Matters of faith: December 2007 Archives

Yes, Virginia, there is a “War on Christmas,” and it dates back to well before political correctness, secularism, squeamish retailers, hyper-sensitive believers, or even Bill O’Reilly.

The real War on Christmas is so old, in fact, it’s older than Christmas itself. It began when Jesus was still in his mother’s womb. King Herod, learning that the Christ would soon arrive, dispatched the three wise men to find the newborn king — so that he might “come and worship him.”

The wise men, warned of Herod’s treachery in a dream, knew better than to comply with his wishes. So the king, “in a furious rage,” took matters into his own hands. As the Gospel of Matthew tells us, “He sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old or under.” Jesus only survived because Joseph — also warned in a dream — fled for Egypt by night.

Now that’s a war on Christmas.

And for 2000 years, with varying degrees of intensity, the war has raged on.

I guess with Stephen Colbert indefinitiely off the air, there's no one around to parody Bill O'Reilly -- so O'Reilly has decided to do the job himself.

That's the only explanation I can come up with for O'Reilly's latest column, which will appear in Sunday's Daily News. At issue is the town of Great Barrington, Mass., which is mandating that all Christmas lights be shut off by 10 p.m., so as to reduce the town's "carbon footprint."

A goofy bit of pointless eco-overkill? Without a doubt. But O'Reilly can't leave it at that. He sees much more sinister forces at work:

The real strategy here is to diminish the public display of Christmas in that secular town.

So how do I know that? Well, thanks for asking. As it happens, I sent a Factor producer, Jesse Watters, up to talk to this (town official):

Watters: Isn't this a just ruse to de-emphasize Christmas?
Dlugosz: These are holiday lights ... we don't think we should be putting lights all over the place and impacting our environment. We're taking a realistic approach to holiday lights."

Did you notice the term "holiday lights?"

Ah-ha! He said holiday lights -- clearly this is an anti-Christian pogrom!

Good grief, Bill. Let it go. Please, let it go. I'm begging you.

For the record, I don't deny that some sort of "War on Christmas" is afoot -- by which I mean that aggressive secularists are tying to purge any hint of religious expression, especially the Christian kind, from the public square, and some gutless corporations and school boards are knuckling under to them. As much as some liberals like to scoff at the idea of an anti-Christmas agenda, It is a real phenomenon, which is why O'Reilly strikes a chord when he talks about it.

But just because there are some grinches who want to do away with Christmas doesn't mean that one is lurking under every bed, in every closet, or at every town-hall meeting.

O'Reilly here reminds me a lot of certain ethnic activists, feminists, anti-communists, etc. who see evidence of their bogeymen -- be it racism, sexism, communism, or what have you -- everywhere, even where none exists. Those evils are real, to be sure, but sometimes we get so focused on rooting them out that we start chasing phantoms.

And when that happens, noble causes begin to look foolish.

Perhaps it's time for the "Culture Warrior" to take a break from the "War on Christmas." Because by sliding well into the world of self-parody, O'Reilly is now only hurting his cause.

The hot-heads so eager to stir up faux controversy about the pope's comments on global warming have actually missed what really was the controversial nugget in his message for the Celebration of the World Day of Peace. It's this:

Consequently, whoever, even unknowingly, circumvents the institution of the family undermines peace in the entire community, national and international, since he weakens what is in effect the primary agency of peace. This point merits special reflection: everything that serves to weaken the family based on the marriage of a man and a woman, everything that directly or indirectly stands in the way of its openness to the responsible acceptance of a new life, everything that obstructs its right to be primarily responsible for the education of its children, constitutes an objective obstacle on the road to peace.

In short, you can't be both anti-family and pro-peace. And if you doubt that, just go to any neighborhood where the fatherlessness rate is high, and see how peaceful things are.

Having worked in the media for most of my adult life, I am well aware that the professionals in this business are a smart, well-educated bunch. Which is why, for the life of me, I can't understand why they seem to turn into blithering idiots whenever the subject of religion arises. For the latest case in point, see this widely cited Times of London piece, The Pope condemns the climate change prophets of doom, and its lede:

"Pope Benedict XVI has launched a surprise attack on climate change prophets of doom, warning them that any solutions to global warming must be based on firm evidence and not on dubious ideology.

"The leader of more than a billion Roman Catholics suggested that fears over man-made emissions melting the ice caps and causing a wave of unprecedented disasters were nothing more than scare-mongering."

Wow, next thing you know BXVI will be putting a fatwa on Al Gore's head!

