Jesus Who?

I've heard about everything this Christmas season except "Merry Christmas!"

Looking over the cards we have received here at Smith Manor, I am struck by the amazing number of ways we can weasel around saying anything that has to do with baby Jesus. You remember him - the God-Man, born of a virgin, came to offer himself for the sins of the world - yeah, that's the guy I'm talking about. We used to understand that Christmas was celebrated in his honor.

But now, well, it is "Happy Holidays", "Season's Greetings", "Winter Greetings", whatever. Anything but "Merry Christmas."

The Daily Mail website recently reported that the British Red Cross has banned Christmas references from any decorations in its fund-raising shops in Britain, so as not to offend Muslims.

Another recent Daily Mail article reported on some interesting facts about Christmastime in Nazi Germany.

No surprise, Hitler was not a big fan of Christmas. The Mail article states, "Hitler believed religion had no place in his 1,000-year Reich, so he replaced the Christian figure of Saint Nicholas with the Norse god Odin and urged Germans to celebrate the season as a holiday of the ‘winter solstice’, rather than Christmas."

It is always the same with tyrants: Religion has to go. No worldview or belief system can be tolerated that might challenge the supremacy of the all-powerful state.

So when people try to tamp down public expressions of faith, or marginalize the role of Christian values in our society, or make it politically incorrect to say something as simple and beautiful as "Merry Christmas", I not only become irritated, I become alarmed.

Because whenever people feel the need to suppress faith in God, there is an agenda involved. And it never leads to anything good.