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In Christianity the
Godhead is made of a Trinity, the existential and essential
union of three distinct persons; they are called the Father, the
Son, and the Holy Spirit. God is love, and love is God and it is
with a Trinitarian essence that this love can be maintained in
its perfection. It is because of this love, which God Himself
is, that the Holy Trinity chose to effect creation, and man is
the crown among all His visible creations. Man erred and lost
his original innocence, which maintained his divine image and
made him commune with his Creator. God out of love decided to
restore this divine image in man by offering the Son of the
Trinity to humanity. This Son became incarnate and “dwelt among
us”, and Jesus is this Son of God. Jesus is the Ultimate Gift of
God to humanity. It is to celebrate this GREATEST GIFT that we
exchange gifts during the Christmas season. So the reason of
this season is Jesus, Who is the Messiah (Christ- Anointed) of
the Hebrew prophesy. Without Christmas, there is reason for us
to exchange gifts, and if we do exchange gifts we are
hypocritical. We need the celebrations to satisfy our physical
appetites, but we do not want to embrace the ideology behind the
celebrations! We enjoy sumptuous dinners, tasty wines, and great
gifts during these days, but we want ignore the reality behind
all these celebrations. Without Christ, there is no reason for
such celebrations. Here we find reasons to ignore Christ,
because we do not want to offend our neighbors who are either
Muslims, or Jews, or atheists, or agnostics. Out of respect to
my neighbor who is not a Christian, I do not hesitate to say,
“Happy Hanukkah!”, or “Happy Ramadan!”, or “Happy Divali!”, when
he celebrates his holy day. Why is not that courtesy extended to
a Christian, who is either your coreligionist or does not
profess your religion. This is sheer discrimination…
There is a deliberate attempt in America to attack Christ and
His eternal spiritual kingdom. Let me enumerate a few examples.
As a prelude to Christmas or Easter, it has been a practice for
Newsweek Magazine and Time Magazine to write cover stories about
Christ in order to strip Him of his divinity, to present Him
even less than an ordinary man with a birth of illegitimacy or
with superstitions attached to His resurrection. No one has
seriously questioned this audacity from the part of these mega
media empires. They presented these cover stories as scholarly
researches! Christianity is a religion of faith. However, did
genuine Christian researches dry up in our seminaries and
divinity schools?
It is reported that the media have deliberately obscured the
religious identity of the rioters that burned hundreds of
automobiles and many divisions of cities and villages in France
for many weeks. Whom were they scared of, we definitely know.
The minority population that shook up the political and
governmental authorities of France for weeks by their atrocious
and criminal activities was once the beneficiaries of a
compassionate policy held by France, and thus they became guest
workers. It is these people and their second generation that
created political and social unrest by not at all identifying
with the host culture. An immigrant community generally gets
assimilated into the host society, but this did not happen to
these Northwest African immigrants. Why did the media obscure
the ethnic or religious identity these rioters?
It is sad to see that most of the University Divinity Schools
have been invaded by liberalism and secularism. Recently a
female graduate of Chicago Theological Seminary after receiving
her M.Div. degree became a devout Muslim! When I encountered
this apostate, she told:
“In my seminary, I found Muhammad more of a prophet than Jesus,
and I followed him”. A pastor of the United Church of Christ and
a graduate of the same seminary, who was a part-time faculty at
the college where this writer teaches, even formed a “Gay Club”
for students (after this he was fired without implicating him
being responsible for this “Club”). A Church of South India
pastor and a graduate of Serampore College justified
homosexuality and the ordination of homosexuals to the Christian
ministry! I wondered what these seminaries are teaching
now-a-days. Are they teaching Christian faith and Christian
morality? Hence I believe that the seminaries and divinity
schools are being invaded by liberalism.
If Newsweek and Time Magazines dare to attack Muhammad or
Mohammedanism through their cover stories, the Muslims around
the globe would rise up in riots all over the world, and their
religious leaders would already declared a price for the heads
of the writers of those stories, and possibly for the heads of
their owners and editors. In a democratic society secularism is
a virtue. However, when it is tainted with bigotry, it is
venomous to human culture and society.
In the past the presidents of the United States used to send out
their greeting cards during the Christmas Season with the
inscription, “We wish you a very MERRY CHRISTMAS and HAPPY NEW
YEAR. Now even our highly acclaimed and deeply Christian
President Bush is forgetting his Christian heritage and faith in
Christ by sending a generic greeting of ”Happy Holidays”,
without reference to Christ as the very reason of this season!
