"‘I’d have cut it down and put it through the chipper,’ Donnie Hatt told a Canadian newspaper. ‘If they decide it should be a holiday tree, I’ll tell them to send it back. If it was a holiday tree, you might as well put it up at Easter.’”

The chipper is the fellow from Nova Scotia who provided the huge tree for Boston’s look-on this season. But don’t call it a “Christmas tree.” And don’t refer to it being displayed for the “Christmas season.” And with anyone standing near its limbs, don’t wish a person a “Merry Christmas.”

NOT.

It is a “holiday tree.” That’s what makes Hatt so angry. And of course the rest of biblical Christians join in his disgust and outrage. It’s true. If it’s only a “holiday tree,” then erect it at Easter or Halloween or Spring Break. Hatt sent it as a gift to the United States as a “Christmas tree.” Period.

But the Boston liberals of course have to get into the act with their push for secularizing America, making the nation another godless Europe. However, if the North American Hatts have anything to do with it, the Judeo-Christian heritage in the USA will stand firmly.

According to Reuters’ Jason Szep, Jerry Falwell responded to the Boston mess with his own evangelistic fervor, calling on authorities to turn the God-creation back to its original intent — a Christmas tree. Informing Fox TV, Falwell said that “’there’s been a concerted effort to steal Christmas.’”

Of course, all devout Christians know that that has been going on for some time now, all to the secularized cheers of the American Civil Liberties Union.

In Australia, however, it’s just the opposite. The government has informed all school districts that there is to be absolutely no ban on Christmas celebrations in classrooms this year. None. If there are those who want to make Christmas Christmas, then they have the perfect legal right to do it. And with that, nativity scenes show up again, Jesus is back in Christmas, and the biblical story is read to the boys and girls.

What’s good for Australia should obviously be spiritually healthy for America.

No doubt Hatt is sick of the secularized Canadian landscape these days. I know what it is for I have a home in Nova Scotia, not too far from Hatt. We believers in Canada are so disturbed with the devilment going on up there, not only in the government with marrying homosexuals but in the United Church of Canada and the Anglican Church with widespread apostasy.

In the village church where I last heard a sermon, the preacher told us all that it did not matter if the fellows at the village garage worshiped in church or not, they would be in heaven. And the Buddhists would be there, too. The cultists likewise. So I wondered why in God’s name I ever pulled on my pants on a Sunday morning to trudge over to the church if I would end up in the eternally same place as the pagan fellows at the local garage. So that was the last sermon I decided to hear from the United Church of Canada pulpit in tiny Kennetcook, Hants County.

Anyhow, back to Boston. “Boston set off a furor this week when it officially renamed a giant tree erected in a city park a ‘holiday tree’ instead of a ‘Christmas tree.

“The move drew an angry response from Christian conservatives.

“The Nova Scotia logger who cut down the 48-foot (14-meter) tree was indignant and said he would not have donated the tree if he had known of the name change.”

Of course, those who believe in the myth of separation of church and state run to South Station to declare that Boston is within its rights. However, this legend does not hold up if one reads the US Constitution. (See footnote).

“Last year, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger lit what he called a ‘Christmas tree’ at a state ceremony. The year before, he and former California Gov. Gray Davis presided over ceremonies for the more secular ‘holiday trees.’

“In Boston, many residents voiced their dismay over the Web site that promotes a December 1 ceremony for ‘Boston’s Official Holiday Tree Lighting.

“Christmas has become too politically correct, said 64 percent of people who responded to an online poll by a CBS television affiliate in Boston. Boston Mayor Thomas Menino said he would keep calling the Nova Scotia spruce a ‘Christmas tree’ regardless of what it said on the city’s official Web site.

“’I grew up with a Christmas tree, I’m going to stay with a Christmas tree,’ Menino told reporters.”

And of course we real Christians echo with AMEN and MERRY CHRISTMAS and GOD BLESS YOU, MERRY and GOD BLESS AMERICA.

Thank you, by the way, to Nova Scotian Hatt and all others who hold to what is real-life in real-time — now and forevermore.

FOOTNOTE:

THE TRUTH ABOUT ‘SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE’

J. Grant Swank, Jr.

Liberals have run off with this phrase, prostituting it per usual.

The matter is simple. It’s this: America does not want a state church. England has a state church — the Anglican Church. America does not want one denomination considered The Nation’s Church.

On the other hand, America has a religious heritage. It’s not Muslim. It’s not Hindu. It’s not Shinto. It’s not animism. It’s not New Age. It’s not Paganism. It’s not Voodoo. It’s Judeo-Christian.

America, while not desiring a state church, does desire religion in life. That includes religious expression in everyday exchange. Because Judeo-Christian is America’s heritage, most citizens honor that heritage expressed and honored. Its expression then should not be thwarted. It should not be belittled. It should not be erased in the name of “separation of church and state.”

Unhampered religious expression is promised in the First Amendment.

Further, America, having a Judeo-Christian heritage and the right to present-tense expression, permits freedom of religious expression to other religions. Therefore, there are those of other religious persuasions who practice without fear their religions in America.

What the liberals want to do is redefine the phrase “separation of church and state” to exclude Judeo-Christian religious expression in America. They want not only “separation of church and state” defined on their terms but the exclusion of the Judeo-Christian religion and anything coming close to that particular religious expression—period.

Liberals believe that if they continue harping on the “separation of church and state” phrase, brainwashing the public with their prostituted definition, especially indoctrinating the next generation with their prostituted definition, then they will have won secularism for America’s future.

They, in other words, want not only separation but exclusion of religion — completely so. Note however that the chief religion they want excluded is Judeo-Christian.

They will even tolerate other religions, as they are presently doing with the Muslim infiltration, but it is Judeo-Christian that they want cleansed from America. In other words, it’s a religious cleansing they desire for this nation — the extinguishing specifically of the Judeo-Christian faith.

Therefore, if tolerating another religion such as Islam helps wipe out Judeo-Christianity, then so be it. Islam is far better a tolerance than the American heritage of Judeo-Christian. Therefore, there are school districts hiring Muslims to speak to teachers on how to give Muslim students honor and space. No such invitation, of course, has been extended to Judeo-Christian specialists speaking to public school educators on how to give Judeo-Christian adherents honor and space.

In a nearby high school, a prayer room was set aside for Muslim students. No such prayer room or any other respect has been presented those of the Judeo-Christian heritage.

Liberals, in other words, will do whatever it takes to obliterate America of its rightful Judeo-Christian heritage. This is accented every year particularly during the Christmas season. Any other so-called “religious expression” can come to the fore but the Christian particulars must be silenced at all costs. So we hear throughout the Christmas season, not Christian hymn carols, but “separation of church and state.”

Once again, liberals have taken language to serve their own twisted purposes. They took “homosexual” and made it “gay.” They took “pro-choice” and made it “protecting females.” They take “separation of church and state” and make it “wiping out America’s Judeo-Christian heritage.”

What those of the Judeo-Christian heritage must do — and far more concertedly than they have ever done in the past — is to make clear to the public what “separation of church and state” really means. This must be put in print in magazines and journals. It must be preached from pulpits. It must be taught in religion classes. It must be spelled out in letters to the editor.

Unfortunately, this simply has not been done. The church in particular has permitted the liberals to carry on with their prostitution of the phrase. I have been appalled over the years to note that the church specifically has not risen to expose the liberals’ misuse of that phrase. Therefore, the young have taken quickly to the liberals’ definition while the church has sat, in the main, silent, allowing the enemy to win out.

Copyright © 2005 by J. Grant Swank, Jr.