Wednesday, December 24, 2003

Peace, peace and the attacks on U.S. heritage

I could have predicted it. The liberal voices defending the Peace tree bemoaned the narrowness of their opponents, reminded us of the real history of the Christmas tree, and chastised us for spending our time on such silly issues while people starve.

Of course, they missed the point entirely. I hate to break it to them, but the time it takes me to write this letter does not detract from charitable duties and activities. But more than that, this is an important issue because it is symbolic of something real that is going on in this country: The active suppression of Christianity and the manipulation of language to suit secular and sometimes evil purposes.

Whether it’s gradually eliminating the word “Christmas” from the public sphere, or fighting to remove the 10 Commandments from courthouses, or constantly labeling conservative Christians as “narrow” and even “bigoted,” the liberal, secularist element in this country is actively trying to uproot our nation and culture from its Christian foundations. The courts are the prime tool of this movement, where activist lawyers and sympathetic judges can avoid the messiness of democracy and impose their will directly on the unsophisticated masses.

The other method is in the popular culture itself, where liberal activists and the media which supports them alter the language to suit their aims. Their attack on all things Christmas is just one facet of their campaign. The words “Jesus” and “sin” and “morality” are rarely heard, being outmoded artifacts of a past, ignorant age.

Instead, we talk about “spirituality” and “my truth” and “rights.” One can recall the Jacobins who similarly sought to remake language and culture in revolutionary France while thousands died at the guillotine in the service of this “great” experiment.

Perhaps the most heinous manipulation of language is in the realm of abortion, where unborn children are almost totally absent from the debate. Instead, activists talk about “choice” and “privacy” and “my body.” They ignore and suppress the horrible truth of what happens to those babies and — here is where feminism reveals its true poverty — to the women who suffer both physically and emotionally from having had an abortion.

Howard Dean calls terrorists “soldiers”; President Clinton wonders what “is” means; Bush is decried for calling evil regimes “evil.” The examples are numerous and reflect a continuous process of alienation from truth and reality in our language and the nihilistic philosophies which underlie it.

This is why we must exercise our right to decry and criticize these abuses, these attacks on our cultural and spiritual heritage. It is a war for the soul of our country and for beauty and nobility of Christian (and Western) culture itself. And, lest we forget, that the Christmas tree, as a symbol of the hope born with Christ, truly is a beacon for peace, for no one can surpass the radical commitment to peace, dignity, and love of Jesus Christ. Not even a pink peace tree.

Trey Hoffman

Peachtree City, Ga.