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Bah, Humbug!
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Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, won a stocking full of coal this Christmas for providing “the silliest affront to the Christmas and Hannukah holidays.”
Lynn received the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty’s Annual Ebenezer Award for his attack on a church-run program that provided socks and shoes for 1,000 needy children in South Carolina. Lynn’s gripe with the privately-funded Laces4Love: It “subjects disadvantaged students to ritual foot-washing as part of a shoe giveaway.”
Volunteers asked children if they would like to have their feet wiped off before they put on clean socks and new shoes. As Kevin “Seamus” Hasson, president of the Becket Fund (a nonpartisan, interfaith law firm), told WoW, “They’re little kids, so you treat them with a certain amount of maternal kindness and you don’t just hand them the shoebox and say, ‘Here kid, here are your shoes.’” Lynn called the foot-washing “an attempt to evangelize public schools students” and a violation of the Constitution. Both school officials and volunteers said the foot-washing was hygienic, not religious.
Past Ebenezer Award recipients include Sparkle, a large, six-foot tall sparkly star that replaced Pittsburgh’s religious holiday symbols. Kensington, Maryland, took the award for disinviting Santa Claus from its tree lighting ceremony. A high school in Kirkland, Washington, won the lump of coal for canceling a performance of A Christmas Carol.
Hasson said attacks on Christmas and Hannukah are getting “less silly,” but “while Christmas nonsense is down, holiday nonsense is up.” Politically correct police are now targeting Valentine’s Day because it is named for a saint, along with Easter. Students are sending Special Friends cards, and the Easter bunny may have to change his name to the Special Bunny.
Fortunately, as the schools get sillier the Supreme Court gets saner, Hasson said: “By and large, there’s a better atmosphere for religious freedom in the Supreme Court than there has been.”
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A matter of life
“…Valentine’s Day because it is named for a saint, along with Easter.”
Pardon me, madam, but your participle is dangling.
I am typing this message with my toes.
I washed my feet first, so you won’t be contaminated by reading it.
As the Book of Radical Agnosticism is quite eclectic, we are incorporating it into our Scrapture.
First we condemn a practice; then we adopt it and claim it as our own.
I had no idea Christians were so hygienic.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feet_washing
Christians can be very silly somtimes. In fact, often. Here’s yet another example. How do they expect people to take then seriously when they babble on about “attacks on Christmas and Hanukkah”? Just where are all these “attacks” on Hanukkah? What a PC bozo! It’s Hanukkah itself that led to all this “Happy Holidays” nonsense, and most of the people attacking Christmas celebrate Hanukkah. For the most past, it hasn’t been “libs” and “secularists” and “Islamofascists” who’ve been filing suits and threatening legal action against nativity scenes, and who convinced major corporations to drop “Merry Christmas”. No, it’s been overwhelmingly Jews. Again, “Merry Christmas” got replaced by “Happy Holidays” years before most Americans had ever met a Muslim or Hindu, and it was done to downplay Christmas and pretend that a very minor Jewish holiday, celebrated/observed by less than 2% of the population in this country, is on a par with Christmas, which used to be celebrated by the other 98% of Americans.
And this guy from the Becket Fund gets paid good money, most of it raised from Christians, to spout this self evident twaddle.
Christians are always complaining that they’re losing the “culture ware” . Well, it’s not hard to figure out why. You’re probably not going to win to many battles when you keep insisting and insisting that the very people attacking you are your allies, no matter how silly it makes you look.
The Archbishop of Canterbury just announced that Christmas is a Myth
But I side with most people who are wondering about what Archie is getting at. Jesus wasn’t born in December? Correct. The Bible doesn’t say there were 3 kings? Correct. But is he trying to say more than that? No one knows.
Well, the Archbishop also stated in the article that it isn’t necessary to believe in the Virgin Birth in order to be a Christian.
#6 NT, true. For years I fought tooth and nail that belief in the Virgin birth was required. But, you know? The Bible does say Mary was a virgin, but it does not say that belief in this is required for salvation.
What is required for salvation? Belief in the Babe in the Manger. If the Archbishop does not deny this, then as much as I hate to admit it, I am afraid I might just agree with him.
