Lloyd Lofthouse

Beth Greenfield writing for Parenting said that “Christ has officially been removed from Christmas,” and this set off a firestorm that was hot enough to make media headlines.

The problem is that what Greenfield wrote was misleading because no one removed Christ from Christmas [it seems the media misleads a lot these days].

All that happened was one middle school [one middle school of about 8.000 in the U.S.] on Long Island, New York removed references to Jesus Christ from the song Silent Night.

The music for Silent Night was composed in 1818 by Franz Xaver Gruber [1787 – 1863], who was an Austrian primary school teacher and church organist in the village of Arnsdorf. A Catholic priest wrote the original German lyrics.

Before I say what I’m thinking, we should refresh our history of Christmas, because of the fact that having Christ mentioned in a song that celebrates a pagan holiday might offend God.

In fact, in Exodus 20:2-6, God said, “You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.”

If you don’t know the history of Christmas and where this traditional holiday had its beginnings you should know it. Christmas did not start as a Christian holiday. It was a pagan holiday first.

And December 25 is not the birthday of Jesus Christ. A careful analysis of Scripture clearly indicates that December 25 couldn’t be the date for Christ’s birth.

“Fixing December 25 as Christ’s birthday was a comprise with paganism.” (William Wash, The Story of Santa Klaus, 1970, p. 62)

And “In the early 17th century, a wave of religious reform changed the way Christmas was celebrated in Europe. When Oliver Cromwell and his Puritan forces took over England in 1645, they vowed to rid England of decadence and, as part of their effort, cancelled Christmas. By popular demand, Charles II was restored to the throne and, with him, came the return of the popular holiday.

“The pilgrims, English separatists that came to America in 1620, were even more orthodox in their Puritan beliefs than Cromwell. As a result, Christmas was not a holiday in early America. From 1659 to 1681, the celebration of Christmas was actually outlawed in Boston. Anyone exhibiting the Christmas spirit was fined five shillings. By contrast, in the Jamestown settlement, Captain John Smith reported that Christmas was enjoyed by all and passed without incident.

“After the American Revolution, English customs fell out of favor, including Christmas. In fact, Christmas wasn’t declared a federal holiday until June 26, 1870.”

To learn more about the history of Christmas, I suggest you click on History.com and/or Bible Facts from ucg.org

Now that we know a little bit about the history of Christmas and Christ’s birth, here’s what I think: Popular political correctness—be it religious, political, corporate or atheist—has become today’s tyranny and it has toppled governments in the past.

There’s nothing wrong with giving for a just cause. However, the real reason we celebrate Christmas on December 25 each year is probably due to the corporate profits that come from the estimated $469 Billion that Americans spend shopping during the holiday season. (Last Throws.com)

What did Moses do to the Ten Commandments when he came down from the mountain and discovered his people worshiping the statue of a golden calf?

_______________________

Lloyd Lofthouse is a former U.S. Marine, Vietnam Veteran and English-journalism teacher.

His latest novel is the award winning Running with the Enemy that started life as a memoir and then became a fictional suspense thriller. Blamed for a crime he did not commit while serving in Vietnam, his country considers him a traitor. Ethan Card is a loyal U.S. Marine desperate to prove his innocence or he will never go home again.

And the woman he loves and wants to save was trained to hate and kill Americans.

To follow this Blog via E-mail see upper left-hand column and click on “FOLLOW!”