Atheism on the March at Christmas Time and a Gospel Response

There is a lot of hate out there, but it is not being expressed toward Jews or Muslims this Christmas. It is directed toward Christians.

Megan Fox at NewsReal Blog writes:

This holiday, I’m going to create a work of art. It’s going to be a miniature, bloodied, dead body of Mohammed complete with miniature turban and clutching a tiny Koran. I’m going to cover it in live maggots and film it. Then, I’m going to require a taxpayer funded art gallery to display it. In fact, I’m going to insist the Smithsonian take it. And they shouldn’t have a problem with that because right now the Smithsonian is featuring a bloodied depiction of Jesus on the cross, lying on the ground and covered in ants.

Merry Christmas!

None of the “artists” whose “art” is displayed at the Smithsonian are courageous enough to take on a project like mine. They only dare to mock and insult the true religion of peace, Christianity, whose members do little more than sigh and feel disgust when “artists” mock their Savior. Should anyone try to take on the Religion of Terror’s prophet Mohammed in artwork, let’s just say more than fur would fly. They’d find themselves living under armed guard with fatwas for their heads declared by UN council members!

Alongside the film featuring Bug Christ, not to be confused with Piss Christ, (another taxpayer funded masterpiece sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts) are photos of two brothers making out (incest is so misunderstood), naked butts from behind, a very disturbing photo of someone with their mouth sewn shut with blood dripping from the wounds, and close up shots of male genitalia. (Someone should find out if the nudes were taken off TSA computers.)

And then there is the new billboard in New Jersey debunking Christmas. Elena Ives at NewsReal writes:

A fervent group of Dickensonian atheists have plunked down $20,000 in a bid to lure New Jersey commuters out of the Christmas spirit and into a morose boycott – all because, as it reads on their billboard outside of the Lincoln Tunnel, the whole thing is nothing but “a myth.”

Wow. Merry Christmas. I suppose that includes Jingle Bells, Silent Night, eggnog, holly, mistletoe and all the rest — leaving the enlightened with nothing in their stockings but their own aggrieved scowls and wounded petulance.

This reminds me of another yuletide kerfuffle a couple years ago, when Christmas symbols from various faiths coexisted in ecumenical peace and harmony at the Washington State Capitol – that is until the self-ordained “free-thinkers” at Freedom from Religion Foundation came along with their offering — a sign designed solely to belittle and insult the others.

At this season of the Winter Solstice may reason prevail.

There are no gods, no devils, no angels, no heaven or hell.

There is only our natural world.

Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds.

Pretty deep stuff. You have to feel sorry for people who want to "boycott" something like Christmas. I think if I was an atheist I'd turn a blind eye and enjoy the turkey dinner with my family just this one day of the year.

On the other hand over in poor, old, broken Britain where waited 14 long years to get rid of the Socialists only to get "Cast Iron Dave" instead of a real Conservative, Lord Carey is fronting a campaign called "Not Ashamed" designed to remind Brits of their wonderful Christian heritage as a nation. Here is a promotional video:

Boldly proclaiming that Jesus Christ is the only hope for the nation, Lord Carey and the others are speaking the truth in a situation where truth is unwelcome. You might notice toward the end that several people speak who have been fired from their jobs and experienced real persecution for witnessing to Christ in modern day Britain. They are brave and joy-filled Christians and they will be in our prayers this Christmas season.

A Marvellous Speech on Faith in Public Life

This is quite simply one of the most impressive speeches I have ever read from a politician in modern times. It is logical, informed, fearless and literate.

Rick Santorum, former US Senator from Pennsylvania and currently Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, recently gave this speech on the place of religion in public life and politics in Houston, TX, where 50 years ago John F. Kennedy gave his famous speech to reassure voters that he would not allow the Vatican to determine US policies. As Santorum shows, Kennedy opened the door to secularization and compromise by a generation of Catholic politicians who have failed to bear a faithful witness in the public arena.

Here is how it begins:

Three pictures hung in the home of my devoutly Catholic immigrant grandparents when I was a boy and I remember them well -- Jesus, Pope Paul VI and John F. Kennedy. The president was a source of great pride and a symbol to Catholics that all barriers had finally been broken. What my family and maybe even candidate Kennedy at the time didn't realize was that in a key moment in that election of 1960 right here in Houston, Kennedy began the construction of another, even more threatening wall for our society -- one that sealed off informed moral wisdom into a realm of non rational beliefs that have no legitimate role in political discourse.

Fifty years ago this Sunday JFK delivered a speech to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association to dispel suspicions about the role the papacy might play in the government of this country under his administration. Let's make no mistake about it -- Kennedy was addressing a real issue at the time. Prejudice against Catholics threatened to cost him the election. But on that day, Kennedy chose not just to dispel fear, he chose to expel faith. Let me quote from the beginning of Kennedy's speech: "I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute."

The idea of strict or absolute separation of church and state is not and never was the American model. It was a model used in countries like France and until recently Turkey, but it found little support in America until it was introduced into the public discourse by Justice Hugo Black in the case of Everson v. The Board of Education in 1947. (Black, by the way, was a Catholic-hating former member of the KKK who ironically enough advocated this strict separation doctrine to keep public funds from Catholic schools.)

Read the rest here. If this man runs for president, the US would have to be crazy not to elect him.

Loving the Sinner and Hating the Sin

Christians are supposed to love the sinner and hate the sin.

But to many of our contemporaries this sounds like a concession to weakness. They consider hate itself to be wrong and evil. If we had a perfect moral character we would be completely free of hate. The passion of hatred itself is in itself evil and to be struggled against and, if possible, overcome completely. Hate is bad; thus we have "hate speech" and "hate crimes." An action that it bad in itself becomes even worse if it is motivated by hate. The passion of hatred is the basic problem.

But what if loving the sinner requires hating the sin? Is not the Christian calling to love what God loves and hate what God hates? The prophet Amos urges: "Hate evil, love good. Maintain justice in the courts" and the Apostle Paul echos the thought in Rom. 12:9 when he says: "Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good." To fail to hate the sin may be to fail to love the sinner because not to hate the injustice perpetrated against the person (or by the person) is to fail to love the person.

Liberal society is based on a weak form of tolerance, rather than on love. We are urged to tolerate one another. Thus Christians who speak out against abortion, same-sex "marriage" or assisted suicide are condemned as "hateful." But it would appear that what is wanted by those committed to contemporary liberalism is not love, but simply an absence of hatred that is indistinguishable from indifference.

Should we be indifferent to our fellow men? Should we, as Christians view the very passion of hatred itself as the problem because it leads to involvement, advocacy and pleading with others to refrain from doing evil? Our conundrum is that if we cultivate indifference, we short circut love. Should the Church accept direction from contemporary society at this point and refuse to love or to hate in the name of a tolerant indifference to the sin around us?

It would seem that we can err equally in two ways; either by failing to love actively (and thus becoming indifferent to the plight of those in need) or by failing to hate sin passionately (and thus becoming indifferent to the plight of those in need).

Our contemporaries would tell us that hating the sin is the last remnant of a judgmental, non-loving attitude and that, even though it is not as bad as hating the sinner, it also should be abandoned if we will to achieve liberal perfection. But our goal as Christians cannot be a state of total indifference to sin. Our goal is to love sinners as Jesus Christ has loved sinners. And to do that we must hate the sin every bit as much as we love the sinner.