Removing Christmas Celebration in the Public Schools

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By Dr. Joe Renfro

Christmas is celebrated by millions of Americans as one of the most sacred and joyful holidays of the year. Unfortunately, Christmas has also become a time of controversy in public schools as teachers, school administrators, parents and students struggle to determine their legal rights and responsibilities concerning the celebration of the holiday in the schools. But without question, the celebration of Christmas in American public schools is on the wane!

The celebration of Christmas in the public schools in the United States has been attacked from the religious domain and from the secular throughout history.  In America some maintain that it is a form of the state establishing a type of religious instruction, while others stress is part of our culture, and that is important to understand and appreciate the celebration of meaning of the religion that is basic to our culture.

“Christmas” or “Christ’s Mass” is the Christian feast observed on December 25 by most of the Christian churches, both Protestant and Catholic. Among some Eastern and Russian Orthodox churches it is on January 7 to commemorate the birth of Christ. Christmas is usually observed as a legal holiday in most western nations. 

There are many arguments, pro and con, in respect to the celebration, as well as what is or is not the appropriate ways to recognize Christmas in the public schools in America.   The politically correction thinking is that state schools should not see it as a celebration of the birth of Christ, but to merely make it part of what they might call the “winter break,” thus to avoid any conflict in what they see and seek to promote in their goal for establishing an increasingly pluralistic society. The more religious elements who adhere to the Christian faith basically see that the birth of the Christ child is a basic element to an understanding of the Western culture.

Wikipedia, states that:

“Christmas Day is recognized as an official federal holiday by the United States government. The American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for Separation of Church and State argue that government funded displays of Christmas imagery and traditions violate the U.S. Constitution—specifically the First Amendment, which prohibits the establishment by Congress of a national religion. The debate over whether religious display should be placed within public schools, courthouses, and other government buildings has been heated in recent years.”

Politically correct thinking usually can accept Christmas trees at school, but certainly not a nativity display.  For example, a controversy regarding this issue arose in 2002, when the New York City public school system banned the display of Nativity scenes but allowed the display of other less overtly religious symbols such as Christmas trees, Hanukkah menorahs, and the Muslim star and crescent.  The court decided that the Nativity scenes were out, but the Christmas trees were alright, as well as the Hanukkah menorahs and the Muslim star and crescent in the case (Skoros v. City of New York (2006).”  (Wikipedia) 

There are various religions in America, but the vast majority according to the most recent study of study of religion in the US concluded that seventy-six percent of Americans identify as Christian with the majority either Protestant and Catholic (Yahoo).  Back in 2012 the large majority of Americans — seventy-seven percent of the adult population — identified with a Christian religion, including fifty-two percent who are Protestants or some other non-Catholic Christian religion, twenty-three percent who are Catholic. Another eighteen percent of Americans do not have an explicit religious identity and seven percent identify with a non-Christian religion, two percent who affiliate with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  It’s hard to know what the official statistic is because the Census Bureau does not now collect information on religious preference.  (Politics, by Frank Newport, December 24, 2012)

Nevertheless, is it right to take the rights of the majority away because some minority might find something like the recognition or celebration in the public schools to be offense? The offense comes, however, not so much for just celebrating the birth of the baby Jesus, but Jesus as the Christ and the incarnation. Most other world religions don’t have much rejection of Jesus but see him as a good teacher and even for the Muslims a great prophet. However, the Scriptures paint he was much more –fully man and yet fully God in the oneness of God.

Luke 2:1-20 gives the story of the birth of Jesus, evidently told to Luke by Mary, the mother of Jesus, and then Matthew 1:18-2:1-12 brings in the message from the conception through the visit from the Magi, all pointing to the supernatural happenings in respect to birth of Jesus—the virgin birth, the angelic messengers, the prophecy by the angels, etc. 

So far as the actual birthday of Jesus the secular historian Sextus Julius Africanus of the second century, maintained that Jesus of Nazareth was conceived on March 25, which the Christian Church came to celebrate as the Feast of the Annunciation. With the term of a pregnancy being nine months, Sextus Julius Africanus held that Jesus was born on December 25, which the Western Christian Church established as Christmas. Recorded in Sextus Julius Africanus’s Chronographiai (221 AD), this thesis is corroborated by an interpretation of Gospel of Luke that places the appearance of Gabriel to Zechariah on the observance of Yom Kippur that occurs around October, as “the worshipers were praying outside of the Temple and not within” for “only the priest could enter the Temple at this time to conduct the proper rituals”; because Jesus was six months younger than his cousin John the Baptist, Jesus was conceived in March and born in late December. (Wikipedia)

Muslims celebrated the birth of Mohammed on November 21, 2018 in India, but it was more a call to follow the teachings of Mohammed. (Milad-un-Nabi, by Omar bin Toher, The Times of India, November 22, 2018).  For them Mohammed was not God, but was human, and for them to say that the baby Jesus was the incarnation is blasphemy.  Thus, there is a huge divide between the teaching of the two largest religions in the world. The Muslims do not believe that Jesus was the Christ or that he died for the sin of mankind!

Islamic culture and the Western culture are very much different, but religion and culture very much amalgamate, unite, and determine one another. The Muslims who are moving into the Western nations, however, do not wish to become part of the Western culture, but rather to maintain their own and ultimately impose it on the Western thinking, as that relates very much to context of education.