The sensitive green souls over at Wonkette responded with a post titled The Pope Sucks, in which they call Benedict a "Nazi," and quote the Times' paraphrase of his remarks as though it were verbatim. They sign off by wishing His Holiness "a jolly f***-you," albeit theirs in uncensored.

But wait in a minute. The subject of the Times article is the Pope's Message for the Celebration of the World Day of Peace, which he will deliver on January 1. You can read it for yourself here. But be forwarned: You will be disappointed, as it bears almost no resemblance to the anti-green screed that the Times -- and, following its lead, countless other media organizations -- have made it out to be.

For starters, the address isn't about the environment. Primarily, it's about the role of the family in society. Secondarily, it's about the state of the human family in the era of globalization. Within this context, the pope writes about the human family's "home," the earth, and concludes:

We need to care for the environment: it has been entrusted to men and women to be protected and cultivated with responsible freedom, with the good of all as a constant guiding criterion. Human beings, obviously, are of supreme worth vis-à-vis creation as a whole. Respecting the environment does not mean considering material or animal nature more important than man. Rather, it means not selfishly considering nature to be at the complete disposal of our own interests, for future generations also have the right to reap its benefits and to exhibit towards nature the same responsible freedom that we claim for ourselves.

That's a sentiment that most greens, save for the most rabid and misanthropic among them, would entirely agree with, no? As for the subject of global warming, the Holy Father has this to say:

Encino residents Judea and Ruth Pearl lit the Pearl family menorah at the White House tonight. The menorah dates back to Judea Pearl's grandfather, Chaim Pearl, who was cited in the last words of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, who was beheaded in Pakistan in 2002: "I am a Jewish American from Encino, California. My father is Jewish, my mother is Jewish, I am Jewish. Back in the town of Bnai-Brak there is a street named after my great-grandfather Chaim Pearl who is one of the founders of the town."

Below, Ruth Pearl gets a nice smooch from the prez...

Although no fan of Mitt Romney's, my take on his JFK Part Deux speech is a little more favorable than Jonathan's. That's not because I think it was a great speech. It wasn't. it was clumsy, and left itself far too open to interpretation, the result of which is criticism like Jonathan's, which boils down to this:

Major premise: We should tolerate religious differences

Minor premise: Secularism is a new religion

Conclusion: We cannot really tolerate secularism because they are trying to take away our common faith.

I don't think this is what Mitt was trying to say, although it's a fair interpretation, given his ambiguity. But as a religious conservative -- the group, really, that I think the speech was directed toward -- I think I have a sense of what Mitt meant to say, or was trying to say, or at least should have said. And I think it was this:

Today's Daily News features an op-ed from a local dad who was surprised one day to hear his girls' singing the following from their school's upcoming holiday concert:

"Rockin' around, the holiday tree, have a happy holiday..."

Yep, you read that right -- "holiday" tree. And with that, SoCal gets the first local skirmish of the annual War on Christmas, in which aggressive secularists and/or the hyper-sensitive try to banish every hint of the reason for the season. As the dad in this story, Johnny Knight, notes, this purgation is the antithesis of the tolerance we say we want to teach our children:

I want my children to be able to accept that other people have different beliefs, and I hope they have meaningful and fulfilling relationships with these other children as they grow up together. ...

I am bothered, however, about how our children are being taught what seems to be the complete opposite of tolerance in their schools. The lesson they are being taught is not that differences should be honored, celebrated and appreciated, but hidden and squelched. They are learning that to "get along," we all must check our differing beliefs and cultures at the door.

Obviously the rantings of some right-wing Christianist, right? Wrong. Mr. Knight is a practicing Jew raising his girls in his faith. This is not, as he notes, ultimately a question about religion, but tolerance -- and whether we are willing to tolerate beliefs contrary to our own.

Happy Hanukkah, Mr. Knight -- and merry Christmas, too.

We have come a long way in the last 47 years since people wondered if America was ready for a Roman Catholic president. JFK had to promise that as president he would not be too Catholic. Today the controversy around Rudy is not that is a Roman Catholic but that he doesn’t seem Catholic enough. I mean this in terms of how he lives his life and not the outward trappings of religiosity that all the candidates seem to don as a garment.

This season’s race has seemed to have forgotten the Article 5 section 3 of the Constitution that says “..no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.” Today the private faith of every candidate is on display. And while it is good that we no longer worry about electing a Catholic, we have shifted our anxiety to Mormons, and also, just under the surface, to a man with two traditionally Muslim names.

The religion question has come center stage, but a candidate’s private faith really is not the business of public politics. We have the right to know what a candidate’s values are. His or her character is certainly admissible into our national dialogue. But the individual faith of a potential president is really not any of our business.

