Christmas Music

Dawn Eden has an interesting op-ed in today's New York Post called "The Grinch Who Stole Messiah." She discusses the modern censorship or overtly religious music during Christmas. You know your getting old when you can remember singing Christmas music in a public school without the appearance of ACLU storm troopers jumping in. When the Christmas concert was actually called the Christmas concert and not just as holiday or seasonal music. People have become so thin-skinned now that to hear anything other then their particular world view sets them off into a tizzy. With the advent of tolerance less is now tolerated. With multiculturalism people are exposed to less cultures. Now I was an avowed atheist in my public school days and I loved singing traditional Christmas Carols over the secular replacements. This was not because I agreed with the theology or concepts if the lyrics, but because I recognized that the music was beautiful and thus both good to sing and to hear. Yet now the beautiful must be subjugated to the mere mundane. Being exposed to the concept that some people have beliefs different then yours should not bring your world crashing down. I remember in school where one of my Jewish classmates gave a talk to the whole school on the meaning of Hanukah. Just hearing this did not make me want to convert to Judaism. But it did help me to understand something more about her beliefs. In the modern school if a student told the assembly about the true meaning of Christmas you can imagine how many people would be offended and the complaints made to the school.

In high school we performed Fiddler on the Roof (where I played the Rabbi) and as part of the preparation for this we had a Jewish Rabbi come and speak to us about the history surrounding the events portrayed and a bit about Judaism. Again I found the information he presented to be interesting. I would not have even imagined the concept of being offended and exposed to someone else's religious beliefs. Modern secularism has made people and our culture smaller. The same people who believe in Darwin's survival of the fittest will also shrink and complain at the mere mention of someone's religious belief. It is no wonder that people are now seeking therapy after their candidate loses an election. The mere thought that people might disagree with you and that it even might even be a majority will send you running in disbelief and shock. They become open minded to everything but the fact that they have become very close minded. Public schools shouldn't be indoctrinating any particular religion or philosophy - though they also should not be dumping gallons of white out all over our cultural heritage.