Happy Holidays

Pardon me if I suspect a pungent dose of bigotry lies behind the media push this holiday season to characterize inclusive language as “politically correct” and contrary to the founding principles of the nation.

Numerous television debates and commentaries in recent weeks seemed suddenly focused around the long-standing policy by many in public and private life, alike, to embrace different faith traditions in their holiday greetings.

Recognizing this as a season that numerous faiths celebrate special days, especially Christmas, Hanukkah and Kwanzaa, it has become very common to declare, “Happy Holidays!,” instead of “Merry Christmas!” As with many, many others, the News-Press has done that, or something similar, in its famous holiday greeting cards since its founding 14 years ago, and no one but the radical Christian right has objected. Until this year, that is. Why are so many commentators in the major media suddenly making such a big deal about this? Is this another unfortunate by-product of the overblown impact the religious right allegedly had in last month’s national election?

Now comes a web site called “The Committee to Save ‘Merry Christmas’“ that is urging a boycott of Macy’s because Macy’s says “Happy Holidays.” It has received a lot of major media attention.

I am a church-going Christian (although of a much more progressive bent than the right wingers who’ve been dominating the airwaves the last decade), and I say “Merry Christmas” a lot. But I am repulsed by the way in which mainstream commentators, even the likes of Paula Zahn and Lou Dobbs on CNN and others, ridicule what has for a long time been a routine effort at making our holidays as inclusive and welcoming to all as possible.

I have always viewed it as exemplary of the caring and giving spirit of the season to defer to the sensibilities of as many as possible, and especially to racial, ethnic and cultural minorities, with the use of such inclusive language as much as may be deemed appropriate. The current push to replace “Happy Holidays” with “Merry Christmas” has, I fear, a predictable and very uncharitable ulterior motive. When I used to discuss this matter with an arch-conservative self-proclaimed Christian fundamentalist, he always segued into the assertion that, after all, the United States “was founded as a Christian nation.” The claim is, of course, often made by spokesmen for the religious right who assert that the Bible, the way they interpret it, is the true authority defining U.S. civil law.

So now, at least two mainstream commentators on national TV in the last week made the same claim about the U.S. being “founded as a Christian nation,” in defense of “Merry Christmas,” as if it were something that is obvious, that everyone is supposed to know. But it is factually and flat wrong. In fact, the Founding Fathers and the founding documents of the nation were specifically and very intentionally non-religious. The tight circle of Founding Fathers affirmed a belief in God, but not the God of any particular religion. As rationalists, their view of God tended to be a “deist” one that, in shorthand, defined the universe as a great clock and God as the clockmaker. Once God created the universe, it was set in motion to run on its own laws.

Among the more outspoken Founders on the subject, antipathy for organized religion was profound, as with Thomas Paine in his pamphlet, The Age of Reason. Paine wrote Common Sense and other tracts advocating the American Revolution and establishment of the new nation.

In The Age of Reason, he wrote, “I believe in one God, and no more; and I hope for happiness beyond this life. I believe in the equality of man; and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy and endeavoring to make our fellow-creatures happy.” But, he went on, “I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church.”

“All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me to be no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and to monopolize power and profit.”

This is exemplary of the seminal sentiments upon which our nation was founded, and why our Founding Fathers went to such lengths to make sure no one religion, or any religion, defined or interfered in the conduct of the nation’s civil affairs. So, on that note, please accept my robust wishes for a happy holiday season for all.

Nicholas Benton may be emailed at nfbenton@fcnp.com