It doesn't come as a great surprise to learn, via Matt Barber at onenewsnow.com, that the impetus behind the secularization of Christmas, e.g. "Happy Holidays" and the banishment of crèches from the public square, is communistic. None other than the late Ronald Reagan provides an earlier example.
...As part of an effort to suppress the Gospel message and the spread of Christianity in Soviet Russia, Communist leaders secularized a favorite Ukrainian Christmas carol, "Nova Radist Stala" (Joyous News Has Come to Us).
One verse originally began: "The joyous news has come which never was before. Over a cave above a manger a bright star has lit the world, where Jesus was born from a virgin maiden...."
[snip]
The new version went: "The joyous news has come which never was before, a red star with five tails has brightly lit the world." A second rewrite went further: "The joyous news has come which never was before. Long-awaited star of freedom lit the skies in October [the month of the Revolution]." The rewrite continued: "Where formerly lived the kings and had the roots their nobles, there today with simple folks, Lenin's glory hovers."
Barber, like all Christians, is confident the gates of hell shall not prevail against Christ's Church.
And although, despite the best efforts of Communists abroad and ACLU-types here at home, we're nonetheless assured in Scripture that, "Every knee will bow...and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord" (Philippians 2:10-11). I still think that a politically correct greeting of "Happy Holidays" – well-meaning as it may be – nonetheless deserves a hearty "Merry Christmas" in return.
Don't you?
Yep, I do.
Thanks to Augustine.
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