Christmas blog

               We stood on the parking lot after Church. I told her that I do not go to Holiday Parties. I go to Christmas parties. This Christian sister whose devotion I respect said, “I have a different take on it.” It was the usual spin that Christians who opt to use the all-inclusive greeting have on it. Our conversation set the wheels in motion for this blog that I have threatening to do for several years.

While I do not intend to change anyone’s mind I do wish to inform him or her about what I believe to be an underlying effort to remove the mention of Jesus Christ from our culture. How did we get here? Is it as simple as which greeting to choose? What’s the deal with the terminology?

Religion in School

In the 50’s Jesus was in school. I believe He still is. We just cannot advocate Him. How did we get there?

On the face of it, the issue is not really about prayer in school. It is about religion in school. Obviously, parents who passionately hold a different worldview would not want their children indoctrinated with the Christian worldview. One such group of people challenged it and made it to the Supreme Court.

On June 25, 1962, the United States Supreme Court decided in Engel v. Vitale that a prayer that is approved by the New York Board of Regents for use in schools violated the First Amendment because it represented the establishment of religion. Steven Engel, a follower of Judaism, challenged the constitutionality of the state’s approved prayer policy. This effort was supported by a confederation of organizations including rabbinical and Judaic organizations of differing worldviews. The court ruled state-approved prayers unconstitutional.

The decision of 1962 became the basis for subsequent decisions limiting government-approved prayer. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallace_v._Jaffree. Although the proponents of this effort to silence state-approved prayer in public schools represented a plethora of religious views many Christians felt that it was a direct attack on Jesus Christ. Some of this belief is based in various Scriptural texts that warn Christians that the world does not like us. (See Isaiah 55.8 and John 15.18-25). Today, Christians often feel hostility more blatantly than we use to when we take biblical stances. We are often thought to be ignorant if we believe that Jesus is the only way to heaven and we are bigots if we refuse to bake cakes for anything except a heterosexual marriage. To the contrary, it is Christian to love all people. That brief history, absent many detail including huge legal briefs by passionate advocates over prayer in public schools brings us to religion in Government.

Religion in Government

Once the official removal of religion from school took place, like-minded people turned their efforts to its removal from government and some of them were probably very well meaning people as many Christian are well-meaning.

In Van Orden v. Perry the United States Court of Appeals For the Fifth Circuit ruled in June 2003 that the display of the Ten Commandments on a monument given to the government at the Texas State Capitol in Austin was constitutional on the grounds that the monument displayed both a religious and a secular message. Thomas Van Orden appealed and in October 2004 the high court agreed to hear the case at the same time as it heard McCreary County v. ACLU of Kentucky, which similarly challenged a display of the Ten Commandments at two county courthouses in Kentucky. Unlike Van Orden v. Perry the case in McCreary County was ruled unconstitutional. These two iconic events are a snapshot representation of several court battles that brought us to this place where the ability to pray and display, in government venues, religious symbols continue to shrink case-by-case. Then there is the removal of Christ from society.

Christ in Society

Society includes any number of venues such as, the media, the arts as well as the church. The removal of Christ from the church is one of the most striking of all these venues. The first time the announcement clerk who substituted for the official clerk greeted the Church with “Happy Holidays”, I gasped. After all, I was in Bible College! My colleagues and I were constantly schooled on the effort to hide Jesus so deep in our culture that we cannot find Him. I gently mentioned it to the clerk; after all, I am a type of Israel’s Old Testament Watchman. While I do not remember the outcome of that confrontation I do remember that the outcome of another Christian greeter of the same was met with deep hostility. That was several years ago. Now we are at a place where the, “Merry Christmas” greeting sometimes makes us feel awkward even in the Church. This blog is not deeply inclusive of all the elements that surround this issue but let’s be clear.

Bringing Clarity to the Issue

First, I understand people’s desire to be all-inclusive in their greetings. It is a very noble desire, which I applaud. They do not want to exclude or hurt anyone in their greetings, but more than that, they desire, as I do, that people be happy and enjoy these holidays. I pray that everyone has a loving family or group of friends that they can sit down with and experience the vital warmth and support. To quote Diana Ross, we all ought to reach out and touch somebody’s hand and try to make this world a better place.

Second, I do not, by any means, propose a legalistic approach to greetings. In my opinion, we have too much legalism in the church already. People already look at us as if we are sinning when we do not stand for the reading of God’s Word, and other activities based on duty and not desire.

Finally, my experience with God is neither political nor hostile. It is precious. The truth be told, we can greet people out of hostility. Judas greeted Jesus with a kiss of betrayal. So, on a very personal and private level Jesus Christ is among the most precious words that I have in my vocabulary for many reasons, which include my upbringing. The big strapping coal-miners who crawled out of the coal-mines, washed that black dust off and went in the Church and set up Christmas decorations, the mothers who baked cakes and pies for the Christmas celebrations, who also dressed us in sheets to look like shepherds and wise men for the plays deep in the hills of Southern West Virginia where the weather was cold but every heart was warm, where we sang Silent Night, Holy Night, all meant, “Christmas” to me. Also, for me to know that it was my faith in Him that stood me on my feet time after time that makes any mention of Him precious to me. If a blog could sing, right now I would be singing:

“Have yourself a merry little Christmas.
Let your heart be light.
From now on,
Our troubles will be out of sight.

Have yourself a merry little Christmas,
Make the Yuletide gay,
From now on,
Our troubles will be miles away.

Here we are as in olden days,
Happy golden days of yore.
Faithful friends who are dear to us
Gather near to us once more.

Through the years
We all will be together,
If the fates allow.
Hang a shining star upon the highest bough.
And have yourself a merry little Christmas now.”

My concluding statement is this: “I wasn’t going to put up a tree this year but I did it because I thought it would bring more joy to those who live with me.” That’s what it is all about, i.e., bringing joy to the world.

Merry Christmas!