pafret Loc: Northeast

What is Christmas Without Christ?
By Dr. Robert R. Owens
December 20, 2018


What have Frosty the Snowman, roasting chestnuts, hippos, hula hoops, and barking dogs got to do with Christmas?
They may bring warmth to our hearts. They may bring a smile to our lips. Or they may make us groan. Wh**ever they do to each of us what they all have in common is that they’re glued to Christmas like barnacles to the hull of the good ship lollipop. They’re the accumulated cultural baggage that increasingly obscures the real meaning of a revolutionary blessed event under the camouf**ge of a socially acceptable winter break.
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The ABCCBSNBCCNNMSNBCPBSNPR Cartel tells us constantly that we now live in a post-Christian America. They exalt in proclaiming the end of Christ’s dominant influence on Western Civilization. As a result we’ve descended from a city on a hill to a modern Sodom and Gomorrah. Our elites call evil good and good evil.

Ever since the nine black-robed masters of America decreed back in 1962 that God was expelled from school we’ve witnessed the steady degradation of our society. The coarseness and vulgarity we’re deluged with on a daily basis was unknown in earlier days. What we call prime time entertainment was once known as pornography. What were a*********ns and generally accepted as perversions have become the norm while believing them to be against God’s Word is now considered some type of mental disorder. The cabal of self-appointed paragons of pomposity that masquerade as educators, politicians, and journalists cap their war against God when they glory in the right of self-interest to sacrifice the lives of the innocent and demand that the government not only endorse it but subsidize it.

As a natural outgrowth of the city of man’s war against God that defines America’s progressive culture comes the war against Christmas.

Back in the dream time we used to go to Christmas programs at our children’s schools and listen to the little darlings sing The First Noel, Oh Little Town of Bethlehem, and O Come O Come Emmanuel. Now we listen to them sing songs in foreign languages, or do beautiful arrangements of sounds that don’t even have a meaning intermixed with a few songs about winter, snow, or maybe animals. It may all be PC but it sure doesn’t have anything to do with the reason for the season.

Just in case all the tinsel and the twinkling lights have blinded us to what that reason is let me elaborate.
Christmas is all about Jesus the Christ born as a human so that he could bear the sins of the world, die a substitutionary death in our place, rise triumphantly from the grave and ascend into heaven so that we who believe can live in and through Him. That’s what it’s all about. Christmas must be linked to Easter to have any meaning. I’ve met people who never realized that the Jesus in the manger on Christmas was the same Jesus who hung on the cross on Good Friday. I did not meet them in the jungles of some remote island but in America with a church on every corner. This is a clear case of Santa with a coke in his hand winning the advertising debate over the Lamb who takes away the sins of the world. It may all be PC but it sure doesn’t have anything to do with the reason for the season.

What is Christmas without Christ? It’s a worldly hedonistic overly commercialized gift giving/receiving orgasm perpetrated by humanity’s enemy to keep us from knowing that Christ came to set us free, to reconcile us to God, and to make a way for us to live as a new creation in a new creation.

Not to be Grinch, let me wish everyone a Merry Christmas. Let’s enjoy our family and friends. Let’s celebrate our traditions as we remember Jesus is the reason for the season. So let’s wake up and smell the frankincense and myrrh for without Christ in Christmas all we have is “mas.”

slatten49 Loc: Lake Whitney, Texas

[quote=pafret]What is Christmas Without Christ?
By Dr. Robert R. Owens
December 20, 2018

"Ever since the nine black-robed masters of America decreed back in 1962 that God was expelled from school we’ve witnessed the steady degradation of our society."

Prayer in schools: When it is and isn't allowed.

On behalf of The Law Offices of Steve Rossi P.A. posted in Education Law on Friday, April 1, 2016.

Prayer in public school is an issue for many reasons. Some parents want their children to participate in prayer, while others believe that it shouldn't be performed in public schools at all. It's a d******e issue in many areas of the country. If your son or daughter is being pushed to pray or participate in religious activities at school, the school could be in violation of the law.

Under federal law, prayer is allowed in schools as long as it doesn't alienate a group of students. For instance, if the class is willing to participate, there shouldn't be a problem with it. However, if there are two religions and only one is being represented, that could be viewed as alienation.
Public schools, according to the First Amendment's Establishment Clause, are prohibited from encouraging students to practice religion as well as from restricting them from practicing religion. Basically, the school must allow students to do as they please in their own personal lives. Because of this clause in the First Amendment, many schools ban prayers at school. Others offer prayer circles and times for prayer that are separated from class, so students can choose to participate if they want to.

Public schools have been banned from prayer and other religious practices for many years. However, students who want to participate in voluntary prayer or religious activities are allowed to do so. Instead of prayer, some schools hold moments of silence, which allows students who want to pray the chance to do so while others can do as they wish during that time.

bahmer

[quote=slatten49]

The two predominant books of the beginning of the education system in America were the Bible and the McGuffey's reader which used many bible passages in the reader itself. We have had quite a drop from our beginning to what is presently called education today. Maybe we would do better if we went back to our roots instead of in the direction that we are now heading in. We could all use a little more bible reading and less of this L***Q garbage of today. The same for this t***ssexualism as well.

Kevyn

The United States has not celebrated Christmas in decades it has been replaced with Giftmas, an orgy of shopping, spending, gluttony and greed. It is how our children are conditioned to indulge themselves with conspicuous consumption and prepare for a joyless life spent in the pursuit of things. Exhausted, overworked, underpaid and indebted workers besott themselves on free booze at holiday office parties. Many foolishly tell colleagues and bosses what they really think of their mindless jobs or opt for a debaucherous romp with a coworker resulting in regret, humiliation and all too often a January job search. Public behavior goes to hell after Thanksgiving dinner where otherwise decent people brawl with each other in hideous spectacles of greed fighting to get one of a few door buster specials on giant TVs or computers. Public roads and parking lots become battlefields as the miserable hoards partake in furious road rage and fight over parking spaces. Domestic violence and suicide rates go up as people are unable to obtain the utopian vision Madison Avenue has promised them. The best thing to do at this time of year is take your loved ones to a quiet place, hunker down with some good books from the library and a nice bottle of brandy and ignore it all.

slatten49 Loc: Lake Whitney, Texas

The point of my post was to challenge/dismiss the idea that God has been 'expelled' from the schools. In years past, I had been various PTA officers in schools my kids attended. I frequently visited them and later my grandkids in their classrooms. That time frame ran from the late 70s through and up 'til as late as two years ago. Moments of silent prayer, for the most part, were permitted during those years. Children were always allowed to say their prayers to themselves prior to eating in the cafeteria. Christmas programs were in the holiday programs every year, while other religions were often similarly recognized.

pafret Loc: Northeast

You should make an effort to cultivate a better class of acquaintances, particularly those who know what Christmas is about. With your dystopian view of society, in general, you could easily be convicted, of hating the human race.

bahmer

Our children were always in the school that was associated with our church and was usually attached to said church. That was what the wife wanted and that is what the wife got.

slatten49 Loc: Lake Whitney, Texas

Understood.

Kevyn

My niece was forced to leave our thanksgiving gathering because she works at a big box store that insisted they open on the holiday. I stoped in on my way home to commiserate with her and was subject to a world class sh!t show of people behaving like jackals in a shopping frenzy. Go to the mall when it’s crowded and watch how people behave and treat each other. Lots of people can’t pay the rent in January because society brow beats them into massive overspending. People spend enough on gifts for their dogs to feed a starving child for half a year. Come to your own conclusion but do so with open eyes.

davezant

Amen to a truly honest post.
I feel as you do.