A conscientious objector in the war on Christmas

I’m a conscientious objector in the war over Christmas

How’s that for an unpopular opinion? But it summarizes the way I see things, so I have no choice but to stick with it.

Let me make it clear at the outset that I quite willing to fight to keep Christian religious symbols in the public square. Any community that wants to keep its Ten Commandments plaque on the courthouse wall has my full support. Ditto for the use of a cross as part of an official seal, or a memorial to a slain police officer, or other similar solemn use.

I will even go so far as to say that a community that wants to erect a crèche or put Santa and his sleigh in the town square has a perfect right to do so. But they will do it without any help from me.

My problem with the war on Christmas is that one side says all Christian symbols must be banned and the other says that Christmas is the essence of Christianity. I have no sympathy with the former and little with the latter.

The arguments against Christians celebrating Christmas are many. I will not attempt to cite them all. But, here are a few of the more obvious ones:

1. We cannot sure of the date of Jesus’ birth, but December 25 is almost certainly not it.


2. The Bible does not enjoin such a celebration.


3. The major features of the celebration come out of Roman Catholic syncretism, combining features of the ancient Roman rites of the winter solstice with those of similar festivals among the Germanic peoples.


4. As a reformed Christian, I object to the reference to the mass in Christmas.

For these reasons and more, I do not celebrate Christmas and have not for many years. While I might not, others are free to do so and no doubt will continue to celebrate it. If they choose to do this in public spaces and with public funds, I admit they have that power.

As to the wider question of the serious war going on year-round to drive Christianity underground, I am unequivocally on the side of the defenders of tradition.

First, let us make something very clear about the founding of the colonies of British North America which came together to form the United States. The earliest – Virginia - was established as a commercial venture, but the proprietors soon came to the conclusion that profitable plantations would never be established by the sort of desperate single men they were sending to Jamestown at a rate barely able to keep up with deaths from disease and Indian wars.

The best way to get whole families to settle permanently in the wilderness was to offer sanctuary to Christians who were not welcome in the mother country. That was how the Pilgrims who had fled temporarily from Britain to the Netherlands came to settle in the northern part of Virginia in 1620. With the subsequent addition of the Puritans, they achieved status as a separate colony – Massachusetts Bay – and set up a government that established Congregationalism as the official church while Virginia’s government followed the lead of the mother country in establishing the Church of England. People may have come here to practice religion as they wished, but not – in the early days – to extend that privilege to dissenting neighbors. As Roger Williams learned when he was driven from Massachusetts into what became Connecticut, people were not inclined to be tolerant until you were over the horizon.

Tolerance took a while. The Brits acquired New York as an already well-established Dutch colony with a Reformed majority and fair degree of toleration. Maryland was set up as a haven for British Catholics but with the Church of England as the established church – a profession of faith in Christ being required for admittance. Pennsylvania was established under the proprietorship of the Penn family who were Quakers but who welcomed German Pietists of several varieties (Mennonites, Moravians, etc.) as well as German Lutherans who added to the pre-existing Swedish Lutheran colony at Christiana, and other faiths as well. Georgia, founded last and as a haven for convicts, was the sort of place where it was best to mind your own business.

Tolerance came early in a few places, but late and with great difficulty in others. Baptists were persecuted as vigorously in Anglican Virginia as in Congregationalist Massachusetts in the early days, but they kept trying to spread their version of the Gospel whether welcome or not. The Moravians managed to establish a settlement in North Carolina. Scots and Ulster Presbyterians as well as Germans of various denominations established footholds in the western portions of Virginia and the Carolinas (including parts of what became Kentucky and Tennessee) by migrating down the Blue Ridge from Pennsylvania and then moving west and keeping to themselves in wilderness settlements.

By the time of the Revolution, the establishment of the Church of England came into disrepute from its association with the Crown as well for doctrinal reasons and it ceased to be established in the Southern colonies although South Carolina, for instance, still required that those participating in the political life of the state be “Protestant Christians.”

All this is to give a context to what happened during the drafting and ratification of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights (1787-91).

The great innovation of the Constitution with respect to religion is the seldom cited last clause of Article VI, Section 3:
“…, but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.”

The provision that gets all the attention is, of course, the first article of amendment which states, in relevant part:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, …”

First, we should observe that the Federalists said a Bill of Rights for the national constitution was unnecessary because the constitutions of the various states covered these points and the national government had not been granted authority in such cases. Furthermore, a federal constitutional Bill of Rights, unless it were a comprehensive enumeration of all the rights of citizens, might cause those rights not specified to be disparaged later. This did not appease the critics and it became necessary to promise a series of amendments constituting a Bill of Rights in order to secure the assent of some states, most importantly New York and Virginia.

Second, we must remember that there was no question of an “incorporation doctrine” at that time. No one – either for or against – considered this or any other part of the Bill of Rights to be a limitation on the governmental actions of the states and the subordinate government entities created under their authority. In fact, it is the incorporation doctrine that gives rise to federal judicial intrusion into this subject.

So, what did the first amendment do with respect to religion? Not much – except, perhaps, to prevent setting up an established church in the federal capital district. It says Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion which meant it could not set up a national established church nor disestablish any of the existing established churches in the states. But such powers were not enumerated in Article I, nor anywhere else in the Constitution, so Congress had no authority to legislate in this area anyway. Only in the federal capital district did the Constitution give Congress plenary legislative power. The same applies to the language about “free exercise” of religion.

All this current mischief stems from the incorporation doctrine. This is the nonsensical notion that the 14th Amendment extends the prohibitions on national government action contained in the Bill of Rights to restrain the actions of state governments. The 14th amendment’s purpose was to secure to colored persons, and freedmen in particular, the privileges and immunities of citizens – to acquire, hold and dispose of property; to make contracts generally; to serve as a plaintiff, witness or juror in courts of law; etc. How you get from that purpose to the idea that the 14th turns the 1st into a prohibition on some city having a Ten Commandments plaque or monument is one of those great mysteries which only a judge faithless to his oath of office could understand.