War on Christmas and Christians

Ian Boyne, in his column, 'No Ceasefire From Christmas War' published, December 27, 2015, was right, there is a war against Christmas and Christianity by secularist.

This war is being fought one-sided, at the moment in the North American media, and it is having devastating effect on the values, worldview, way of life and morality of Christianity. As Boyne stated, the war will soon be fought right here among us in Jamaica.

The secularists have put Christianity on the defensive and, in many cases, it appears that Christians are retreating into their various enclaves and burying their heads in the sand. When you think about it, in the face of the many negative social and cultural changes on Christian's icons, values and morality in the last few months, the silence of the educated church is seriously disturbing.

This war on traditional Christianity has even resulted in the American giant Starbucks to capitulate and change their coffee cups by removing the traditional Christmas icons and replacing them with new generic ones. Additionally, many stores in America are no longer saying 'Happy Christmas', but rather 'Happy Holidays'.

Interestingly, it is okay to say 'Happy Thanksgiving', 'Happy Easter', 'Happy New Year', but to say 'Happy Christmas' will have the secularist taking to social media and using the most hostile and foul adjectives to denigrate the individual or institution which dares to comment contrary to their world views - so much for "the land of the free and the home of the brave".

Secularism champions two primary values within society:- hedonism and consumerism. History has shown us that hedonism, if not kept in check by some morality, eventually destroys a society - a classic case study is the decline of the old Roman Empire.

Secularism, unchecked, eventually degenerates into "coarseness, licentiousness, aggression, indiscipline, lawlessness, corruption, enlightened self-interest, disrespect and prejudice that are exclusively toxic to any society".

We might be a little too late, however, secularism, with its war on Christian morality, values, worldview, biblical principles, Christ and Christmas has long taken over the western educational system.

This has resulted in an 'enlightened' generation, which has emerged with a new morality, no morality at all, and they call it freedom.

The verbiage goes like this: "Do what you please as long as it pleases you. It is your life and no one can tell you how to live it or what to do with it." Let see how long civility will hold in this new morality.

Sadly, there are articulate groups which are intoxicated by this new morality, as promoted by secularism, and which are unwittingly putting their pens in support of secularist ideology - attacking Christianity.

I would caution these quick pens to step back and do a little reflection. You cannot have your cake and eat it too. You cannot write decrying the indiscipline in society, and calling for a return to traditional values and morality, and then later write articles tossing out theism.

THEISM AND VALUES

Where do values, morality and civility come from. They have to be taught. This has been the work of theism. When you attack and toss out theism out of the curriculum of a society, which then 'educate the youth dem,' the youths will have their 'teachers', from all quarters filling the void, and, as David Wells so aptly puts it in his book God in the Wasteland, we are already reaping the whirlwind.

The fading little decency that we have left is being kept in place by parents and institutions influenced by Christian theism. If we lose it, what then?

My main concern in all of this, however, is the silence of church leaders. There is almost a felonious complacency among so many, not unlike the proverbial frog in the kettle, to the social, cultural and political war that is in full swing by the secularists against their way of life and work.

Today, we have lost Christmas, tomorrow it will be Easter, and next the new generation of uninformed Christian young leaders will rewrite the morality of the church into the image of the new sociology.

- Denton Rhone is a vice president of Northern Caribbean University. Email feedback to editorial@gleanerjm.com.