Are Christians besieged at Christmas?

[GOPFighter]

On Christmas Eve, in a column in our local paper (Montgomery Journal) a guy writes about how Christians today feel besieged around Christmas! Why? Because the courts have ruled that governments (and public schools) cannot celebrate the true meaning of Christmas!

I wrote the following letter to the Editor in response and just sent it off:

I guess it was too much to ask that we could actually make it through the Christmas season without being subjected to a whining newspaper column about how tough it is to be a Christian in America these days. On Christmas Eve Peter Ferraro <"Christians, proclaim your faith"> wrote, "Christians increasingly feel besieged at Christmas, as lawsuits and other outcries object to public displays of the true religious meaning of the holiday." Then, however, he proceeded to list all the means Christians have available for publicly proclaiming their faith! This is not a short list I might add. For example, churches can display nativity scenes as broad and expansive as they desire. Not only that, but every homeowner, every place of business, every office building, and even shopping malls can do the same! Churches can produce elaborate Christmas shows and advertise them throughout the community. Churches can even rent public school auditoriums in the evening and stage a Christmas program for the community. Students can participate, and the programs can be advertised internally among the school’s student population. In other words churches, businesses, and private citizens can publicly celebrate and proselytize the religious meaning of Christmas almost any way they see fit.

So why are Christians like Mr. Ferraro feeling so besieged? Well, it seems as though local, state and federal governments - including public schools - are not allowed to support religious celebrations. Evidently this is very threatening to insecure Christians, for this reminds them that not everyone in America is a Christian. Without 100% participation, these Christians fear that some of their more thoughtful members might question, and eventually come to doubt, the current psuedo-Christian fundamentalist propaganda being peddled so loudly and forcefully as Christianity these days (I use the term psuedo-Christian because it bears so little resemblance to what Christ actually taught). This refusal by governments to overtly endorse Christmas is so devastating that Mr. Ferraro ends his column with these words: "Exercise your freedoms as Americans, Christians, before you lose them along with the culture." I would like to know just what freedoms he believes Christians are in danger of losing.

Christians like Mr. Ferraro should understand that one of the main reasons atheists, like myself, and other non-Christians are so vigilant, and strident in our opposition to Christian influence in our government is because fundamentalist Christians are taught they have a biblical injunction to spread the gospel and hopefully convert everyone to Christianity. They are convinced their religion is the only religion sanctioned by God, and everyone else is wrong. Even more dangerous, some Christians fervently believe the myth that the United States was founded as a Christian nation, and they are hard at work to make it into one now. They want the United States to be ruled by biblical law (but only as THEY interpret it, of course). It is probably no coincidence that Mr. Ferraro wrote his piece exhorting Christians to proclaim their faith or lose their freedoms under the auspices of the Virginia Club for Growth, an overtly political group.

It is obvious to anyone who read Mr. Ferraro’s column that Christians are not besieged. They have almost unlimited freedom to publicly worship and celebrate their religion (and many certainly do, as all those fish symbols on cars and religious bumper stickers prove). It is also evident that they want more. They want to be able to force our government and public schools to celebrate their religion. Therefore it is imperative that those of us who choose not to embrace Christianity to fight for our right to worship (or not worship) as we see fit, free of government coercion. It is even more important that we insist that our government pass laws and policy decisions based on facts and common sense rather than "because the Bible says so."

GOPFighter

:mad:

[MissB]

1. Well done

You wrote an excellent letter! You spoke loudly and clearly. Let us know if it gets published.

[mkultra]

2. bravo

Im very religious but i must sends you mad props. That is dead on.

"Without 100% participation, these Christians fear that some of their more thoughtful members might question, and eventually come to doubt, the current psuedo-Christian fundamentalist propaganda being peddled so loudly and forcefully as Christianity these days"

I think you hit the nail on the head.

[Bhaisahab]

3. good job!

you forgot to mention the nasty face of insecure christianity, as in that mad general boykin or bobkink or something. u know, the guy who went around comparing gods and feeling cool that "my god is bigger than his", like a pubescent kid comparing d!ck sizes in the school loo!

[LiberalVoice]

4. Wonderfully put...

It was the same way here in Pittsburgh. It drives me nuts that I have watch our mayor bankrupt this city and have the glare of the millions of dollars in Christmas lights in my face for a damned month!

[nosmokes]

5. great letter

hope it makes it into print!

[GOPFighter]

7. They will probably print it

I've had others like it printed. I hope I get some angry responses.

[Moderator]

6. Warning: Please edit Subject.

"2. The subject line of a discussion thread must accurately reflect the actual content of the message."

Thanks,
DU Moderator

[GOPFighter]

8. Done

*

[SheilaT]

9. Hooray!

I likewise get annoyed at the earnest proclamations that Christians are besieged and endangered in this country. They won't be either one of those until such time all churches lose tax exempt status. Which probably won't happen any time soon, I realize, but until then I just don't want to hear these complaints.

