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By The Rev. Dennis McCarty Community Columnist |
This claim is nothing new. For example:
"The whole record of [their] opposition to Christmas, Easter and other Christian festivals, and their opposition to certain patriotic songs, shows the venom and directness of [their] attack."
That was written in 1921, by Henry Ford. Ford was a brilliant industrialist, but also a frothing-at-the-mouth anti-Semite. In a notorious rant titled, "The International Jew," he accused Jews of trying to destroy everything decent in this country, including Christmas.
Then along came Adolf Hitler, the Holocaust and Hezbollah, and we learned how truly evil anti-Semitism can be. That hasn't stopped other people from flogging the "War on Christmas" over the years, though.
Villains changed with the times, but the story is always the same. In the 1950s, the John Birch Society was a group so radical it accused Republican President Dwight Eisenhower of being a communist. They also claimed communists were trying to eliminate Christmas.
In 1988, a church music director named Dwight Elrich, just minding his business, wrote a Christmas pageant for kids, titled "The Little Tree's Christmas Gift." It's about a lonely Christmas tree.
The tree expresses its sadness in a song titled, "Cold in the Night," set to the tune of "Silent Night."
Things turn out happy in the end, though, and the play closes with "Deck the Halls" and "We Wish You a Merry Christmas."
It's a perfectly innocent little play, written for churches and performed by several over the years. Then last winter, a grade school near Dodgeville, Wis., performed it. To the amazement of teachers and kids, the Rev. Jerry Falwell and the reactionary legal group, Liberty Counsel, accused the play of being an assault against Christmas. It was religious enough for several churches, but suddenly wasn't religious enough for a public school.
Liberty Council threatened to sue unless the kids sang "Silent Night" with its original words. Afraid of legal action, school officials had the cast sing "Silent Night" and the little girl playing the tree recited "Cold in the Night" without music, as a poem.
Nor did the craziness stop there. Pundits such as TV's Bill O'Reilly held this up as a prime example of anti-Christian intent.
Only this time, the
villains aren't communists (who have become our business partners in
China and Vietnam,) or Jews, either, but liberals. And grade-school
kids, too.
O'Reilly is still ranting about Dodgeville, but the school district has
begun fighting back. They've demanded an apology and $23,000 in damages
from Liberty Council, whom they accused of using these false claims as a
way to build up funding.
It seems to me that if there's anyone hurting Christmas, it's all of us
- by trying to eat the most turkey, hold the wildest parties, turn on
the most lights and buy the biggest gifts, while ignoring the way Jesus
was trying to teach us to live. (Not to mention trumping up a phony "War
on Christmas." Didn't Jesus say something about bearing false witness?)
We live in a world where thousands of Americans and tens of thousands of
Iraqis are dying in a real war that seems endless. Genocide looms in
east Africa. And there's plenty of violence and poverty right here in
the United States. Don't we have anything better to worry about than
what a Wal-Mart clerk says to us when we carry our haul of imported toys
out of the store?
Groups such as the Liberty Council and people such as Bill O'Reilly,
Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter on the right - or Michael Moore, Richard
Dawkins and Maureen Dowd on the left - are angry for a living.
Reason and moderation don't create cash flow. These guys get rich by
making other people as angry as they are. It doesn't matter how trivial
or wacky their misinformation is, as long as it stirs the public up and
gets the phones ringing.
All faith traditions celebrate winter holidays as a brightly lit time of
reflection and renewal. It seems to me our particular belief isn't what
matters this time of year. For each of us to really honor our faith,
it's a time to step back, put down our anger, prejudices and suspicion,
and try to get along. I can't think of anything less Christlike than
threatening to sue a grade school kid for singing a song.
We spent the whole last century devising bigger and better ways to blow
each other up. Maybe this holiday season, we might begin thinking about
reasons not to.
Try that the rest of the year.