Thread: Greatest gift (Christianity & America)

http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/200 ... -5754r.htm

Greatest gift

By Paul Craig Roberts
December 25, 2006

Christmas is a time of traditions. If you have found time in the rush to decorate a tree, you are sharing in a relatively new tradition. Though the Christmas tree has ancient roots, at the beginning of the 20th century only 1 in 5 American families put up a tree. It was 1920 before the Christmas tree became the hallmark of the season. Calvin Coolidge was the first president to light a national Christmas tree on the White House lawn.
Gifts are another shared custom. This tradition comes from the wise men, or three kings, who brought gifts to baby Jesus. When I was a kid, gifts were more modest than now, but even then people complained about the commercialization of Christmas. We have grown accustomed to the commercialization. Christmas sales are the backbone of many businesses. Gift-giving causes us to remember others and to take time from our harried lives to give them thought.
The decorations and gifts of Christmas are one of our connections to a Christian culture that has held Western civilization together for 2,000 years.
In our culture, the individual counts. This permits an individual person to put his or her foot down, to take a stand on principle, to become a reformer and to take on injustice.
This empowerment of the individual is unique to Western civilization. It has made the individual a citizen equal in rights to all other citizens, protected from tyrannical government by the rule of law and free speech.
These achievements are the products of centuries of struggle, but they all flow from the teaching that God so values the individual's soul that He sent His Son to die so we might live. By so elevating the individual, Christianity gave him a voice.
Formerly, only those with power had a voice. But in Western civilization, people with integrity have a voice. So do people with a sense of justice, of honor, of duty, of fair play. Reformers can reform, investors can invest, and entrepreneurs can create commercial enterprises, new products and new occupations.
The result was a land of opportunity. The United States attracted immigrants who shared our values and reflected them in their own lives. Our culture was absorbed by a diverse people who became one.
In recent decades, we have begun losing sight of the historic achievement that empowered the individual. The religious, legal and political roots of this great achievement are no longer reverently taught in high schools, colleges and universities. The voices that reach us through the millennia and connect us to our culture are being silenced by "political correctness." Prayer has been driven from schools, and Christian religious symbols from public life. Diversity is becoming the consuming value and is dismantling the culture.
There is plenty of room for cultural diversity in the world, but not within a single country. A Tower of Babel has no culture. A person cannot be a Christian one day, a pagan the next and a Muslim the day after. A hodgepodge of cultural and religious values provides no basis for law -- except the raw power of the pre-Christian past.
All Americans have a huge stake in Christianity. Whether or not we are individually believers in Christ, we are beneficiaries of the moral doctrine that has curbed power and protected the weak. Power is the horse ridden by evil.
In the 20th century, the horse was ridden hard. One hundred million people were exterminated by National Socialists in Germany and by Soviet and Chinese communists simply because they were members of a race or class that had been demonized by intellectuals and political authority.
Power that is secularized and cut free of civilizing traditions is not limited by moral and religious scruples. V.I. Lenin made this clear when he defined the meaning of his dictatorship as "unlimited power, resting directly on force, not limited by anything."
Christianity's emphasis on the worth of the individual makes such power as Lenin claimed unthinkable. Be we religious or be we not, our celebration of Christ's birthday honors a religion that made us masters of our souls and of our political life on Earth. Such a religion as this is worth holding on to even by atheists.

Paul Craig Roberts is a nationally syndicated columnist.

Whoa! Incredible piece! Thanks for posting it!!

Wonderful! thanks Crusader for the post!

Your both welcome, and thank you.

The decorations and gifts of Christmas are one of our connections to a Christian culture that has held Western civilization together for 2,000 years.

But in Western civilization, people with integrity have a voice. So do people with a sense of justice, of honor, of duty, of fair play.

The United States attracted immigrants who shared our values and reflected them in their own lives. Our culture was absorbed by a diverse people who became one.

All Americans have a huge stake in Christianity. Whether or not we are individually believers in Christ, we are beneficiaries of the moral doctrine that has curbed power and protected the weak. Power is the horse ridden by evil.

Be we religious or be we not, our celebration of Christ's birthday honors a religion that made us masters of our souls and of our political life on Earth. Such a religion as this is worth holding on to even by atheists.

Great piece, thanks for posting this! Mr Roberts captured perfectly the intertwining of Christmas/Christians and America-ns.

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Where are all the invironmental advocates? Celebrators of christmas have cut down trees, brought them into their houses, make them pretty and a week later grind them up for compost or burn them up.that breaks my heart because all those trees that are destroyed could be left alone, made inot lumber and sent to countries that do not have tree for building houses. That would certainly make God smile. I do no think he is very happy to see his beautiful creation destroyed. I do not think destroying tree is the way to go in celebrating christmas.

