Merry Christmas to all!
We are on a holiday schedule and will resume publishing in the new year.
Meanwhile, blessings of truth and joy to all of you from Nancy and me.
Here's the link to my most recent column, published at Breitbart.com.
Cheryl Chumley reports at WND:
A school district in Kentucky has ordered all administrators under its jurisdiction to remove religious references from Christmas productions, leading one facility to censor its planned elementary presentation of "A Charlie Brown Christmas" to blot out the Gospel of Luke read by little Linus.
"It disappoints me that we have to do this," said Superintendent Tom Salyer, about the order to teachers at W.R. Castle Elementary School to take out the Gospel of Luke recitation given by Linus in the decades-old cartoon "Charlie Brown" production, Fox News reported.
"Salyer said he was a church-going man who was simply following advice from the Johnson County school district attorneys," WND reports.
Mr. Salyer should reject this foolish advice, for nothing in the Declaration of Independence or in the U.S. Constitution requires the censorship of "A Charlie Brown Christmas."
The 1st Amendment, in fact, places a limit on what Congress can do, not a limit on what states like Kentucky can do and not a limit on what public schools or individual people can do.
Congress, the 1st Amendment pointedly states, "shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."
The wise and pro-Christian purpose of the 1st Amendment is to keep the federal government from allowing a denomination of the Christian church to become the state church of the United States of America.
The 1st Amendment thus stands against a national state denominational church -- not against Christianity. And not against Christianity in the name of secularism. (Let us not forget that one of the lessons of the 20th century is that, out of its own inner philosophic necessity, secularism breeds unfreedom and inhumanity.)
Instead, the aim of the 1st Amendment is to protect the individual states from a federal monopoly of political and ecclesiastical power. It is not designed to unleash and impose a Christian-hating secular terror upon the American people.
In the constitutional affirmation of liberty, the individual states were -- and are -- free to create their own denominational state churches, if that is the desire of the citizens of the respective states. It is a matter of choice left to the states and not to the federal government.
The last thing either the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence has in mind is the removal of Christianity from public life and from public influence across the whole of life. That view is secular superstition.
After all, the entire body politic of the American initiative is rooted in the Biblical concept of there being a real Creator who has created human beings in his image and has endowed human beings with "certain unalienable rights," and that among them are "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." This is about as unsecular as it gets.
Furthermore, the point of the U.S. Constitution is to incarnate politically and governmentally those principles of human freedom and dignity, rooted in the Creator, that are expressed in the Declaration. Yes, it is possible to think and act holistically when founding a nation "conceived in liberty."
What follows is clear: Public school officials in Kentucky and in every state are entirely within their rights as human beings and as citizens of the United States to stage plays that speak clearly and dramatically about the facts and message of the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem.
This is the mainstream and humane position of human freedom and dignity, and of an American citizen's freedom and dignity, under God, as expressed in the genius of the American founding.
Against this, secular extremists have created a fairy tale of legalistic mythology to support their ahistorical beliefs regarding the 1st Amendment, the Constitution, and a freedom-denying secularistic society.
As the news reminds us virtually every day, this extremism wars against who we are as human beings -- and against who we are as American citizens -- alive to living in liberating community with God and man in the total circle of life.
This extremism should be rejected, and must be rejected root and branch, if the tree of liberty is to survive and thrive. Either that or face the fundamental transformation of America into utter regressiveness and lack of humanness.
America is about freedom to live in the light and to reject the darkness -- on stages, in schools, at football games, in the marketplace, and in the halls of Congress. This truly is love without limits.
This is who we are. And if we would be free tomorrow and the day after, this is who we must ever shall be.
Cheryl Chumley reports at WND:
A bakery in Ohio has caused quite a stir with a warning to all customers that basically says: abandon political correctness, all ye who enter here.
It reads, the Blaze found: "Notice: This store is politically incorrect. We say Merry Christmas, God bless America, we salute our flag & give thanks to our troops, police officers and firefighters. If this offends you, you are welcome to leave. In God we trust."
The sign at Schuler’s Bakery, owned by Trent Schuler, has been posted for a couple of weeks at the Springfield location, but it’s gained notoriety on social media in recent days. And staffers tell the Blaze business has been booming.
"We didn't do it for the publicity," said store clerk Katelynn Jackson to the news outlet. "It was just to prove a point."
Well done, Schuler's Bakery. Your stand expresses the mainsteam of the American ethos, which is founded upon a reality oriented, verifiable Creator who acts into human history (see this and the Declaration of Independence) and expects human beings to apply the liberating love of God and neighbor across the whole of life, including business life, community life, and political life.
"Merry Christmas" is about public truth in the marketplace of this world. As the ever politically incorrect and free-thinking Jesus of Bethlehem said, "You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven."
Political correctness is darkness, for it tries to put knowable and testable truth regarding God, man, and the cosmos "under a bowl" instead of "on its stand," where anyone with open eyes is inclusively invited to see.
People who are offended by truth that is knowable, verifiable, and liberating are "welcome to leave" -- it is their choice to say no to enlightenment and live in darkness. But why stumble when you can run and leap for joy?
When it comes to creating an alternative to the darkness of political correctness in today's world, the recipe at Schuler's Bakery points to a better way.
Bravo, Schuler's Bakery. Bravo!
