Chicago city officials appear to be embarrassed by the phenomenon known as Christmas. They asked that an annual downtown holiday festival not include a sponsor. New Line Cinema, which, through its distribution of The Nativity Story, is too connected to Christianity and may, therefore, "be offensive to some people."

As a Jew and rabbi, I am not offended that there are Christians who have a different religion than mine and that they love and celebrate it. What is there to be offended about? I have, however, read that CAIR and other Muslim groups have written that the only legitimate religion is Islam and their hope is that one day America be ruled by Islamic law, the sharia. If they are offended by displays in this country of Christian themes, they can be spared such discomfort by living in Saudi Arabia where there are no Christian symbols-they are outlawed.

Abolishing Our Heritage

Outlawing Christian symbols here in America is what some hard-core liberals would love to do. They simply need the justifiable rationales. First, they invoked "separation of church and state." But that covers only public places, the schools and the municipality. So what rationale can be conjured to rid America of Christianity at other venues? It is the multicultural excuse that "people of other faiths will be offended." The truth is that it is the secular elites who are offended, indeed embarrassed, by Christian symbols. It is they who are at war with Christianity in America.


What if a battalion from overseas landed in this country intent on abolishing our heritage, traditions and the rituals dear to us-all of which make our lives worthwhile? No doubt, we would call them an enemy and fight with all we have. Simply because those now doing so are citizens within our own country, living among us, makes them no less an adversary, requiring from us no less a counter-offensive.

For decades, the American public has been snookered by the left into believing that, in the name of "inclusion" and multiculturalism, public symbols of Christmas and expressions of Christianity needed to be scaled back. In fact, we are discovering that those forces actually wish to bury Christmas, placing outside the pale of "diversity" only one religion: Christianity.

Those calling always for a "separation of church and state" do so only regarding Christianity. Only Christian displays are considered "offensive to others." From Hollywood and the media come snide and disparaging remarks about Christianity that would bring total ostracism if made regarding Islam. Judaism. Hinduism or Kwanzaaism.

We are living in a new era. Gone are the days when what divided liberals from conservatives were the softer issues of taxes and labor unions. Today's left strives to change completely the nature and essence of America. It is working to transform America radicully from what it has been since our very founding. Many abhor the historic America we love, are embarrassed by it, see it as a predatory force of evil, and wish to remake it into a Euro/Socialist country such as France or Sweden. As internationalists, they yearn not for America as is but the neutered "secular utopia" it can become-that they will lead.

Only one institution stands in the way of their hoped-for silent revolution. It is the Judeo-Christian ethic, that uniquely American Christianity that links itself with the Old Testament. From that Judeo-Christian ethic derive all of the historically conservative rules of economics, politics and the social order that have made America great. Through the notion of "man created in the image of God," this ethic has infused the American individual with the virtues of self-reliance, accountability, individuality, risk-taking, heroism, courage and idealism.

The well-known goodwill of the American people, with their penchant for accommodation, has been exploited by those whose ultimate goal is the slow but inexorable dissolution here of Christianity and, ultimately, Americanism. The removal of the nativity scene is thefirst step toward their real goal of abolishing the most special of American governing features: local control-where people in their localities decide how they will live and which values they wish reflected, not bureaucrats in D.C., elitists in New York, celebrities in Hollywood or judicial tyrants on the 9th Circuit.

Our domestic "internationalists" know that to transform America, they must first mute its Judeo-Christian foundations. Our secularists realize that to erase Judeo-Christianity, they must first de-legitimize the America that spawned and refreshes it.

Being well-heeled and wealthy, today's leftist revolutionaries from within are not economic Marxists but "cultural Marxists." Their revolution is happening not through guns but lawyers, sociologists, academia and media. Their tool is "political correctness."

The ACLU and its lawyers, for example, are not so much and-religious as they are antiChristian, as evidenced by their relentless search-and-destroy mission against any outwardly Christian signs while advocating on behalf of Islamic religious needs. Jewish ones, and even the rights of those publicly practicing witchcraft "religion." While liberal lawyers rail against "Silent Night," they have no problem with the noise emanating from call-to-prayer wails from mosques in Michigan. Crosses and Bibles on work desks are unconstitutional, they contend, but wearing a burka that covers one's face on a driver's license is just fine, though it is an evasion of the purpose of the law.