Slouching Toward Saturnalia

The left’s war on Christmas continues in 2011, as it likely will in 2012.

A litany of litigation and public harassment continues to be hurled at millions of folks who prefer to call this season “Christmas,” as opposed to the generic “winter holidays.”  For the overwhelming majority of Americans, Christmas represents the coming of Christ and the offer of hope to man. To the hard left, it is a season of selective liberty, in which all views of the holiday are welcome in the public arena…except for the Christian notion.  Make no mistake, an assault on Christmas is an attack on America’s Judeo-Christian heritage.

In ancient Rome, it was not uncommon to see garland and greenery adorning homes and public buildings in mid to late December.  The festival of Saturnalia, a pagan holiday dedicated to the worship of the Roman god Saturn, is the origin of many traditions still practiced in Western Civilization.  As Christianity spread through the late Roman Empire, the celebration of Saturnalia ceded to that of Christmas.  Roman Christians celebrated the Nativity on the 25th of December, which coincided with the celebration of Saturnalia.  Though Saturnalia was, technically, a “religious” holiday, it was hardly considered sacred.  The festival was more of a state-sponsored circus, which closed schools and businesses from December 17th-23rd each year.  It was a publicly celebrated, yet largely purposeless, holiday.

If the American left has their way, we’ll be back to Saturnalia in the short term.  The forced secularization of Christmas by liberal elites threatens to rob millions of Americans of their time-honored and historically recognized beliefs.  For generations Americans have largely lived by, and the public sector has recognized, our Country’s consensus Judeo-Christian Values. In the past, the debate over Christmas was largely relegated to the zealous.  Today, however, millions of Americans recognize that Christmas, one of our nation’s most public expressions of timeless principles, is under assault.

The left wishes to return to the Roman notion of the holiday: a celebration of nothing in particular, with no principle or purpose. This is a microcosm of their vision for America.

Theirs is a vision wherein our national consciousness, our national soul, is eviscerated and replaced by a soulless sort of determinism.  America’s greatness has always been her heart.  Alexis De Tocqueville once stated that America is a Country “with the soul of a Church.”  Our national consciousness was committed to our founding principles of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  Secular-progressivism seeks to rout these foundations in favor of a radically different nation, which maintains but the veneer of our values.

The assault on Christmas is another shot across the bow.  The left, you could say, is “slouching toward Saturnalia,” and they’ll take the nation with them unless Americans stand strong.