The War on Christmas?

Posted on by Ark

Fury as primary school tells pupils to say ‘Baby Boy Jesus’ instead of ‘Lord Jesus’ while singing Away In A Manger so that pupils of all faiths can join in.

 

I have to admit I smiled after I read this article. Of course, when I lived in the UK it would not have been an issue. But that was a long time ago and as my mother has mentioned …. ” … you wouldn’t recognise the place.”

My smile, however has little to do with the ”uproar” per se but rather because of yet another example of opposing religious beliefs clashing and the inability of those who are culturally aligned to the former dominant religion,Christianity, dealing with such situations in an effective manner.

Perhaps I spend too much time behind the stable door, but I  can’t imagine a similar scenario arising in a non-Christian country, can you? Say, Saudi Arabia, Iran or Iraq?

In reality, it is because this is a religious issue there is no effective manner that can possibly satisfy all parties, and of course, when adults want to play these games it is the children who are invariably caught in the middle.

All one can hope for is that one set of religious nonsense is not supplanted by a different set of religious nonsense.

Baby (lord) Jesus would probably be turning in his manger.

🙂

Ark

 

58 thoughts on “The War on Christmas?”

  1. According to the gospels, the character Jesus has a bit of a temper. I suspect he would be more than a little pissed at the people who are making mountains of money off of his name without paying anything but lip service to what he supposedly taught.

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      2. Shouldn’t that be not ‘Who’s Whom’, but actually ‘What’s what?’~? (Even though various Good Books give us licence, can we really anthropomorphise the Prime Mover of the universe?)

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  3. My first thought was, isn’t that silly. Surely there are more important things to get alarmed about and more important things to discover in school than a wrangle over this. It’s only important because someone says it was. I seem to recall it as ‘little lord jesus’ when I was that age, and no one got all fussed over it. It was a Christmas Carol, not a statement of jurisprudence…

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    1. You and I are from a time where it made little difference.
      We were generally regarded as part of (culturally) Christian nation(s) with ne’er a Burka in sight.
      And Jews did their thing, while Hari Krishna’s and Hindus were just weird, and so we all had a Merry Christmas celebrating Wise Men on Camels, Shepherds in fields while on the feast of Steven the snow lay around crisp and even and we had fun the live long day tra la la, and pigged out on Turkey, Christmas pudding, moaned about parents not buying batteries for our toys and watching reruns of Jimmy Stewart eckcetera ad nauseum!

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      1. “…pigged out on Turkey…”

        Pretty sure you meant to say ‘gobbled down’ rather than ‘pigged out’. Or maybe you meant to use a ham-handed mixed metaphor. Just sayin’…

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          1. Down on the bayou here (coast in proper English) we pigged out on gator, crayfish, and blue crab (vs. crab louse) complimented by okra and live music by the Oom-pah band!!! “GIG ‘EM before they run away!!!“ 😛

            You’re invited Ark!

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      2. even more interesting, we lived in Massachusetts when I was in the 5th and 6th grades, and I had a choice (and it was mine) to go either to the terrifying Parochial school (my best friend still has the scars from that one) or the public school two blocks away, 95% Jewish. I took the public school, and my mother said she agreed, she didn’t like the uniforms at the parochial school either. End of discussion. I loved it there. We got all the Jewish holidays off, there was a biblical passage read every morning by one of the kids (in turn, we got to pick, and one little Jewish girl said to me, at Christmas time when I was 10, “do you still believe in Santa?” and at that moment, I realized I didn’t. She said, “neither do i” My father, however, kept up the side, and was devastated two years later when Mother had to tell him I was no longer a believer in Santa.
        In town here, there was a contest for the best/biggest christmas display, and the Doctor always won, because he had a life sized creche and holy family parked on his lawn. No one really minded, and no one was damaged.
        And yeah, we had fun. We also always watched “Amahl and the NIght Visitors” on Hallmark Hall of Fame, which was a made-for-tv opera, totally over the top. When did we become so freaking politically correct?

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      3. Batteries, for toys? Ye gods … mine were wound up with a big detachable key that always went missing after Boxing Day. (Reruns were doing the race again after someone called Foul …)

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  4. All one can hope for is that one set of religious nonsense is not supplanted by a different set of religious nonsense.

    We can pretty much guarantee that there is no limit to the amount of religious nonsense.

    As long as we don’t take it seriously, it can be good for entertainment.

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    1. ”S’cuse me Miss, but are you sayin’ that Baby boy Jesus isn’t Lord Jesus any more, ‘cos our Mam says Jesus is God too an’ you can take your God-hatin’ heathen religion that makes you look like Lone Ranger and shove it where the sun don’t shine and she’s comin’ down to the school with our Ron to tell you ‘erself.’

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      1. If you break it to her gently, I think she’ll feel YOUNG again! Revived and ready to (shifts into his suave Italiano song…) FLY away… into Amore! ❤

        But this is not my holiday carols, of course. Mine are… well, a bit more "feroce"!

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  8. Got me. I’ma singin’:
    Oh Lord, won’t you Buy me a Mercedes Benz
    My friends all drive Porsches I must make amends …

    or this, which some consider more than naughty: (from Baby It’s Cold Outside)

    … My sister will be suspicious (Gosh your lips look delicious!)
    My brother will be there at the door (Waves upon a tropical shore)
    My maiden aunt’s mind is vicious (Gosh your lips are delicious!) ….
    ‘Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war’ and let the battles begin!

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    1. So which/who is THE real Jesus?

      (Ye gods … is that the time? Solstice in just a few hours … Jesus’s birthday in a couple of days … sheesh …)

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  11. Hello Ark. I would love to read the article and rant and rave. Unfortunately I am denied the right to glance at it due to my refusal to let them force their advertisements on me. So I will have to get my contentment from the many comments already left here. Hugs

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    1. Principle is one thing, expedience another … so why not do as I do, and just ignore them until you can move on to the nitty gritty of the original intent? (Small price to pay; good luck~!)

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      1. Hello Ron. I use ABP to block advertisements. I am quite happy with it. Some sites want me to either disable it or whitelist them. On principle I refuse to do so. That was the situation here, I could have done it, but I am not willing to take their ads to read the article. Thanks for the info. Hugs

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        1. Fair enough. I find that Ghostery works most of the time and selectively disabling JavaScript (so the site can’t detect the use of ad-blockers) covers the rest.

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        2. Just a sidenote, Scottie. I use AdBlock and it allows you to “temporarily” pause ads on a site so you can read the article/post. Once you close the page, the block goes back into effect. Interestingly, even when I choose to “pause” the ads, they often don’t show anyway — but I do get to see the article.

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          1. Hello Nan. Thank you. I did know you could pause the block function, but I normally don’t do it because on some site they will ask you to let them show adverts and even if you don’t you can still read the article. I guess I need to get off my high horse and just bite the bullet and do it. The Washington post is horrible about it. Hugs

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          3. Hello Nan. Funny thing when I am reading news on my IPad I can read their articles with no problem, but on the computer most of the time it is one block or the other. Hugs

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