O.K. let me have it. I am ready.

http://www.strike-the-root.com/4/langr/langr2.html

Originally Posted by dyehard39

Where are all the invironmental advocates? Celebrators of christmas have cut down trees, brought them into their houses, make them pretty and a week later grind them up for compost or burn them up.that breaks my heart because all those trees that are destroyed could be left alone, made inot lumber and sent to countries that do not have tree for building houses. That would certainly make God smile. I do no think he is very happy to see his beautiful creation destroyed. I do not think destroying tree is the way to go in celebrating christmas.
O.K. let me have it. I am ready.
http://www.strike-the-root.com/4/langr/langr2.html

Why make Christmas cookies, when we can send the ingredients to a starving nation? Why wear the clothes that were received as a Christmas presents, when we can donate them to the needy? Why live in a house, when we can sell it, and donate the money to a good cause? Why chat online when we can spend our time doing missionary work? It is a neverending list isn't it? Traditions create a positive family environment, and therefore, create positive roles models in our society. There are Christmas tree farms planted specifically for this purpose, so there is no need to damage the environment. We can also buy a tree with the roots so it can be planted after we are done using it as a display. We have choices.

Originally Posted by Neese

Originally Posted by dyehard39

Where are all the invironmental advocates? Celebrators of christmas have cut down trees, brought them into their houses, make them pretty and a week later grind them up for compost or burn them up.that breaks my heart because all those trees that are destroyed could be left alone, made inot lumber and sent to countries that do not have tree for building houses. That would certainly make God smile. I do no think he is very happy to see his beautiful creation destroyed. I do not think destroying tree is the way to go in celebrating christmas.
O.K. let me have it. I am ready.
http://www.strike-the-root.com/4/langr/langr2.html

Why make Christmas cookies, when we can send the ingredients to a starving nation? Why wear the clothes that were received as a Christmas presents, when we can donate them to the needy? Why live in a house, when we can sell it, and donate the money to a good cause? Why chat online when we can spend our time doing missionary work? It is a neverending list isn't it? Traditions create a positive family environment, and therefore, create positive roles models in our society. There are Christmas tree farms planted specifically for this purpose, so there is no need to damage the environment. We can also buy a tree with the roots so it can be planted after we are done using it as a display. We have choices.

cookies are eaten, clothes are worn, houses are lived in but trees are destroyed and not used for building houses and that is a waste.

most of the trees are cut down from the forest and even if they are farmed, why not farm them for houses for other countries.

Originally Posted by dyehard39

Originally Posted by Neese

Originally Posted by dyehard39

Where are all the invironmental advocates? Celebrators of christmas have cut down trees, brought them into their houses, make them pretty and a week later grind them up for compost or burn them up.that breaks my heart because all those trees that are destroyed could be left alone, made inot lumber and sent to countries that do not have tree for building houses. That would certainly make God smile. I do no think he is very happy to see his beautiful creation destroyed. I do not think destroying tree is the way to go in celebrating christmas.
O.K. let me have it. I am ready.
http://www.strike-the-root.com/4/langr/langr2.html

Why make Christmas cookies, when we can send the ingredients to a starving nation? Why wear the clothes that were received as a Christmas presents, when we can donate them to the needy? Why live in a house, when we can sell it, and donate the money to a good cause? Why chat online when we can spend our time doing missionary work? It is a neverending list isn't it? Traditions create a positive family environment, and therefore, create positive roles models in our society. There are Christmas tree farms planted specifically for this purpose, so there is no need to damage the environment. We can also buy a tree with the roots so it can be planted after we are done using it as a display. We have choices.

cookies are eaten, clothes are worn, houses are lived in but trees are destroyed and not used for building houses and that is a waste.

most of the trees are cut down from the forest and even if they are farmed, why not farm them for houses for other countries.

I seem to recall another man who grew angry over what he perceived as waste in celebrating the miracle that was our Saviour:

Matt 26:7-15
7 There came unto him a woman having an alabaster box of very precious ointment, and poured it on his head, as he sat at meat.

8 But when his disciples saw it, they had indignation, saying, To what purpose is this waste?

9 For this ointment might have been sold for much, and given to the poor.

10 When Jesus understood it, he said unto them, Why trouble ye the woman? for she hath wrought a good work upon me.

11 For ye have the poor always with you; but me ye have not always.

12 For in that she hath poured this ointment on my body, she did it for my burial.

13 Verily I say unto you, Wheresoever this gospel shall be preached in the whole world, there shall also this, that this woman hath done, be told for a memorial of her.

14 Then one of the twelve, called Judas Iscariot, went unto the chief priests,

15 And said unto them, What will ye give me, and I will deliver him unto you? And they covenanted with him for thirty pieces of silver.
KJV