A friend in the USA has written to say she felt sad about this Political Correctness thing that has taken God out of classrooms, made the Ten Commandments almost as contraband as cocaine and replaced “Happy Christmas†with “Happy Holidaysâ€.
I am not much of a Christian; closer to agnosticism, if truth be told. But I’ve always thought getting a dose of religious instruction at school was a very effective means of keeping people socially, morally and often indelibly responsible. It provided the fundament by which we learnt that respecting our neighbour (next door, or even across several international borders) was the best way to keep mankind happy, safe and stress-free.
Now, in the self-professed ‘One Nation Under God’, God is out of the classroom, and parents attack school teachers for doing the job that they themselves had failed to do in disciplining their unruly children. The results are there for all to see.
A Jewish friend once said she didn’t think ‘Happy Christmas’ would be appropriate until people started to say ‘Happy Hanukkah’ as well. What a good idea! Let’s, by all means. The moral compass we call God doesn’t care how we celebrate Him, I’m sure. Throwing the baby out with the bathwater shouldn’t be the option it’s become, should it?
So: HAPPY CHRISTMAS EVERYBODY, be thee Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Voodoo Votary or Eleventeenth Day Whatchamacallist. Really.
