More Christmas Banning

Jerry Falwell's worried that an army of "spiritual Grinches in our nation are accelerating their war against Christmas."

No worries, Rev. Falwell. Christmas survived being banned by Christian , it can survive the secularists.

But please, knock of the "war on Christmas" rhetoric. There's a real war going in Iraq, another one in Sudan, one that might break out in Congo, and I'm sure lots that you and I don't know about. If this war on Christmas is as bad as it gets, then we're pretty lucky.

If you've got a couple minutes, read Linda Campbell's piece, "So We're Oppressed?"

"It's heck being a Christian in America these days," she writes. "Insults and ostracism confront us daily."


An "orthodox Christian" teacher at a public California elementary school has accused his principal of barring him from using historical documents naming God.

Target Corp. has stopped letting Salvation Army bell-ringers put a guilt trip on harried shoppers so they'll drop spare change into the familiar red kettles.

Now Newsweek and Time are running cover stories critically examining the biblical stories about Jesus' birth.

Should I also take it as an unmistakable message of hostility that CBS last Friday pre-empted my favorite show -- Joan of Arcadia, in which the central character regularly converses with God -- to air the secular winter-holiday fluff of Frosty the Snowman?

So many slights, so little time.

But I wonder: Why are we so easily offended?

Didn't Christ himself teach us about turning the other cheek and practicing our faith in substantive ways without attracting undue attention?


Besides, she says, it could be worse. We might be Muslims trying to fufill our obligations to give to charity, all the while wondering if it's a waste of time, because the government will just shut another Muslim non-profit down.


How many churchgoers bypass the collection basket so that federal agents won't knock down their doors with accusations that they've been aiding terrorists masquerading as religious charities?


Good question. And still the great uncovered religion story of the 21st century.