We have effectively created a religious test and all the pretenders to the throne would be thrown off the hustings if they confessed to atheism or even agnosticism. There is, in fact, only one avowed atheist in the Congress—and that is H. Fortney “Pete” Stark of California. There are, I’m certain, many more, but like gays and lesbians, they are closeted by an implicit understanding of “Don’t ask. Don’t tell.”

Aside from the Constitutional impropriety of religious tests, the more immediate concern is that they are worthless. We seem to believe that someone’s religion or denomination conveys valuable information about both their character and their future policies. This is demonstrably false. Knowing that Rudy calls himself Catholic does not tell us what he would do about abortion, stem cell research, the death penalty or war. Christopher Dodd is also Catholic, and I suspect he and Rudy would govern differently.

Nor does Huckabbee’s Baptist ordination tell us anything about him that is intrinsic. Bill Moyers is also an ordained Baptist minister. I suspect they come to different conclusions on some values issues—even though their values are legitimately and sincerely derived from the same source. George W and Hillary Clinton are both Methodists. And from this we can infer exactly what?

Expecting policy and character to proceed predictably from religious affiliation or public displays of religiosity is like assuming all Americans see the Constitution as saying the same thing. We may all be lovers of the Constitution but we certainly understand that precious document differently.

Remember that Jesus warned against the ostentatious displays of piety by the hypocrites and said in Matthew 6:6, “But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.” Good advice from the Good Book.

Rob's post about Mitt Romney mentions a piece Rob wrote back on 7-04-04 called The American Bug. It was a great column, and so, for the benefit of our readers, I've posted it after the jump. Enjoy!

PS -- A prediction: Romney's Mormonism will matter far less to conservative Christians voting in the GOP primaries than it will to secular liberals voting in the general election (assuming he gets there).

Wow, Richard Cohen of the Washington Post (whose syndicated column runs Wednesdays in the Daily News) must really have it out for Mike Huckabee. This week, he essentially regurgitates his hit piece from two weeks ago on the former Arkansas governor, trashing him on mostly religious grounds.

And why does Cohen feel the need to go after Huckabee again? Because Huckabee behaved tactfully, and refused to use religion as a campaign wedge issue.

Seriously.

Cohen's objection is that, when on "This Week," Huckabee declined to answer host George Stephanopoulos ' question about whether GOP rival Mitt Romney is a Christian. “Mitt Romney has to answer that.... It's not for me to determine what somebody else's faith is," Huckabee answered.

To which Cohen goes apoplectic:

Mike Huckabee knew precisely what was being asked of him, and he also knew, because he is a preacher, what the right -- not the clever, mind you -- answer should be. But Huckabee merely smiled that wonderful smile of his and punted. This, with apologies to George W. Bush, is the soft demagoguery of low expectations.

Stephanopoulos ... provided the perfect opportunity for Huckabee to make some ringing statement in support of religious tolerance. He might have made some reference to the ugly anti-Catholic campaigns run against Al Smith (1928) and John F. Kennedy (1960).... In other words, Huckabee might have preached.

Sure, that might have been nice --- had Huckabee actually been asked something like, "Can a Mormon be president?" But he wasn't. Instead, Stephanopoulos tried to set him up with an entirely theological question about what qualifies as authentically Christian belief. It was a question of zero relevance to the presidential race, and one which, if Cohen had an ounce of integrity, would offend him far more than Huckabee's diplomatic response.

Because if anyone was trying to use religion to divide here, it was Stephanopoulos. Stephanopoulos knows full well that Mormons think themselves -- and strive to be -- followers of Jesus Christ. But he also knows that Mormonism holds numerous tenets, about the nature of Christ and other issues, that are so at odds with orthodox Christianity that most Christian denominations don't consider it a Christian faith. This would certainly be the case of Huckabee, an ordained Baptist minister.

What Stephanopoulos was trying to do was stir up an old religious debate, and put Huckabee in a pickle: If Huckabee says Romney is a Christian, he offends many Christian believers who see Mormonism as something radically different from what they believe; but if he says Romney is not a Christian, he offends Mormon voters.

Huckabee, to his credit, saw through this trap and offered the response that was not only politically savvy, but also spiritually sound: It's not his place to judge another man's faith or heart, period.

Good answer. A tolerant one, too. And one that directly responded to the question being asked -- a rarity in politics these days. Had Huckabee blathered on about the need for tolerance, he would have simply been dodging the question, for which Cohen surely would have blasted him.