Sad? Isn’t it? Yes! It is worse than that.
Of course, you might say, this is a secular nation and the
President is restricted to make reference to Christ. If so, the
Presidents, who sent out greetings of “Merry Christmas” in the
past, should be posthumously impeached for the violation of the
United States Constitution. Or why worry about a religious
holiday of Christmas? Stop the practice of sending greeting
cards altogether. Well, it is not a good business practice,
because it would hurt Hallmark and many companies producing
greeting cards. The President should be an exemplary citizen who
promotes business in America and the capitalistic and
utilitarian philosophy behind its economics. No matter what we
secularists preach, we should sell our wines and whiskies,
Christmas ornaments, Christmas cakes, greeting cards, postage
stamps, Christmas trees, electronic products, and all the gift
items one can imagine; because it is good business. When we are
engaged in good business, we forget the real business of
recognizing the Creator of all this abundance and affluence that
we enjoy.
It is very disturbing to observe that this discrimination is
primarily targeted against the Christians. It was a couple of
months ago that the Government of the United States of America
held Ifthar dinners to celebrate the great conclusion of the
Ramadan fasting season and to honor the Muslim devotees of the
diplomatic community in Washington D.C. This writer does not
know if the money spent for this purpose was drawn from the tax
payers of this country. If so, it violates the spirit of
separation between church and state. Whether tax payer money was
used for this purpose or not, this writer has some legitimate
questions. Is it important that the U.S. President or the U.S.
Secretary of State should hold an Ifthar dinner to celebrate a
Muslim festival when the United States as a secular nation has
no special interest on religion at all? Let me ask point-blank:
Would the King of Saudi Arabia or the King of Morocco or a
so-called democratic regime in a predominantly Muslim country
ever arrange a state dinner to celebrate Christmas or Christ’s
Resurrection? Would the heads of any predominantly Muslim
country ever hold a state celebration for any Christian feast?
Please do not misunderstand this writer. He is a friend of many
good and devout Muslims, and a good admirer of Muslim thinkers
like Fetullah Gulen. This writer has regularly opened his inner
office area as a private corner for his Muslim friends to
conduct the Friday noon prayers. He has also attended Muslim
religious services without prejudice. But this ‘stately’ (?)
recognition of another religion, while offending the Christian
majority of this nation which was founded by deeply Christian
immigrants from Europe is nothing but cowardice. Whom are we
trying to placate? Yes, this writer believes that Christ is
slowly thrown out not only from the hearts of people, but also
from a society, which always boasted about its Christian
history.
Go to any store during the Christmas season. What you see is:
“Happy Holidays!” Listen to the TV and Radio programs. What you
hear is” “Happy Holidays!” When this writer came to this
country, he heard “Merry Christmas!”, and saw “Merry Christmas!”
I would like to encourage our Christians to massively boycott
the stores where they do not see a display of “Merry Christmas”
during the Christmas season. This writer is not offended either
by the Jewish greeting, “Happy Hanukkah!” at the entrance of a
store. Maybe, a boycott by the majority Christian population
will send a message to the lunatic mentality of this age. It is
also possible that the Christians of this country are no more
Christians! It is liberalism and hedonism that try to trample
down Christian morality and values, which this generation
considers as inhibitive and detrimental to human growth and
development. Having no sense of the development of human history
and its dependence on Christ and His eternal movement,
liberalism preaches that Christianity is inhibitive; that is why
the nation’s foremost Radio Talk Show host Michael Savage calls
liberalism a mental disorder. I wonder why the media and all
liberal groups are scared of Christ!
Yes, for the past two thousand years, movements after movements,
regimes after regimes, tried to burry Christ to never rise
again. If the incarnation of the Second Person of the Holy
Trinity was history and an event that divided human history, it
was the Resurrection of the Incarnate Lord that made Him and His
movement perennially invincible. Yes, Christ was born, Christ
trampled down death, and Christ will reign forever.
This writer urges every Christian to be courteous and respectful
to his Jewish friends or Muslim friends or Hindu friends when
they celebrate their holidays by greeting “Happy Hanukkah!”, or
“Happy Ramadan!”, or “Happy Divali!”
This lecture was necessary to induce the realization that
Christianity is the basic culture of western society. For us
Christians, Christ Jesus is a reality. Our redemption is achieved
by His incarnation, His ministry on earth, His trial and
suffering, and His Resurrection
Christ is born! Glorify Him!!! |
