The wrong shall fail, the right prevail

It seems, these days, that someone or some group lurks in every shadow, ready to pounce on a perceived new scratch on the Bill of Rights.

Have you checked yours lately? Americans should regularly pull out their copy and reread at least that First Amendment.

(What? What do you mean you don’t have a copy?

No, seriously.

How can you tell what you’re being protected from, or how your rights are being breached if you’ve never read the Bill of Rights? That’s almost as bad as Christians saying they follow Scripture to the letter – but never read it.)

Thank heaven for the Internet. If you don’t have a printed copy of the Constitution, go on and Google up the U.S. Constitution or Bill of Rights or First Amendment, then choose a reputable site like FindLaw or USConstitution.net.

Or save time and just read it here – it’s only 46 words, after all. You’ll find it straightforward, yet broader in scope than articles that are pages long.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Do those six spare injunctions relate to the latest embarrassment of Peachtree City in the big city journals?

For openers, here we are, living in a virtual pine forest and paying $1,400 for a 25-foot cedar to be the city’s Whatever Tree. What’s wrong with the tree the city planted next to the cart path at the plaza a few years ago? Haven’t checked recently; maybe it fell, the victim of a utility crew that needed the space for telephone lines or one of the severe windstorms we’ve had lately.

Since I’ve been grown, I can count on the annual Christmas season brouhaha about religious symbols on the courthouse square. This year Peachtree City may have garnered the coveted “First Shot Fired in the Annual Skirmish between Church and State” award.

The funny thing is that I’m really not sure whose side I’m on this time.

First of all, checking back on our First Amendment, it says “Congress shall make no law etc.,” not “local government shall make no law.” We’re not talking about City Council whipping out an ordinance banning Christmas lights from front yards or cul de sacs.

(Here’s where I lose friends who think that this self-righteous regular church-goer believes, as they do, that Santa Claus has replaced the crèche and that commercialism has trampled “the reason for the season.”)

When you travel in Europe, be sure you tour places like western England where tiny churches rest on foundations placed by pre-historic pagans when they built their places of worship. Or cathedrals like Seville’s, where an ancient Christian church was destroyed by insurgent Moors when they built one of the world’s most spectacular mosques on top of it. After routing the Muslims, Catholics rebuilt the inside and some of the outside of the cathedral, today arguably the largest in the world.

My point is that whether in architecture, food, or dogma, one faith has overbuilt another since the beginning of time. Either as an act of warfare or in subtler ways, cultures have supplanted each other forever. We did it by law, or by absence of law: Congress shall make no law….

Today people fret that KMart has replaced Christianity. That sells short the infant Savior Christians worship. Christianity is not going to die because we refer to the “Winter Holiday” or “Seasons’ Greetings.” Make the winter celebration just that, an entirely secular event marking the lengthening of the daylight and gradual return of warmer weather – just as pre-historic worshippers did.

Then in the quiet of our own homes and in the sanctity of our churches, celebrate the coming of the Christ Child. Place it elsewhere in the year; no one knows when Jesus was born anyhow.

I have another idea. Rather than ban Christians from the village square, give them a month to decorate and celebrate there. We may have to work out compromises with the Muslims and Jews and Hindus, but by all means they shall have their own months of public worship.

Put the lawyers on this to see what we need to do. Guidelines will abound, but they couldn’t be anymore controversial or convoluted than the various separation rules are now. My theory is that City Hall plaza belongs to us, after all, not “the government,” and should be available to anyone who wants to use it in this way.

Fret not, friends. And when you hear someone wailing about the world pushing God out of Yuletide, remember that God has been insulted throughout human history, yet still rules.

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep: ”God is not dead nor doth he sleep; the wrong shall fail, the right prevail with peace on earth, goodwill to men.”

Whatever we do, Peachtree City will survive.
So will God.