Mike Huckabee’s surprisingly strong showing in Iowa and
elsewhere may have more to do with his unabashed embrace of
Christmas than anything else.
Last month, the former Republican governor of Arkansas aired a
campaign commercial in which he said, “At this time of year… what
really matters is the celebration and birth of Christ, and being
with our family and our friends… God Bless and Merry
Christmas.”
This sent liberals and leftists into an apocalyptic tizzy.
Huckabee sends an “exclusionary message to non-Christian
Americans,” editorialized the Washington Post.
“The birth of Christ is not what really matters if
you’re an American Muslim, an American Hindu, an American Jew, an
American Sikh, an American Pagan, or any member of another
non-Christian American religion,” decreed one indignant You Tuber.
As a statement of personal preference, this may well be true.
But as a matter of historical record, it is completely false.
All Americans are heirs to a rich Judeo-Christian heritage
in which the birth of Christ is a seminal historical event.
Indeed, Judeo-Christian principles undergird our law and our
political system, and have done so ever since the first colonists
arrived at Jamestown in 1607.
“There never has been a period in which the Common Law did not
recognize Christianity as lying at its foundations,” explained
Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story in 1829.
AND YET, IT’S BECOME culturally uncouth to say publicly “Merry
Christmas.” The preferred term nowadays is “Happy Holidays.”
I first noticed this last month when the commanding officer of
my Navy Reserve unit wrote in his monthly memo that because of
reconstructive knee surgery, he would be “unable to usher in the
holidays” with us during our next (pre-Christmas) drill. However,
he added that he wished us all a “safe and joy-filled holiday
season.”
Then there was the “holiday party” sponsored by the Pentagon
office where I currently work as a civilian consultant — no
mention of Christmas there.
The final email notices that many of my colleagues sent out the
Friday before Christmas — this to mark the end of the year and a
week or two of vacation — also mostly substituted “Happy Holidays”
for “Merry Christmas.”
Ditto when I went out to eat in Alexandria, Virginia two days
before Christmas. The young and hospitable waitress twice wished my
date and me a happy holiday, but said nothing of Christmas.
I shopped for a Christmas wreath that says “Merry Christmas.”
After trekking to four stores, I found lots of wreaths, but none —
absolutely none — inscribed with those two apparently proscribed
words.
The music in the outside shopping mall on Christmas Eve? You’d
think this would be the time, finally, to play Christmas music,
right? If not traditional Christmas carols, then at least secular
pop Christmas music.
Nah! A bland muzak, or elevator music, instead filled the air —
just as it had all month.
Am I alone? That’s the question I asked my sister, Patricia, a
mother of three children who lives in northern New Jersey.
“No, you’re definitely not imagining it,” she said. “It’s
something I’ve noticed, too. Whereas we once felt free to say Merry
Christmas, I feel we can’t say it anymore — and I’m not sure
why.”
Trish explained: “I’ll find myself saying Merry… Holidays!
Because if I say Christmas — I don’t know. People are just
embarrassed and self-conscious to say that nowadays.”
THIS SURELY RANKLES many Americans, who rightly sense that
something is amiss when simply saying “Merry Christmas” is thought
to be in poor taste and a violation of social etiquette. Credit
Mike Huckabee for tapping into this latent sense of loss with a
brilliant, positive — and, yes, inclusive — campaign
commercial.
Substituting “Happy Holidays” for “Merry Christmas” ostensibly
is done to accommodate the sensibilities of those Americans who are
not Christian — Jews, Muslims, atheists, and agnostics, et. al.
But Americans of good will do not begrudge the Christian — and
non-Christian — celebration of Christmas.
In fact, most Americans rather like our national celebration of
Christmas, because it infuses our civic relations and our civic
discourse with a greater sense of charity and commitment to our
neighbors and to our fellow man.
That’s why, in 1870, President Ulysses S. Grant signed into a
law legislation declaring Christmas a national holiday. (This law,
incidentally, was upheld by the liberal Supreme Court seven years
ago.)
Grant was the commanding Union General during the Civil War. He
accepted the Confederate surrender at Appomattox in 1865 with what
can only be called Christian grace, generosity, and compassion.
Indeed, Grant paroled all Confederate officers and enlisted men,
allowed the Confederates to keep their livestock (horses and
mules), and arranged for 25,000 rations to be sent to hungry and
starving soldiers of the Confederate States Army of Northern
Virginia.
General Grant eschewed vengeance because he wanted to heal the
wounds of the Civil War, reconcile the North and the South, and
restore the United States of America. That same desire for national
reconciliation and national unity was uppermost in Grant’s mind
when, as President five years later, he acted to make Christmas a
national holiday.
Grant understood that Christmas, far from being a divisive
event, is instead one of the great cultural underpinnings of our
republic.
Of course, the religiously devout seldom have a problem with
public displays of other faiths, provided there is a free and open
public square. Certainly, this is true in America today, where a
common, shared morality tends to bind together religiously
observant folk, be they Christian, Jew, or Muslim.
I even saw this as a Marine in Iraq, in 2003. I traveled
throughout much of the country relatively unencumbered and met
hundreds of Iraqis, some of whom I got to know fairly well. They
sometimes asked of my religious faith.
The Iraqis’ awareness that I was a practicing Roman Catholic who
carried the Cross, Rosary Beads, and a prayer book seemed to
instill in them a greater sense of confidence that I was a man of
my word who could be trusted. (Not that I would, either then or
now, hold myself up as any paragon of Christian faith and
observance; to the contrary. But as the old adage has it, there are
no atheists on the frontlines.)
IN REALITY, THE cultural putsch to ban any public saying of Merry
Christmas in America stems not from other religious groups, but
from militant secularists and God-haters. (Think Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, and the ACLU.)
These people and organizations are essentially anti-religious —
and especially anti-Christian. They seek to enforce a cultural
orthodoxy in which America is effectively devoid of any and all
public displays of religious faith.
That they are succeeding in enforcing this orthodoxy — even on
unsuspecting Americans of religious faith and good will — is cause
for concern. For as President Washington once wisely observed, “Of
all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity,
religion and morality are indispensable supports.” (Like Grant,
Washington of course also served as the nation’s top commanding
General at a time of war.)
Added President John Quincy Adams, “The Law given from Sinai was
a civil and municipal, as well as a moral and religious, code.”
By making public recognition and public celebration of our rich
Judeo-Christian heritage forbidden and taboo, we risk losing, or at
least seriously undermining, one of the key foundational elements
that has sustained our Republic for more than 200
years.
More than a few Americans — in Iowa and elsewhere, and not just
members of the so-called religious right — understand this. So,
too, does Mike Huckabee.
