NAPLES — President-elect Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, are appearing in Italian nativity scenes this year, alongside the baby Jesus and wise men, according to Naples craftsmen selling figurines in the run-up to Christmas.[article]

Well I guess we should be happy they are not replacing Jesus with the Obama child in swaddling clothes. Surprised they at least didn’t have him down as one of the wiseman. Surely his pal Gov. Blagojevich could sell a wise man seat to him. Obama would be better cast as King Herod the Great with the murder of the innocents.

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer was almost grounded at Murrayville Elementary School this week after a parent complained about the classic Christmas song’s inclusion in her daughter’s upcoming kindergarten concert.

The objecting parent was upset about the words “Christmas” and “Santa” in the song, feeling that they carried religious overtones.

That prompted the song to be pulled from the upcoming holiday concert, which in turn upset more parents.

…”They have clearly decided that any other religion or custom is not important,” the objecting parent said after learning about the reversal on “Rudolph.” She asked that her name not be published, to shield her daughter’s identity.

The mother, who is Jewish, said she was trying to have a Hanukkah song added to the musical lineup but had not received a return phone call about it from school officials by mid-afternoon Friday. [article]

We seem to get these stories more and more every year. Multiculturalism and tolerance only leads to thin skins and perceived offenses found everywhere. Finding offense though in a song developed for Montgomery Ward only proves how silly this trend has become.

It is also rather sad that the most religious song they had for Christmas was Rudolf in the first place. We have turned into a culture looking for slights at every opportunity. Survival of the whinniest. There are certainly things in the culture to be offended at, but demanding a Hanukkah song to balance a song about a reindeer with a luminous birth defect is just plain dumb. Though what is even more dumb in those in the schools that accede to such requests instead of laughing them off. The idea of some kind of quota for a concert is also wrong. I would have no problem with including a Hanukkah song, but it shouldn’t be done in this PC mindset. Will school concerts have to also include songs on primordial ooze to satisfy atheist parents?

When I was an atheist singing in a choir I had no problem singing religious hymns even if they were predominantly Christian with some Jewish ones. I loved the songs that were musically solid songs. The modern atheist seems to be a weaker atheist. The new atheist go around demanding that they never have to hear of religion and demand pathetic little signs wherever there is a public nativity. Though I would also have a problem with those who remove those atheist’s signs. Though maybe their signs evolve and develop legs and walk of by themselves. Atheist signs on a bus don’t disturb me and signs of religion shouldn’t disturb them.

As dumb as public schools are in their decisions we get stories like this.

Enduring favourites such as Hark the Herald Angels Sing and God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen are being altered by clergy to make them more “modern and inclusive”.

But churchgoers say there is no need to change the popular carols and complain that the result is a “festive car crash” if not everyone is singing from the same hymn sheet.

It comes just a day after a Church of England vicar banned his congregation from singing O Little Town of Bethlehem because he believed its words do not reflect the suffering endured by modern residents of Jesus’s birthplace.

Another clergyman has rewritten the Twelve Days of Christmas to include Aids victims, drug addicts and hoodies.

Among the “theologically-modified, politically-corrected” carols encountered by visitors to the website are Hark the Herald Angels Sing in which the line “Glory to the newborn King” has been replaced by “Glory to the Christ child, bring”.

The well-known refrain of O Come All Ye Faithful – “O come let us adore Him” – has also been changed in one church to “O come in adoration”, both changes apparently made for fear the original was sexist.

“[One reader] wrote in asking if the original line was considered too gender-specific,” Mr Goddard said. “But as he rightly pointed out, Jesus wasn’t hermaphrodite, neither was he a girl.”

Churchgoers at one carol service will not be allowed to sing the words “all in white” during Once in Royal David’s City in case they appear racist, while another cleric has removed the word “virgin” from God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen. [article]

Political correctness does the opposite of bringing people together. A forced conformity that is not conformity at all. Whether it is religion or gender we have created a society of people looking for an offense to be upset about.

A school choir was forced to withdraw from a Christmas event because organisers branded its carols ‘too religious’.
Around 60 children aged between seven and 11 had spent six weeks practising favourites including Once In Royal David’s City and Silent Night for the Corringham Winter Festival.
But they were let down at the last minute when their headteacher was informed their programme did not ‘dovetail’ with the festival’s theme. [article]

How dare they use a religious reference like “dove” which can refer to the Holy Spirit! We need to go back to the French Enlightenment which renamed the days of the week and increased the number of them to avoid Sunday as a day of rest. In fact the word Festival which they are using is from the Latin Festivus (predates Seinfeld) referring to Feast which has historical Catholic overtones. Come on if they are going to wipe every religious significance they need to do a much better job. They need to have Spring, Summer, and Fall occasions also and not just celebrations of Winter which give a seasonal bias and seasonal exceptionalism and still point to the event they are trying to erase.

The culture is trying to bring about a case of cultural amnesia where celebrating the birth of Christ must be replaced by some vague amorphous feeling where for some unknown reason we are suppose to have nice comfy thoughts tied to a season of the year. We are to be given our pottage and we are to enjoy it! So what if the modern thought is a deprivation compared to what went before it. That the coming of Christ which was the biggest thing that ever happened is to be replaced in the name of multiculturalism that is to contain any culture but a Christian derived one. As G.K. Chesterton said “Paganism was the largest thing in the world and Christianity was larger; and everything else has been comparatively small.” I say secularism is one of the smallest things in the world and it makes us smaller when we embrace it.

Tony Blair (pictured) has now teamed up with one of Canada’s best-known pro-abortion figures. Belinda Stronach (also pictured), a prominent businesswoman and former MP, has joined her foundation with Mr Blair’s Faith Foundation in order to promote the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The British government under Tony Blair interpreted the MDGs as including a universal right to abortion on demand. When an MP, Belinda Stronach said that women’s groups should only receive government funding if they are pro-abortion. The Blair-Stronach partnership will also promote the Faith Acts Fellowship, which the Tony Blair Faith Foundation runs in partnership with the InterFaith Youth Core. The InterFaith Youth Core is bankrolled by major pro-abortion foundations.

How much more evidence do religious leaders need about the close-knit ties of Mr & Mrs Blair to the culture of death before they realise they must act to block the Blairs’ infiltration of faith communities? [source]

No surprises here for this recent Catholic “convert”.