The Two Millenium Miracle

What do you believe about Christmas? At this time of year, billions of people on the planet are celebrating the birth of a baby that happened over two milleniums ago in a small town in what we know today as the Middle East.

Have you ever stopped to ask a simple question, one that would appear to be logical? That question would be, why?

Let's take a trip back in time. We'll make it a reality trip, one that journeys into the real world of those days and a few more over the ensuing centuries. Starting in first century Bethlehem in Judea, we find it dry and hot. No one exchanged Christmas cards. There were no trees being decorated. No one wore a crucifix around their neck.

Depending on whatever you choose to believe, on one mostly quiet night a teenage girl gave birth in a room, or a cave, or a barn, or a stable. Her child was a son, and she and her older carpenter fiancee would eventually take this child home with them to Nazareth and raise him through boyhood and adolescence into early manhood.

Washington Rolling Over in His Grave

The Father of our Country, our nation's first President and possibly still it's greatest citizen in history, George Washington, would be proud that the country decided to name a state after him.

That is, until he got wind of what is going on these days in that state. Upon learning of these developments, the great man would be rolling over in his grave.

Washington state has today become one of the worst offenders in the growing attacks on our Judeo-Christian heritage here in America, attacks that have weakened our society and made our very national existence more vulnerable than at any time in its history.

This year the state lurched ever further leftward at the state Capitol building itself. Here a Christmas display was erected, as has been the case for decades. A typical manger display with Mary and Joseph and the baby Jesus. Some of the most appropriate imagery of the Christmas holiday season.

However, right next to it was permitted to be erected a sign on an easel that reads: "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."

It was placed there by an atheist organization whose sole mission is to drive religion from public discourse. They couch their 'dis-belief', their lack of faith, in a Constitutional argument, stating that no one has a right to force religion down their throats.

They are absolutely correct in that regard. Perhaps they aren't aware that those of us who count ourselves among the faithful have no desire to do any such thing.

America's Secular Challenge

At Christmastime we are supposed to be celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, and the majority of Americans will be doing just that.

But there is a relatively small yet growing segment of our population that does not realize, or does not care, that it was the values taught by Him which formed the basis of our very national existence.

These 'secularists', 'humanists', 'atheists' and others want any references to Jesus Christ, God, or anything else religious kept out of the public sphere.

They certainly feel that displays of religion on public property should be considered not only inappropriate, but illegal, even during a specifically religious holiday time such as Christmas or Easter.

They especially and more vociferously fight against such displays or references when it comes to Christian religious holidays, knowing full well that most Americans self-identify as Christians.

They rail against the fact that America itself was founded on Judeo-Christian values, and feel that if they can knock off the big boy they essentially win victory over all organized religion. It is the challenge of normal, everyday, faithful, God-loving Americans to stand up against these groups and individuals.

That is the message of a new book by Herbert London titled "America's Secular Challenge" from Encounter Books.