Tuesday December 22, 2009
The Post Office is closed on Presidents Day. Schools will be closed. Banks will be closed. Most government and municipal offices will be closed. This holiday is an amalgam of Lincoln's birthday and Washington's birthday, and by closing we honor their examples and their achievements in building and preserving our nation.
Those places also are closed on Thanksgiving Day, the purpose of which is to "give thanks" for our freedoms and our bounty, for the beauty of this world...for anything and everything we as individuals or communities feel thankful for.
Offices close on Labor Day, to honor working Americans and close on Columbus Day to honor the discovery of the New World. Those places also close on New Year's Day, to remember the previous year and celebrate the beginning of a new one, and close on Martin Luther King Day to honor his contribution to our nation. They close on Memorial Day to honor those members of the military who gave their lives in service to our nation, on Veterans' Day to honor all who served, and on Independence Day to honor the birth of our nation and its legacy as a force for good in the world.
The point of this introduction is to show that these days, each of them, are national holidays for a specific purpose.
Those offices also close on Christmas, and despite the wonderful themes of giving, of charity, of peace, of home and tradition, Christmas is not a national holiday because of Santa Claus or wreaths or trees or candy canes or Silver Bells or Frosty the Snowman or Rudolph or a Partridge in a Pear Tree. Christmas is a holiday because it celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ, which took place in a manger in the city of David over 2,000 years ago. It celebrates the birth of the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of the world; the Son of God, who died to redeem mankind.
The secular humanists have set America on a course that is intended to end at the complete elimination of Christ or Christianity from the public sector. They accept Christmas as the celebration of those characters, objects and symbols mentioned in the first sentence of the previous paragraph. They object to governments celebrating the holiday for its true purpose. These people do not want us to know what the First Amendment to the Constitution says or means. "It says Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..." Its purpose is to protect religion from the government, not the other way around. The Supreme Court has since 1947 contended that the Fourteenth Amendment has the effect of extending the First Amendment to the states; by extension, it has come to mean that local governments or states or schools must not celebrate the Christian Christmas, only the secular one. The secular humanists do not want us to know that "establishing" a religion does not mean tolerating one or observing one's holy days; no, it means declaring a "state church," in which membership would be essential for government employment, promotion, or to hold an office.
There are millions of Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists and others who do not believe in Christ as Savior, but they are well aware that in America they have the freedom to worship as they choose; many countries in the world do not grant that freedom. The Christian majority in America is tolerant and respectful of other faiths; yet secularists see a danger in letting school orchestras play sacred hymns; or in calling the holiday "Christmas Break." We visited a Civil War battlefield a few years back, and a pamphlet stated that it was open every day except Thanksgiving and "December 25." Not "Christmas," but "December 25." It might leave a visitor curious as to why the site was closed that particular day, just as why or banks and Post Offices and schools and government offices are closed on that same day. Christmas is Christmas because of the birth of Jesus Christ. How can secularists have the power to compel the denial of that? We can imagine the reaction if folks attempted to secularize the holy days of those other religions listed above. Yet some want secularize the day that celebrates the birth of Jesus. This effort can be countered by remembering what Christmas means, what it represents and why it is a holiday.
"Happy Holidays" is a fine song lyric, and a nice way to cover the period of time from Hannukah through New Year's, but let it not be used as a substitute for "Merry Christmas."
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