Charlie Brown [yelling]: Isn’t there anyone who knows what Christmas is all about!?
Linus: Sure Charlie Brown, I can tell you what Christmas is all about….
Lights please.
And there were in the same country shepherds, abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night and lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them…
From the mouths of babes- indeed from the mouth of a cartoon child, the meaning of Christmas was explained.
Yet, as it seems to happen every year, a form of toxic tolerance possesses some people, who try to rip Christ out of Christmas.
Officials at Kings Park school in Long Island decided to mangle the song “Silent Night” by scrubbing out the words “Holy infant,” “Christ the Savior,” “round young virgin mother and child,” and “Jesus, Lord, at thy birth.” According to the superintendent, a principal and choral director made the decision “to represent the song without offering offense to people of other faith.”
School officials faced a simple trade-off: offend “other faith” or offend Christians. They went with the easy bet, an understandable choice given that the Christians won’t raise hell like the “other” will. Christians, unlike many groups, will let themselves be pushed around. Too many Christians will slouch towards the lion’s den or turn the other cheek before taking a stand for their own culture. That’s what the school was banking on, but many Long Island parents expressed outrage. Some, like Jackie McDonald, walked out of the performance.
The school district has since apologized- in a hollow and deceptive manner. The people who scrubbed the song are not going to include the correct lyrics next year. Instead, the principal has said, “We are going to be more cautious of the songs that we choose.” In other words, “Silent Night” will not be sung, as long as the current multicultural mandarins are in charge.
If this episode, and those like it that occur yearly, reveals anything, it is that weakness and silence are not a viable strategy for maintaining our culture. And we see the direction of our culture with every creepy “Holiday”-themed commercial.
It is almost unbearable to watch any form of TV program during the Christmas season. “Holiday” commercials have become a grotesque charade. What is depicted this time of year appears to be a generic vacation period, where some people give and receive consumer goods. Everyone is celebrating something, but we have no idea what exactly they’re celebrating or why. Look at these soulless representations and consider what will happen if Judeo-Christian culture is not defended.
Think for a moment about what type of person would scrub Christmas out of a song or even a commercial. A sizable part of our political, media, and economic elite wish our culture were nothing but materialism and multiculturalism. These elites are the “dead souls” that Harvard political scientist Samuel Huntington warned about. Increasingly secular, globalized, and cosmopolitan, much of the elite has less and less in common with the broader public. This vast and troubling ideological gulf is the only way to explain how, in a majority Christian country, school bureaucrats would elect to insult Christians rather than acknowledge Christmas.
We’re allowing political correctness and even anti-Christian bias to shape the way we talk about this season. If this is the approach that we take, we’re going to wake up one day and see that Christ has been totally removed from Christmas and much else. By then it will be too late. If we have a belief system -and a related holy day- worth preserving, then its time for more people to stand up and say so.
Besides, who exactly is being offended by Christmas? Whoever they are, their sensibilities should never trump the core convictions and culture of the majority.
We must not allow anyone’s Scrooge-like cynicism to stamp out the public recognition of this incredibly important event. Nor should we allow multiculturalism to be used as an excuse to silence the majority.
Even Charlie Brown had the guts to make a Christmas play.