and almost immediately after the ratification of the original document. If I have misintrepreted (or forgotten my history), and this is truly not a country where the law guarantees a separation of church and state, then perhaps I should look into moving.

Btw, Wendy... there's another Eid rolling around at the end of January.

Seasons greetings, everyone.

Thank you, Noelle, for saying what I wanted to say a lot more diplamatically than I could have.

One thing, America is not, nor has it ever been, a Christian country. It is a country that has a history of diversity of religion. I hope it continues to hold to the freedom of religion, even with our current administration.

- Laura

A couple of points... I hadn't thought about it this way before, but I saw someone pointing out that the primary point of "separation of church and state" is to make it clear that the President of the US is not also the arch-bishop of the country. That the bishop of Virginia doesn't have an automatic Senate seat. Etc. We're not even close to that level of entanglement.

Lower-level stuff, like nativity scenes on public property, I tend to think should be handled democratically and locally. There'd be lots of different demarcation points across blue and red states -- displays agreed to by the people who are going to be seeing them. One of the things that ticks me off is that so many of these stories seem to be in reaction to lawsuits, which means public policy is being made by a very small minority.

As to whether America is a "Christian country" -- well, depends on how you define it We do not have an official American Christian church (thank the founding fathers!). And we've been blessed by contributions from all sorts of religions/cultures/etc, which I certainly want to see continued -- that's one of the things about America I'm very proud of. But when somewhere around 90% of the population describes itself as Christian, and when so much of our culture comes from a Christian background (including the concept of separation of church and state, btw -- Jesus was specific about his followers also being tax-paying, law-abiding Roman subjects/citizens, regardless of the official Roman theology. There's nothing like that in Islam) ... well, I think as a generalization, "Christian country" works pretty well. In the same general way that Pakistan is Muslim, India is Hindu, France is secular, etc.

PJ

Very true. However, the law was deliberately written vaguely enough to be applicable beyond the 18th century, and the courts (Supreme included) have ruled time and again that the principle of separation of church and state applies at all levels, including local establishments such as public schools.

Using my tax dollars to pay for the nativity scene in front of the local post office? I don't think so.

America is a secular country with Judeo-Christian leanings. It was not ever declared a Christian state. Pakistan, on the other hand, was founded with the intention of being a Muslim country. And if France (a country of many Catholics) can be classed as secular, so can the U.S.

I'm sorry, but the bolded portion of your statement is wholly inaccurate, as well as a tad offensive.

Yes, they have, although not quite as much as some people seem to believe. And courts have been wrong before. If I can dig up any of the sources I vaguely recall, I'll post them

Which is where the democratic part comes in, in my hypothetical situation -- tell your local government you're utterly opposed to it, and if enough of your fellow citizens agree, your tax money won't be used for that. In some areas, of course, you'll be voted down -- but such is part of life. My tax money goes to pay for the teaching of evolution and various other things that I would not voluntarily spend money on.

True, America was never declared a Christian state; I didn't say it ever had been. But it was founded by people who, for the most part, believed in the Judeo-Christian God (bearing in mind that there are lots of discussion & disagreements within Christianity, so I'm speaking pretty generally here), and that belief had a lot to do with the concept of natural rights -- granted by a supreme being, not the state. And, as I said, some 90% of Americans say they're Christians. That seems like a fairly solid majority.

France used to be Catholic, yes, but they've been consciously changing over to secularism over the past few decades. It's illegal, for instance, for kids to wear religious symbols (head scarves, stars of David, crosses) to school. We're heading down that road, I think, but haven't gone nearly as far.

You've got me on Pakistan <g> I really wasn't talking about forms of government so much as widespread beliefs -- but of course, if it's borderline illegal to not be Muslim, that's gonna influence how people answer those poll questions, so the two are not unrelated.

I apologize for any offense. I've read in multiple sources that Islam considers church and state to be inseperable (sharia law, etc) but there are tons of things out there I haven't read, so I'd be quite interested in looking into any resources anyone can give, to disprove the point.

PJ

This actually isn't quite true. The concept of separation of church and state did not even exist as a concept in law until Everson v Board of Education in 1947 in winning arguments made by the ACLU and an opinion written by Justice Hugo Black who said, "No tax in any amount large or small can be levied to support any religious activities or institutions, whatever they may be called, or whatever form they may adopt to teach or practice religion."

After only 57 years, it is now mistakenly accepted by the public that the separation of church and state is in the Constitution, but it is not there in any form. Pam states it correctly that the First Amendment bans a state-sponsored religion. The Founders were thinking of things like the Anglican Church of England where the head of the Church is chosen by the head of government, not nativity scenes in front of a post office.

