The War on Christmas -- I Can See the Light at the End of the Tunnel

Speaking of people who Just Don't Get It, Mary Elizabeth Williams, a Christian writer for Salon.com, recently wrote an attack on atheists who attack religious faith, in particular those who put up a billboard attacking Christmas:And as a practicing, questioning Christian, I'm in strong agreement with the belief that church and state should firmly be separated, and with the concept of civil

The War on Christmas -- I Can See the Light at the End of the Tunnel

Speaking of people who Just Don't Get It, Mary Elizabeth Williams, a Christian writer for Salon.com, recently wrote an attack on atheists who attack religious faith, in particular those who put up a billboard attacking Christmas:And as a practicing, questioning Christian, I'm in strong agreement with the belief that church and state should firmly be separated, and with the concept of civil

The Spirit of the Season

Today I had some business to transact at my bank, which gave me occasion to deal with a teller. She was wearing a printed card above the nametag on her uniform shirt that said, "Happy Holidays." I thought about it while I was making the deposit, and made a decision: I told her that I appreciated the bank's decision to make it "Happy Holidays" rather than "Merry Christmas," since I knew there

The Spirit of the Season

Today I had some business to transact at my bank, which gave me occasion to deal with a teller. She was wearing a printed card above the nametag on her uniform shirt that said, "Happy Holidays." I thought about it while I was making the deposit, and made a decision: I told her that I appreciated the bank's decision to make it "Happy Holidays" rather than "Merry Christmas," since I knew there

Of Course You Realize This Means War!

I'd been wondering vaguely when the first salvo would be fired, and then I came across this photoblog post. The War on Christmas Season is once again upon us! (And we haven't even had Thanksgiving yet.) There's also a link to this subliterate piece by a writer for Advertising Age, on how "Happy Holidays" has been relegated to the dustbin of history, comrades.According to its caption, the photo

Of Course You Realize This Means War!

I'd been wondering vaguely when the first salvo would be fired, and then I came across this photoblog post. The War on Christmas Season is once again upon us! (And we haven't even had Thanksgiving yet.) There's also a link to this subliterate piece by a writer for Advertising Age, on how "Happy Holidays" has been relegated to the dustbin of history, comrades.According to its caption, the photo

All Your Faith Are Belong to Us

I took another look at the blog post that led me to write about the War on Christmas, because a word from it had been echoing in my mind all day. That word was "inclusive," which I had trouble believing was really in there because it's such a Politically Correct word to those Canutes who want to return to the 1950s if not the 1890s. But there it was:

There has been a movement in the past decade or so to make Christmas all-inclusive, to call it "holiday" and to expunge any reference to Christmas. Well, Christmas has always been inclusive -- never exclusive. Changing the name to "holiday" does not change the inclusivity of Christmas. It belongs to everyone, but it is still Christmas. How on earth did we allow Christmas to become politically incorrect?

Jo is flat wrong here: Christmas is not "inclusive." Saying "Merry Christmas," for her, is intended to slather Christmas all over the celebrations of non-Christians. (As Stephen Colbert said, there are infinite paths to accepting Jesus Christ as your personal savior.) In one respect that's nothing new, since so much of Christmas as we USAns and Canadians observe it is non-Christian: the Yule, the tree, the holly, the mistletoe -- even the prominent role of Santa Claus / Saint Nicholas / Father Christmas has nothing to do with the Mediterranean dying-and-rising god whose birth is commemorated on December 25. But all this is at best syncretism, not inclusiveness: at worst it's forced conversion and assimilation. Christianity absorbed a good deal of local religious forms as it spread all over the world, and often it is difficult to say for sure who absorbed whom: was Rome Christianized, or was Christianity Romanized? The Korean Christians I know, for example, have kept the form of a Confucian funeral and reverence for the dead, baptizing them as it were. This is fine as far as it goes, and it's not unique to Christianity by any means.

Actually "Happy Holidays" is the inclusive phrase, because it includes Christmas with New Year's, the Winter Solstice, Hanukkah, Boxing Day, Kwanzaa, and Epiphany. It does not, as Jo claimed, "expunge any reference to Christmas" any more than it expunges any reference to the other holidays. Indeed, that is the real crime of "Happy Holidays": it treats Christmas as just one more holiday, even if primus inter pares. The same attitude is exhibited by people who object to calling heterosexuality a sexual orientation because to do so implies that homosexuality is equal to heterosexuality. I suspect it's also involved when someone denies that Christianity is a religion, because "religion" is what the heathen believe, while Christianity is a Relationship with God or some such nonsense.