John 1:12 But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:
John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
John 6:29 Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.
Acts 4:12 Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.
Acts 16:31 And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.
Acts 19:4 Then said Paul, John verily baptized with the baptism of repentance, saying unto the people, that they should believe on him which should come after him, that is, on Christ Jesus.
Rom 4:24 But for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead;
1John 3:23 And this is his commandment, That we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as he gave us commandment.
1John 5:13 These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God.
Well, such a view is outside the bounds of historic, orthodox Christianity. It’s pretty hard to say thta believing in the Virgin Birth isn’t necessary while at the same time insisting on the doctrine of the deity of Christ. You can’t have the latte without the former.
Well, I’m not sure believing in the virgin birth is necessary for a latte…
But believing in it is part of believing that Christ is the Messiah (the key belief of Christianity).
#8 NT I believe the same as historic, orthodox Christianity on the issue. Since the virgin birth is clearly stated in scripture, anyone who denies it is a heretic and obviously unfit to be a church leader or teacher. If the Archbishop himself denies this, then he is unfit for his position and I would question his faith.
However, that is different than a new Christian who is weak in faith. Was the thief on the cross denied entry into heaven because he didn’t know the circumstances surrounding Jesus’ birth? Obviously not. Even tiny faith as small as a mustard seed is sufficient.
My point is more similar to the great debate about Lordship Salvation. The question is, “How much does one need to know to be saved?” I side with Charles Ryrie who says “Not much at all”. But that is quite different than someone who deliberately opposes scripture.
I don’t know which category the Archbishop is in. And it looks like many Christian leaders aren’t sure either.
I was shocked to learn that the Archbishop has only come to believe in the virgin birth in the last 10 years. Shame on the church for allowing someone so weak in faith to preside over them. Yet, he has finally come around.
He affirms his belief in the virgin birth and states, “…the most important concept to take away from the Christmas story is the belief that God came to earth in human form as part of His plan for salvation.”
Amen to that. Of course, Jesus was not part of the plan, he was the entire plan.
How DARE they give him COAL in his stocking? Don’t they know what that evil item does to the environment? That’s actually more evil than singing “Merry Christmas” at a school concert, which will force Anlir to call the FBI on a 12-year-old!!!!
When my daughter was very small, we hung up a Christmas stocking every year and put little presents in it.
As a little girl, she was usually very good. However, I often teased her, and would tell her if she was bad, I would put a lump of coal in her stocking.
One year I went to a fuel supply company in Portland (where we lived at that time) and bought a lump of coal (much to their merriment). I don’t remember what a lump of coal cost in the early 1970s.
When she reached into her stocking on Christmas morning, she really did find a lump of coal.
Nevertheless, my daughter still speaks to me, and is bringing Random Granddaughter over today.
RG is a feisty little girl. I’m not sure she would put up with the same stuff from Grandpa her Mama did as a little girl.
For a couple of days last week, she was hitting other kids at preschool. However, I’ve heard that her behavior was better the last two days.
We don’t tell her presents are from Santa, so I guess it won’t work to tell her that Santa is keeping a list. (She talks about Santa and we don’t argue with her about it; we just don’t promulgate it.)
Actually, this shows the depth of this “separation” agenda - any mention is not allowed.
At my work, we are not allowed to even play “religious” music in the presence of others, let alone have “religious” items, discussion, distribution. The administration calls this “religious-neutral” but it seems more hostile since others can express their beliefs (all people are basically good if we can just help them) while I am enjoined from expressing mine (all people are doomed without Christ)
Perhaps people should not talk to each other at work.
Can somebody please instruct me as to Barry Lynn’s equating the foot-washing at the school to a violation of the Constitution? How does that equate to “Congress shall make no law……et al? Methinks Mr. Lynn is in some serious need of an overdose of reality.
Oh….and before anybody gets into that “separation of church and state” junk, please understand those words are NOT in the U.S. Constitution. They were part of a letter written by Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury, CT Baptists.
A rather reliable source for our nations most important documents can be found at www.PatriotPost.us
It can found on the “Historic Ducuments” link.
ps: can someone also tell tell me how I can submit a profile as a “regular”??
many thanks
never mind about the regulars page……I found it. teeheeheehe