Will Christian Resistance Rally in the War on Christmas?
by Jim Brown, Rusty Pugh, and Jenni Parker
December 22, 2004
(AgapePress) - Officials at a Florida public school are being criticized for removing several Christmas songs from a holiday concert and replacing them with three traditional Hanukkah songs.
The "Little Drummer Boy," "Angels We Have Heard on High," and "How Great Our Joy" were among a number of Christian-themed songs cut from the concert at Independence Middle School in Jupiter, Florida. A complaint from a Jewish student prompted the school to censor its program, a move that has angered parents who felt the excised Christmas carols were perfectly appropriate.
Jupiter resident Linda Cameron feels anti-Christian bigotry has gotten out of control this Christmas season. "I think it's a very sad state of affairs that we have come to," she says, "for a country that came to fruition with the dreams and hopes of worshipping freely, that now we've come to a point where our founding religion is the only religion [being excluded.] It almost seems as though they're trying to eradicate Christianity altogether."
Cameron also takes issue with the argument by Independence Middle School officials that they are promoting greater inclusiveness with such measures. The concerned Jupiter citizen considers this claim hypocritical and suspects something more than a commitment to cultural diversity is behind the school's censorship decision, and those who support it. "I definitely think it's an anti-Christian bias," she says. "Politically, I mean, you're talking about people who preach tolerance but don't practice it."
Christmas Wars: the Push to Secularize America
The incident in Jupiter appears to many Christians to be part of an alarming trend. They see public schools, municipalities, and other government-funded entities across the nation apparently complying with efforts to secularize Christmas, or at least to censor all religious references to the real reason for the season. In some cases, the administrators are responding to actual complaints. In other scenarios, it is only the fear of giving offense or inviting litigation -- or the attention of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) -- that has prompted officials to adopt such secularizing policies.
In New Jersey, for example, the South Orange/Maplewood School District recently banned instrumental Christmas carols for fear of giving offense. Then, in Mustang, Oklahoma, a school district recently decided to cut the Nativity scene from a school play while holiday symbols associated with Hanukkah and Kwanzaa were allowed to remain in the program. And in Washington State, a couple of plaintiffs have raised objections to a Christmas tree being placed at City Hall in Bellevue, saying the tree is a Christian symbol and inappropriate for display in a public area.
In other parts of the U.S., schools have forbidden Christmas music on buses, banned the exchange of candy canes with messages attached explaining their religious symbolism, and even excluded the colors red and green at school Christmas parties. Meanwhile, some schools and companies are urging their students and staff to avoid accustomed greetings and references to Christmas, and instead use seasonal or generic terms, such as "Winter Solstice" celebrations and "seasonal holiday" parties.
But while the specters of civil liberties challenges and costly litigation loom large in the minds of many public school and government officials, one New Orleans-based pro-family activist believes a backlash is beginning against the liberal atheist and secularist groups that use such intimidation to their advantage. Rev. Grant Storm of Christian Conservatives for Reform says he sees an awakening among believers in response to the anti-Christian tactics of groups like the ACLU.
The ACLU's anti-Christian actions, especially at Christmas time, are well documented, if only because of the many lawsuits the group has filed. Whether it is opposing a Nativity scene on public property, or barring schoolchildren from singing "Silent Night," the legal organization has consistently fought against any kind of reference to Christianity. And every time the liberal legal organization moves to suppress Christian's free expression or to discriminate against their faith, Storm says believers "need to respond in droves."
The Christian conservative leader wants to see the Church overcome its former inertia to get actively involved in resisting this liberal, atheist push to secularize American culture, from the public school classroom to City Hall, all across the nation. He urges, "We need to go to those government officials or school board members and say, 'No, we don't want you guys to bow down to the ACLU.' I think that has been the problem in the past -- the inactivity and indifference on the part of the Christian community."
Pushing Back: Resisting the ACLU and Anti-Christian Bias
Storm believes this is already beginning, to an extent. "I see an awakening happening in this nation, thank God," he observes. "Christians are starting to rise up and demand justice and equality. And I think they know as well that if we don't rise up, we are going to lose our nation and become a totally secular, humanistic nation."
The head of Christian Conservatives for Reform says he is thankful that this awakening is taking place, with more Christians fighting back. It is a critical time, Storm adds, "because if they're going to take out the Nativity scene today, and they're going to take out 'Silent Night' tomorrow, they're going to take 'In God We Trust' off our currency next week."
Catholic League president William Donohue is also urging resistance. "The only way the cultural fascists at the ACLU will be defeated is by defying them," he says. "What they seek is confrontation, so I say let's give it to them .... Let's confront them in the courts and in the court of public opinion."
Donohue points out that the Catholic League erects a Nativity scene in New York City's Central Park every December, with the permission of the City Parks Department. He says the fact that this religious display can be put up on public property without violating the constitution or triggering litigation "is a lesson that municipal officials all across the nation should study."
Still, however, the Catholic leader says many public officials "act cowardly" and, fearing ACLU legal action, choose to ban or pull down Christian holiday displays from schools and other public spaces, even while they allow Jewish menorahs and other non-Christian religious symbols to be displayed in the same venues. Catholic League is currently involved in such a court case in New York, where the group has been prohibited from placing a miniature version of its Central Park Nativity in the schools.
Donohue says the Catholic League does not want people of other faiths to lose their rights; it simply wants equal rights for Christians. Still, he notes, many public schools and other government entities continue to discriminate, fearing the ACLU and its ilk. These anti-Christian civil liberties activists are "the ultimate hypocrites," Donohue says, because they promote censorship in the name of tolerance.
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