Sometimes, it's true, mere ethnocentric ignorance is involved. A young Pentecostal woman I used to work with asked me one day if I'd be going to church for Easter. I explained that as an atheist, I never go to church. "I thought everybody went to church on Easter," she said with unselfconscious directness, and kept repeating that refrain as I explained that Jews don't go to church for Easter either, since though they believe in the same God they don't believe in Jesus; that Hindus, Muslims, and Buddhists don't worship Jesus, so they don't celebrate Easter either. "But I thought everybody went to church on Easter," she insisted. That, I think, is the kind of inclusiveness that Jo has in mind when she says that Christmas is inclusive.

Her attitude wasn't ill-intentioned, but her kind of ignorance, when combined with the War on Christmas crowd's hostility to anyone who won't agree that they own December 25, isn't benevolent either. One of my Facebook friends -- the same one, in fact, who claimed falsely that President Obama had a "holiday tree" in the White House a month back -- posted this weekend to the effect that "They" want to take "Christ out of Christmas." (You know, Them: the same shadowy figures who ruin your favorite movie by making inferior remakes. But then people who'd do that would do anything.) I know she probably just pasted something she'd found online into her status again. She also had it backwards: folks like her won't be satisfied until they've forced Christ into everybody's Christmas, whether we're Christians or not. If the church of her choice hasn't put enough Christ into its Christmas, she should do something about it or find another church. But outside that haven, she needs to mind her own business. Christ never was in my Christmas, and I won't let him in.

All Your Faith Are Belong to Us

I took another look at the blog post that led me to write about the War on Christmas, because a word from it had been echoing in my mind all day. That word was "inclusive," which I had trouble believing was really in there because it's such a Politically Correct word to those Canutes who want to return to the 1950s if not the 1890s. But there it was:There has been a movement in the past decade

All Your Faith Are Belong to Us

I took another look at the blog post that led me to write about the War on Christmas, because a word from it had been echoing in my mind all day. That word was "inclusive," which I had trouble believing was really in there because it's such a Politically Correct word to those Canutes who want to return to the 1950s if not the 1890s. But there it was:There has been a movement in the past decade

The Christmas Nuts Are Already Falling from the Trees

I was going to write about something else tonight, but then this came up. It shouldn't surprise anyone who remembers the "War on Christmas" hysteria ginned up a few years ago by Fox News and the right-wing blogosphere. And Obama hadn't even been elected yet! That's right, the headquarters of the War on Christmas was the Bush White House, whose Satan-worshiping denizens mandated secular ornaments for their holiday tree.

Tonight I found that a Facebook friend from my high school had issued a challenge to the rest of us FBers:

Let's see how many people on fb aren't ashamed to show their love for God and admit that Jesus is their Savior... We need to get God back in America... If you're not ashamed, copy and paste this in your status...

I responded, of course, by proudly declaring my atheism and my support for our godless Constitution, the First Amendment, and the Wall of Separation between Religion and Government for which they stand.

Then I went to her main page to see the context for her challenge. There I found a link to "the President Obama says that they will have a Holiday Tree this year instead of a Christmas Tree. Do you agree with this? Poll!" My fellow FBer had, of course, responded with a ringing "No!" I'm familiar with this sort of stuff from way back, at least to the days when good honest Christians were spreading the word that the godless atheist, Madalyn Murray O'Hair (a name which sounds suspiciously like O'Bama, doesn't it?), had submitted a petition to the Federal Communications Commission, demanding that all religious broadcasting be banned from the airwaves!!!! And the FCC declares that they need a million postcards, or the Word of God will like totally be banned from radio and television!!!!!!! Think of the children!!!!!!

It was a fabrication, of course, but despite numerous debunkings and corrections the FCC was deluged for decades with postcards urging them not to ban religious broadcasting. They may still be, for all I know. The Obama Holiday Tree is cut from similar cloth. I left a comment on my friend's page, asking her to support the claim she's broadcasting; I wonder if she'll respond. After all, a good Christian who is not ashamed to acknowledge Jesus Christ as her Lord and Savior should keep the commandments, which include not bearing false witness against her neighbor. (Though they do, don't they, over and over and over.) The clip from Blazing Saddles, above, is just a reminder that Mel Brooks is a prophet.

(image credit)

The Christmas Nuts Are Already Falling from the Trees

I was going to write about something else tonight, but then this came up. It shouldn't surprise anyone who remembers the "War on Christmas" hysteria ginned up a few years ago by Fox News and the right-wing blogosphere. And Obama hadn't even been elected yet! That's right, the headquarters of the War on Christmas was the Bush White House, whose Satan-worshiping denizens mandated secular

The Christmas Nuts Are Already Falling from the Trees

I was going to write about something else tonight, but then this came up. It shouldn't surprise anyone who remembers the "War on Christmas" hysteria ginned up a few years ago by Fox News and the right-wing blogosphere. And Obama hadn't even been elected yet! That's right, the headquarters of the War on Christmas was the Bush White House, whose Satan-worshiping denizens mandated secular