Update: The Christian Underground feels that "Being a Christian in modern America is becoming more and more a dangerous thing. Christians in the workplace, children in our schools, leaders in our community, are penalized (Some times prosecuted) for standing up for their Christian held beliefs. This trend is growing faster and faster." Scant evidence provided. PZ Myers told me about the site.
Update #2, the Evangelical Underground is reporting a "victory" --and there's even a Committee to Save Merry Christmas.
Update #3: Harlen McCracken has a refresher course on what Christmas (and religious) expression is permissible in public schools.
Update #4: The New York Times is getting into the act, with an editorial by Adam Cohen entitled This Season's War Cry: Commercialize Christmas, or Else
What is less obvious, though, is that Christmas's self-proclaimed defenders are rewriting the holiday's history. They claim that the "traditional" American Christmas is under attack by what John Gibson, another Fox anchor, calls "professional atheists" and "Christian haters." But America has a complicated history with Christmas, going back to the Puritans, who despised it. What the boycotters are doing is not defending America's Christmas traditions, but creating a new version of the holiday that fits a political agenda.....
This year's Christmas "defenders" are not just tolerating commercialization - they're insisting on it. They are also rewriting Christmas history on another key point: non-Christians' objection to having the holiday forced on them.
The campaign's leaders insist this is a new phenomenon - a "liberal plot," in Mr. Gibson's words. But as early as 1906, the Committee on Elementary Schools in New York City urged that Christmas hymns be banned from the classroom, after a boycott by more than 20,000 Jewish students. .....
The Christmas that Mr. O'Reilly and his allies are promoting - one closely aligned with retailers, with a smack-down attitude toward nonobservers - fits with their campaign to make America more like a theocracy, with Christian displays on public property and Christian prayer in public schools.
It does not, however, appear to be catching on with the public. That may be because most Americans do not recognize this commercialized, mean-spirited Christmas as their own
Update # 5: The Green Knight has a great post debunking the Fox News campaign:
Which brings me back to the question in the FOX caption: will there be an economic disaster if liberals win the "war on Christmas"? A grown human being should be embarrassed even airing such a ridiculous question in public. The question manages to lie, to smear, to fear-monger, and to make an absolute joke out of political and economic discourse all at the same time. Look at the false premises it's based on:
- That there is a coherent group called "liberals" all working in concert.
- That none of them celebrates Christmas.
- That none of them wants anyone else to celebrate Christmas.
- That they are actively trying to stop businesses from using the word "Christmas."
- That they are actively trying to stop businesses from having Christmas sales.
- That businesses would ever stop having Christmas sales.
- That people could be forced to stop shopping for Christmas presents.
- That even if this preposterous set of events were to happen there would be no other reason for retailers to hold end-of-the year sales.
- That even if that event were to happen retailers would not immediately invent some other big sale season.
And there are many many others. All of those ludicrous assumptions and more would have to be true before that question even made any sense at all. The fact that the question even got aired for serious consideration means that a significant portion of American political discourse has departed so far from reality and good sense that there may be no bringing it back to sanity.
Update #6--again thanks to the Green Knight. Bill O'Reilly reveals his deep spiritual understanding of the meaning of Christmas:
I just sat on the stairs and stared at that Christmas tree with all the gifts underneath.... And I -- it was such a magical time for me as a child. I
I naively believed that the mystery of Christmas should really be about a savior being born for all the world, not loot.
Mr. O'Reilly also reveals his deep understanding of what true Christian behavior is:
I am not going to let oppressive, totalitarian, anti-Christian forces in this country diminish and denigrate the holiday and the celebration. I am not going to let it happen. I'm gonna use all the power that I have on radio and television to bring horror into the world of people who are trying to do that.
Golly. Good-hearted people who want you to know that the United States of America is not 100% Christian, and maybe "Happy Holidays" is a more appropriate greeting than "Merry Christmas"? How about, "May the Peace of the Lord be with you always", Mr. O'Reilly?
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Original post follows:
It's an article of faith in some circles that "they*" are waging war against everything good in American society -- including attacks on god-fearing Christians. The larger meme might be called, "embattled Christians in America**", as represented in the following quote:
State-sponsored discrimination and hostility toward Christians is reaching epidemic proportions in a country rooted in Judeo-Christian principles.
A subset of this meme is the article of faith called "the war on Christmas". ***
The Alliance Defense Fund's staff attorney Joshua Carden said
Christmas "is under attack, and ADF wants to defend it."
Michelle Goldberg, writing in Salon, gives a witty history of the war on Christmas. There's discussion chez Ed Brayton.
=================
*who are "they"?
Secular humanists
Godless liberals
The "politically correct" crowd
=================
**Christians are indeed embattled in many parts of the world, forbidden to worship, subject to reprisals, and denied essential rights.
===================
***The reader reviews at Amazon are particularly informative as to the respective world views:
One does not have to be a rocket scientist to know that anything Christian is mocked and censored by the main stream media.
and
You all remember the War on Christmas last year, don't you?
Nationwide bannings of Nativity scenes, people who mentioned Jesus got locked up, etc etc.
This is the most pitiful, bottom of the barrel, right-wingnut talking point I've heard in my lifetime.
and
..It's ridiculous that this Christian Nation is being pushed into the underground because our Christianity offends some. I'd love for some of these folks to go someplace that doesn't allow freedom of speech or of religion-but then they'd be thanking God for "good, Christian people". It would be ridiculous of me to live in Saudi Arabia and complain about their Muslim beliefs. Which is why I'm wondering why if so many people are offended they don't just move.
Many of the liberties that we are given in this country come from our Christian values. I really appreciate John for taking the time and having the courage to expose these left-wing, Christian-bashers. You've exposed them in the government and the media(openly) and now you've exposed some here on Amazon (privately).
and
I have an extensive collection of popular and scholarly works on the Christmas season, and consider myself a student of its origins and modern expression. As such, I always seek out new books on Christmas when they appear.
All I can say about this book is: I'm happy I spent some time reading it in the store before wasting my money on it!
It's evident from the very first pages that Gibson doesn't know what he's talking about. Far from being a true or accurate of the shifting face of Christmas in modern society, he has instead crafted a crass and fact-deficient political screed that's keyed to the Coulter/Limbaugh crowd. This isn't a book meant to inform or explain; it's a book meant to misinform and inflame a religious base against any and all alternative ideas about Christmas. Xenophobic, narrow-minded, completely paranoid; that best describes this book.
Search elsewhere for enlightenment, for there's none here to speak of
Personally, I think " Christmas under siege" is a cynical marketing move by elements of the right, to mobilize public opinion and donations.
Christmas has been almost completely a secular, commercial holiday for decades. Virgin Mobile, has created the thoroughly vulgar and rather racist: Chrismahanukwanzaka. (Thank you Abhi).
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