Frosty Wooldridge in an article, “Immigrant Versus American–Fragmenting America’s Culture,” Godfather Politics, November 21, 2018 quoted James Walsh, former Associate General Counsel of the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service, that: “Immigrants devoted to their own cultures and religions are not influenced by the secular politically correct façade that dominates academia, news-media, entertainment, education, religious and political thinking today.”  He said: “They claim the right not to assimilate, and the day is coming when the question will be. ‘how can the United States regulate the defiantly unassimilated cultures, religions and mores of foreign lands?’  Such immigrants say their traditions trump the U.S. legal system.  Balkanization of the United States has begun.”  Balkanization, is a geopolitical term for the process of fragmentation or division of a region or state into smaller regions or states that are often hostile or uncooperative with one another.

Wikipedia Encyclopedia also brings out that:  “ In the 17th century, the Puritans had laws forbidding the celebration of Christmas, unlike the Catholic Church or the Anglican Church, the latter from which they separated. With the atheistic Cult of Reason in power Christmas during the era of Revolutionary France, Christian Christmas religious services were banned and the three kings cake was forcibly renamed the “equality cake” under anticlerical government policies. Later, in the 20th century, Christmas celebrations were prohibited under the doctrine of state atheism in the Soviet Union. In Nazi Germany, organized religion as a whole was attacked as an enemy of the state and Christmas celebrations corrupted so as to serve the Party’s racist ideology.”

Wikipedia a goes on to state that:  “Modern-day controversy, often associated with use of the term “war on Christmas”, occurs mainly in countries such as the United States, Canada, and to a much lesser extent the United Kingdom. Some opponents have denounced the generic term “holidays” and avoidance of using the term “Christmas” as being politically correct. This often involves objections to government or corporate efforts to acknowledge Christmas in a way that is multiculturally sensitive.

Christmas, however, was not proclaimed a holiday by the United States Congress until 1870, but then the climate was not so much on multi-culturalism, but the desire to make this nation The United States of America!

The Rutherford Institute well observed the situation as it stated in its study that:  “The Constitution does not prohibit government institutions, including public schools, from recognizing and celebrating the Christmas holiday. Courts have recognized that Christmas has an important cultural significance, in addition to its obvious religious meaning. Although many celebrate Christmas as the birthday of Jesus Christ, Christmas has also taken on more secular meanings to many people. Therefore, public schools have a legitimate secular purpose in observing the Christmas holiday. Thus, the Establishment Clause does not forbid public schools from observing the holiday by closing schools, holding class Christmas parties or recognizing the holiday on school calendars. As one federal court has stated, ‘Christmas and Chanukah are celebrated as cultural and national holidays as well as religious ones, and there is simply no constitutional doctrine which would forbid school children from sharing in that celebration, provided that these celebrations do not constitute an unconstitutional endorsement of religion and are consistent with a school’s secular educational mission.’”

Back In the early 20th century, Christian writers such as C. S. Lewis noted what he saw as a distinct split between the religious and commercialized observance of Christmas, the latter of which he deplored (Wikipedia).  

Some schools have no problem with substituting Santa Claus for the meaning of Christmas, which ultimately is a disguised way to substitute the real meaning by playing on the word, “Santa,” which points to the word “saint,” and is suggestive of a Christian basis. Christmas is, however, not about Saint Nicholas although he was an admirable person.

Jeremy Seal, Nicholas of the Saint Nicholas Center wrote about “The Epic Journey from Saint to Santa Claus.”  He observed that: “Aside from the obvious disparities between Saint Nicholas and the secular Santa Claus, perhaps the most poignant difference between them can be seen in the nature of the gifts they give. While Santa has his bundle of toys, the gift that Saint Nicholas gives is nothing short of freedom from poverty and desperation. The life of Saint Nicholas is an example of faith made flesh in actions of true charity” (God with Us: Rediscovering the Meaning of Christmas, Jeremy Seal).

Jeremy Seal recounts the history of the development of the secular Santa Claus, as he wrote “How did the kindly Christian saint, good Bishop Nicholas, become a roly-poly red-suited American symbol for merry holiday festivity and commercial activity? History tells the tale.”  (If you would like to read the tale the history of Santa Claus, it is to be found from the “Saint Nicholas Center–“Saint Nicholas and the Origin of Santa Claus.”)

It is a sad fact that the vast majority of people in our land center the focus on Santa Claus at Christmas time, and basically ignore the real reason for the season. In art classes in public schools, little children can draw pictures of Santa, elves, reindeer, and all other secular pictures, but I don’t ever recall during my time as an elementary teacher in the public schools of ever seeing a picture of the baby Jesus, angels, shepherds or wise men posted on the bulletin boards.

The winter break–removing the celebration of Christmas from the public schools is but one way the politically correct thinking seeks to create in America what they wish to establish, education that they esteem to be more global.  In America we were not ultimately granted our rights, one of which is the freedom of religion, from the elite leaders of our nation or the world with the new focus on globalism but rather from our Creator, “Endowed by their Creator,” as the Declaration of Independence declares.

Seeking to rename Christmas or even to subtract the basis for the holiday in our public schools is but a way to educate the birth of Jesus as the Christ, the incarnation, no longer matters in America, as it might be offensive to students from other cultures and religions That is sad!

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