The First Amendment actually says, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..." It says nothing about mentioning religion in the public arena. Note that a display in front of a post office has nothing to do with Congress. And it is quite arguable that preventing kids from singing Christmas carols or putting Christmas-themed floats in parades is a gross violation of the part that says, "prohibiting the free exercise thereof," the part of the First Amendment always forgotten by Christmas opponents.

Most separation advocates point to a single letter written by Thomas Jefferson, who did not even attend the Constitutional Convention because he was home with his sick wife and had nothing to do with the drafting of our founding document, as evidence the Founding Fathers intended a complete wall between church and state. Yet the author of the First Amendment, James Madison, appointed the first chaplain of the House of Representatives.

Another little known fact is that many states had official state religions well into the 19'th Century, an impossibility if the separation of church and state were indeed in the Constitution.

So while the separation of church and state is indeed law today, it is highly inaccurate to say it is in the Constitution in any form. It is yet another law created out of thin air by advocates who believe the Constitution is a "living document" that must adjust to the times. Yet even those advocates misuse that phrase. "Living document" refers to the amendability of the document through a set process of voting (2/3 majority of Congress and 3/4 of state legislatures or a Constitutional convention), not a flexible interpretation of its contents.

One thing I will agree with is that I don't want my tax money to go towards exhibits in front of the post office, but most often the exhibits are donations from individuals. I have no problems with those and I, like Noelle, am completely non-religious.

On Thomas Jefferson: The same week he wrote the letter to the Danbury Baptist Association with the infamous "wall of separation between church and state" phrase, he attended worship services in the meeting hall of the US House of Representatives. This was his custom throughout his term in office.

The separation he was talking about was more the separation of Church government -particularly denominatinal governments -from civil government. This is manifestly a GOOD THING, and is a good paraphrase of the religious freedom part of the first amendment. It is not about separating religion and religious people from public life, regardless of what the Supreme Court says. (If you think that the US Supreme Court is infallible, I have two words for you - Dred Scott)

There is a great deal of difference between having a visible Nativity scene, and being forced to kneel in worship before it.

There is little or no danger of Christians setting up a theocracy in the US. It's hard enough to get two denominations to cooperate "offically" on disaster relief, much less impose anything on anyone. We even have some denominations (including mine, unfortunately) which have bishops who want to remove Christ from the Church - nevermind Christmas. If we can ever get our acts together and do what we're called to do we'll be very suprised.

I would argue that Government imposition of secularism is itself an imposition of a specific religious view, and is incredibly divisive.

Joseph Farah "State Imposed Athesism"


Frank

I haven't looked at the poll because, judging by people's responses to it and James's own apology, it's not really going to help me contribute to this discussion.

I'm an aetheist born of Christian parents. I have no idea what my sister's views on religion are, and, after a life-long rejection of religion, my brother came back to Christianity about 6 years ago while married to his second wife.

So, having established where I'm coming from <g>, here's my view of Christmas.

Christmas is a day for goodwill towards family, friends, and even complete strangers. It's the day you watch smiles appear on your loved ones' faces as they open the presents you gave them. It's the day you sit down for a good, home-cooked lunch with your family - a meal that everyone helps prepare and clean up afterwards. It's the day you go for a walk after lunch, and everyone you pass smiles at you. Even the man in the air-sea rescue helicopter that's flying low over your heads as you walk along the cliff-top waves at you from his open door (that one's a bit specific, but it's what happened to me this year <g>). It's the day you wake up feeling warm and fuzzy inside, and strangely, being nice to absolutely everyone in your family is effortless - and you can do it all day long without flagging!

So what's my point? Um...well, I suppose I'm saying that, in my view, almost anyone can celebrate that sort of Christmas, irrespective of their beliefs. I'm not saying that they should, but hey, if you do, and your religion has another significant festival during the year, at least you'll get two lots of celebration when I'll only get one. I'm thinking here of my Muslim colleague at work, whose family enthusiastically embraces both Christmas and Eid. They put their own, individual spin on both events, and so far as I can tell, have a wonderful time.

All of that said, I can see how irritating it would get to have someone else's celebrations shoved down your throat from around September to December. I think there's a strong case to be made for the general toning-down of Christmas mania - even those of us who do celebrate it are often heartily sick of the hoopla that goes on for month after month.

Edit: I forgot to add that, of course, the lonely and the homeless cannot, sadly, participate in the sort of Christmas I described. Those are the people who are truly excluded at Christmas time.

Yvonne

I agree with everything that Yvonne has said. Christmas to me is kind of secular, because really, when I think of Christmas, what comes to mind are Christmas lights, shopping, and tons of feel-good movies. The religious significance of Christmas to Christians becomes secondary. I've been told that Jesus was not even born on 25th Dec, so perhaps that has something to do with the way I see Christmas.

