This morning’s Real Clear Politics page provoked the following thought. Between Anthony Browne’s lamentation of European cultural suicide and Francis Fukuyama’s Venn diagram equating blue-state Democrats and "Euro-Atlanticists," I was driven back to Elvis Presley’s immortal "Blue Christmas." But emphatically not this one.
But seriously folks: when both Tony Blair and George W. Bush (both well-known as faithful Christians) scrub their seasonal statements out of a misplaced desire not to seem to exclude anyone, they wittingly or unwittingly send a powerful message of exclusion...to those who celebrate "the reason for the season." Let us remind our leaders that it’s possible to respect and include "the Other," and to lead diverse, pluralistic societies, without forgoing recognition of the central holiday on the calendar of most of their citizens. George W. Bush can personally wish us all a "merry Christmas" while at the same time reaching out in "good will toward men" to everyone, believer and non-believer, Christian and non-Christian, alike. Christmas is a generous, welcoming holiday. GWB should in fact encourage American Christians to reach out in generous fellowship to all their neighbors. I’ll leave it to our brothers and sisters in the U.K. to help Tony Blair figure out how to be true to himself.
Update:On GWB, I stand corrected by the first comment below. I confess to having been misled by a Newsmax report (which I can’t now find on the web) on the White House’s Christmas decorations this year.
Don’t be so down, the President’s Christmas announcement was not as secular as you make out, according to the Wall Street Journal (I have not recieved a card):
The nation’s chief executive and the governor of the largest state are both practicing a quiet form of political incorrectness this Christmas season.
President Bush mailed out a record two million Christmas cards. This year’s card contains a verse from Psalms, 95:2: "Let us come before him with Thanksgiving and extol him with music and song." Presidents have been sending out cards to friends and supporters since Calvin Coolidge in 1927, but Mr. Bush is the first to send out Christmas cards with a message from Scripture. To avoid charges that he is using his office to build support for his political agenda, the cards and mailing costs are paid for by the Republican National Committee, a smart move since the cards would certainly be on the target list of the ACLU if they had been paid with taxpayer funds.
Meanwhile, in California, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has ignited controversy by presiding over the lighting of what he has renamed the state’s Christmas tree. Under previous governors, it was called the "holiday tree." At the ceremony, Mr. Schwarzenegger talked about how he celebrated Christmas growing up in his native Austria, adding, "We were taught to think about the spirit, the joy of Christmas and the celebration of the birth of Christ."
The governor was promptly attacked for injecting religion into a state ceremony and possibly offending people of other faiths or no faith. But his press secretary had a quick rejoinder: "He called it a Christmas tree because that is what it is." He didn’t have to add that it would be unwise to tangle over the meaning of Christmas the man who played the Terminator.
HA HA!!! Thats great!! Just think, if somebody really gave The Govornator a hard time about calling it a Christmas Tree, he could just blow ’em away, like he did in The Terminator movies!! Oh yeah!!!! God bless him! And God bless Arnold’s family, too!!!!!
Anyone who is offended by forthright references to Christmas deserves every bit of subjective pain incurred. This is the way we learn and grow. These people are little children, in the worst sense of the term. They need our help in order to live properly with their fellow men.
I hear ya, David! Lets incur a lot of pain on them, Terminator-style!!!
After all, Christmas is about the birth of Jesus Christ, who will forgive us if we hurt them!!! Seriously, it would’ve been great to see Arnold clobber somebody over this.