Happy Holidays

Okay. So no I have upset a bunch of you and you are fuming because I would dare say Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas. Well deal with it. I am tired of American Christians playing this game of victimhood and everybody is out to get us. Look around at the public buildings that we worship in. In my town there is literally one on every street corner in parts of town. Some are multi-block campuses or converted shopping malls. We are not in hiding or are we having war waged against us.

So the greeter at the store said “Happy Holidays”. It will be okay. The other thing that disturbs me is knowing that if it were Jewish Americans that were complaining that they weren’t told Happy Hanukah, these same Christians would rise up and condemn them for trying to highjack the holiday season. If African Americans complained that they weren’t greeted with Happy Kwanzaa, it would be be the same.

I hear people say that if they don’t want to celebrate OUR holiday, they need to go back to their country. In a country of immigrants and let’s face it, invaders, it is always so funny to hear someone wishing people would return to their country.

Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses, yearning to breath free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore, Send these, the homeless, tempest tossed, I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

These words are on the large statue in New York’s harbor. What Emma Lazurus left off was follow this  lamp to this golden shore but don’t bring your traditions and foods and customs.

The war on Christianity is real in the world. There are men and women in countries across the globe that worship in secret. They hide their churches in basements. They have Bibles and Sunday school materials smuggled to them at the risk of death. There are 51 countries throughout the world that have statutes against Christianity. There are nations that have official state religions. We are not one of those nations.

It has always been this way in America.  The Puritans had come to the New World to seek religious freedom. They however, were not willing to allow anyone else to practice any way they wished. In Salem, a young preacher by the name of Roger Williams began to attack the close connection between church and state. He believed that the government should not be able to punish people for their religious actions. He was the first proponent of separation of state and church.

In 1644, Williams obtained a charter for a new colony that included Providence and surrounding areas that was named “Rhode Island”. Rhode Island became a haven for a wide range of people with differing religious beliefs.

Our national constitution was amended to allow for the United States to become a haven to wide range of people with differing religious beliefs, customs and traditions.

Of course now that I think about it: I imagine the Incas, Mayans and other indigenous people just want us all to go home so they can celebrate Solstice.