I'm going to get angry retorts from the Christian community over here, but I'm going to stick my neck out and say it anyway. I suspect this entire thing about how the religious significance of Christmas being taken away and only Christian displays are being targeted etc is really a backlash because the Christians are so vocal about other issues like abortion, homosexuality and even evolution.

Issues like these are social issues which should have nothing to do with religion, but very often your religion will tell you which is the 'right' stance for you to take, which side you should be on. Do you then impose your beliefs on others then? If my religion says nothing about abortion, should anti-abortion laws apply to me? If my religion preachs the superiority of a sex over the other, should anti-discrimatpry laws apply to me?

There's no simple answer. There lies the problem. For each of the examples that I've named (abortion, homosexuality, evolution), I can name many Christian groups/associations that are against them, and are pushing for laws. Some of them are very well known to be very vocal, and very influencial. In comparison, the number of people from other religions organising themselves and lobbying is much less, I think. At least, I haven't come across many of their readings, unlike readings from Christian groups.

This of course, could simply be due to sheer numbers; in a country where 90% of the population consider themselves Christian, of course there are more Christian groups.

But if I'm not a Christian, I'd be very nervous that laws of a country are being written with obvious Judeo-Christianity slant, and yet a clause to say that these laws only apply to Jews and Christians is not present. I'd be more nervous when the city halls of this country put up religious decorations associated with a Christian festival, but not for festivals of other religions.

I'm not sure if I'm taking an over-simplistic view about the entire thing. I'm NOT trying to start a social issues debate here. Honestly. I'm also not trying to suggest that Christians are wrong for taking a stance on a social issue based on religion. The way I see it, your religion shapes your values, and values determine what kind of society we live in. Therefore it's perfectly legitimate to bring in your religion when debating about a social issue.

I think I'll stop here before I offend more people. I just want to say that I'm not an anti-Chistianity person or anything like that. I'm using Christianity as an example here because this poll is talking about a Christian festival.


metwin1

metwin1, you said almost exactly what is on my mind rearding religion and social issues. Thank you.

And, no, Jesus was not born on December 25. Christmas was basically adopted as a feast day celebrated by several other culture. Actually, early Christians were opposed to celebrating Jesus's birthday at all. Here is an article about the history of Christmas . It's from a Catholic web site, so it is slanted, but the early Christians were Catholic.

That is why 'taking the Christ out of Christmas' is riddiculous to me. If people want to celebrate Christ's birthday with a solemnity like Easter without the secular customs and the customs adopted from the ancient solstice feasts, they should find out when his birthday really was (for some reason, I think I've heard April before) and set up a true solemnity of Christ's birth significant to only Christians.

- Laura

There is no way for me to explain my view as eloquently as everybody else already has, but I will say this is about the most interesting poll I've seen on this board and I'm really impressed with the insites and mature discussion.

Well done you guys.

TJ

Some very interesting points since I last commented. I just wanted to note briefly with regard to this:

that it isn't all Christian churches/groups who take a hard-line stance on these issues, and by no means all those whose teaching is opposed to abortion, say, would ever advocate militancy over it. I'm an Anglican by birth (Episcopalian, for the North Americans), though I've drifted away in recent years. My church has no problem whatsoever with evolution. It has softened its stance on homosexuality, and of course many priests are gay and, in the US, there is now a gay bishop (though I'm aware that has caused many problems within the church). Its teaching does not approve abortion, but decisions are left up to individual conscience.

I don't disagree with the general thrust of your observation, Metwin1, but I did want to point out that it's a vocal minority, as ever, who is most noticeably strident about these issues. (I don't, by the way, intend or wish to pass judgement about anyone's personal views on any of those issues; I respect people's right to hold whatever view they do. It's the violence outside abortion clinics, or stoning or abuse against gays, etc, which I object strongly to, and I agree with Metwin1 that there is definitely a question about whether it's right to impose a certain moral stance on others who don't share those religious beliefs. If it's by the will of the people as a whole, fine; if it's by loud shouting on the part of a noisy minority, not so fine.).


Wendy

I’m late catching up in the poll thread because, originally, it didn’t interest me. Well, curiosity got the better of me and I found a few things I wanted to respond to.

First off, as some know, I’m not affiliated with any religion. I go from agnostic to atheist and back, depending on how I feel. My parents were both Baptized in some sect of the Christian belief, but chose to raise us without religion -- a choice I’m grateful for. We still celebrated Christmas and Easter (though I never did understand why we did Easter, and it wasn’t until I was older that I found out that it had nothing to do with pastels and bunnies and eggs and candy Just thought I’d mention it.

I might think of more later, but I though I’d catch up while I could.

Sara