Jesus, Jerry Falwell, and Citizenship
by Dennis Peacocke
Christmas is the time of year for good cheer, congeniality, and goodwill toward men, or at least usually. Not so this year. Some Christians, led by Jerry Falwell, have said enough is enough. They are engaging in a "full court press" against the forces of the secular grinch who are trying to steal Christmas. This ongoing battle of course has been building for decades, but it combusted last year into a firefight as numbers of major retail stores refused to use the word "Christmas" and instead substituted "Happy Holidays" in its place.
The forces of political correctness, fascism, and communism have long used historical revisionism as a tool of cultural manipulation, so there is nothing new about this attempt to further sanitize the public square from the "dangerous" spectre of Christian religion. What is wonderfully refreshing about this new development is that a growing group of Christians have actually awakened on their journey to the spiritual gas chambers run by the secular forces. They seem to be saying, "Heaven no, we won't go!" A spiritual Vietnam War is arising this December.
The debate I heard last night on Fox News was championed by a secular grinch who kept asking the demure Mr. Falwell, "Do you really believe Jesus would threaten people with lawsuits and organize lawyers the way you are doing, Mr. Falwell?" What a wonderfully packed question from a secular grinch! The hypocrisy here is beyond belief, buried in fact by the avalanche of lawsuits filed against "God in the public square" by the people asking this question. Dear friend, what do you think Jesus will say about this?
First of all, most secular grinches question the historical authenticity of the scriptures, let alone Christ's birth and alleged divinity or miracles. Secondly, they repeatedly presuppose that, if He did exist, He was a pacifistic wuss, so "other worldly" that He and His followers should be doormats for the secular forces' feet or occasionally used for pious quotations to justify the "religious" needs of politicians and other secular scam artists.
Thirdly, rebellious upstarts like Mr. Falwell could slow down the march towards the effective removal of the rights of Christians as citizens and their rights under the First Amendment to the Constitution. Unthinkable! Unfair! Hypocritical! In a free democracy, only the secularists have the right of united cultural expression! What's the matter with these militant Christians? They should be turning the other cheek as they march.
Well, what can I say? Perhaps we dimwitted Christians should revise our message and take the secularist point of view to heart. "And the angel said, Happy holidays and shop at Target. God says, Good news, the blue light special is now on at K-mart. Enjoy the holidays. I've sent My Son to help you feel good about yourselves and the way you treat each other. My standards are all relative; make sure no one, including Me, makes you feel guilty or needing to repent, seek transformation socially, or any such thing. So long from up here, and when My Son grows up, please kindly tolerate His eccentricities."
Merry Christmas, every one. And if it truly is going to be "merry," it's only by God's loving grace and patience with all of us, and that is...
the bottom line.