[WoodrowFan]

10. You must live in Northern Va

Do you live in Northern Va? (i.e. the SANE part of this misbegotten state.) I'd seen Ferraro's drivel in the Fairfax Journal* before. What a morAn. He fought to kill a tax referendum to build roads. It failed, then he writes "alright, let's build some roads!' HOW YOU IDIOT, WE'RE BROKE!! sheesh.

ok, rant over.

*I used to subscribe to the Journal, then it switched to being a free paper with many assurances that faithful readers would still be able to get it. Haven't seen a copy of it since. Good business model guys!

[lapislzi]

11. This is terrific!

I hope you don't mind; I shared parts of your post with my stepson (who lives out of state with his mother) who has been mounting awkward and annoying efforts to turn me into a southern baptist. This should give him some food for thought.

[jsw_81]

12. Christians are hardly 'besieged' in America

The fact of the matter is that Christians dominate our society, not only at Christmas, but all year long. Every single president and vice president has been a Christian of one sort or another, almost every governor is a Christian, well over 90 percent of the Congress is Christian, virtually every Supreme Court Justice is a Christian, and there are literally tens of thousands of Christian state legislators and local officials in all fifty states. Nine of the ten major presidential candidates are Christian.

Plus there are countless Christian TV stations, radio stations, websites, publishing houses, bookstores, newspapers, magazines, colleges, universities, high schools, middle schools, elementary schools, and pre-schools in almost every single city and town from sea to shining sea. And there are many parts of the country, especially rural areas, where non-Christians are routinely ostracized, ignored, and in some cases harassed (or worse) if they dare to make their views public. Just visit the south sometime. When you meet someone, they usually ask "What church do you attend?" It's never "Do you attend church?" or "Are you religious?" but always "What church do you attend?" And if you tell them that you're Jewish or Muslim or whatever they'll probably start talking about Jesus and how he changed their lives. If you tell them that you're an atheist or agnostic, they'll probably freak out and start yelling about how you're damned to Hell, and it's unlikely that you'll be invited over for dinner anytime soon. If you're really brave, try putting a pro-ACLU or pro-church/state separation bumper sticker on your car or truck. You'll be lucky if you only get keyed.

So all this crap about Christians being "besieged" or "under attack" is complete and utter nonsense. Christians are perfectly free to celebrate their various holidays and worship their god, and if you've ever walked through a shopping mall in December, driven past a church parking lot on Sunday morning, or been accosted by a sidewalk preacher, you'll see that Christians can and do practice their religion by the tens of millions, even in supposedly secular areas like the Pacific Northwest and New England.

The reality is that certain kinds of Christians, the fundamentalists, don't want to just celebrate their holidays and have their private beliefs, they really want to inject their religion into virtually *everything* in our society and cram it down the throats of every single person at all times and in all places, even if people make it clear that they're not interested in converting. And sadly, there are many prominent Republicans from coast to coast (including Tom DeLay, the current Majority Leader of the U.S. House of Representatives) who really want to see our nation transformed into a Christian theocracy where the Bible is law and non-belief/skepticism is a crime.

It is crucial that progressive, tolerant Christians, Jews, Muslims and others get elected next year, because if Bush, DeLay and the fundamentalists have their way, the wall of separation between church and state will utterly collapse forever and America will sink into a new dark age the likes of which we haven't seen in centuries. We cannot let that happen.

[BiggJawn]

13. Besieged Christians....S'Yeah, Right......

I'll try to tone it down for this post, since everyone else has been even-tempered....

For some reason we did not have our annual "Nativity on the town square fight" here. Don't know if the guy who usually started it was ill or what. Church east of town had their "living nativity" and I didn't hear anything of problems they had staying open.

Mr. Ferraro should try an experiment. He should "fib" and go around for a coupla weeks telling everyone that he's an Atheist. I garr-RON-tee he'll find out the TRUE meaning of "religious intolerance" then....

[Blue Gardener]

14. Excellent Letter

I've been besieged by Christians my whole life. It's time to start speaking out. I take it this guy regularly submits right-wing letters to the paper? Every town must have a few. I know a few names locally that write this kind of garbage on a very regular basis....anti-abortion, pro gun, atheists will burn in hell, their religion is under siege, blah, blah, blah. Keep waiting to see one of them on the news for setting fire to the local women's clinic.

[Selwynn]

15. As a "Christian," nothing makes me more ill than....

...this embarrassing, pitiful tendency of American Christians to whine about how persecuted and abused they are.

I wouldn't literally wish this on anyone, but sometimes I wish these folks could either see or experience real persecution first hand, so they would realize how utterly ridiculous they sound.

[Butterflies]

16. Excellent letter

I hope they publish it because it'll definitely get people thinking. It's easy to forget the other side of an issue if no one presents it (like you have in your letter.)

I live in VA too, and it's people like Mr. Ferraro who make it more sucky to live here.