Season's Bleatings

Picking up where they left off last year, the leaders and bleaters of the religious right are taking up arms in the war over Christmas. "What war?" You ask. The one that exists entirely in their fevered brain-stems.

Evangelical Christian pastor Jerry Falwell has a message for Americans when it comes to celebrating Christmas this year: You're either with us, or you're against us.

Falwell has put the power of his 24,000-member congregation behind the "Friend or Foe Christmas Campaign," an effort led by the conservative legal organization Liberty Counsel. The group promises to file suit against anyone who spreads what it sees as misinformation about how Christmas can be celebrated in schools and public spaces.

The 8,000 members of the Christian Educators Association International will be the campaign's "eyes and ears" in the nation's public schools. They'll be reporting to 750 Liberty Counsel lawyers who are ready to pounce if, for example, a teacher is muzzled from leading the third-graders in "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing."

With us or against us. Ready to pounce. Yeah, that sounds like something Christ would say.

Why can't these people just celebrate the holidays with the joy that comes from knowing Christ? Aren't there better things to do than spend this beautiful time of year spoiling for a fight?

There is something more important to consider in this matter than the spectacle that Bros. Falwell, O'Reilly, Gibson (that FOX "News" hack who wrote some book), et al insist on making of themselves. One of their biggest bugaboos is the tendency for stores to hold "Holiday Sales" rather than "Christmas Sales." They get hot and bothered also by companies who decide to hold "Holiday Parties" rather than "Christmas Parties."

I wonder if it has occurred to these people that it is actually a good thing to separate His holy name from things that have nothing to do with holiness. As a Christian, I am perfectly happy to see the name of Christ, the name above all names, divorced from the naked, world-centered commercialism that is the holiday shopping season. Jesus did not come into the world so that families could increase the balances due on their credit cards.

And, any honest person who has ever been to a company "Christmas party" will acknowledge surely that nothing godly happens at such functions. They are about drinking, flirting and bonus checks. You want to call that a "holiday party" rather than attach my savior's name to it, go right ahead. You have my blessing.

This "war" is nothing but a manufactured controversy designed to whip the faithful into a froth. Otherwise, they might spend their money on their families during the next month or so, rather than continuing to write those donation checks.