52 Sermon Illustrations on Political Correctness

A POLITICALLY CORRECT CHRISTMAS

'Twas the night before Christmas and Santa's a wreck...

How to live in a world that's politically correct?

His workers no longer would answer to "Elves".

"Vertically Challenged" they were calling themselves.

And labor conditions at the North Pole

Were alleged by the union to stifle the soul.

Four reindeer had vanished, without much propriety,

Released to the wilds by the Humane Society.

And Equal Employment had made it quite clear

That Santa had better not use just reindeer.

So Dancer and Donner, Comet and Cupid,

Were replaced with four pigs, and you know that looked stupid.

The runners had been removed from his sleigh,

The ruts were termed dangerous by the E.P.A.

And people had started to call for the cops

When they heard sled noises on their roof tops.

Second-hand smoke from his pipe had workers quite frightened

His fur-trimmed red suit was called "Unenlightened."

And to show you the strangeness of life's ebb and flows,

Rudolf was suing over unauthorized use of his nose

And had gone on Geraldo, in front of the nation,

Demanding millions in over-due compensation.

And as for the gifts, why he'd ne'er had a notion

That making a choice would cause such commotion.

Nothing of leather, nothing of fur,

Which meant nothing for him, and nothing for her.

Nothing that might be construed to pollute.

Nothing to aim, nothing to shoot.

Nothing that clamored or made lots of noise.

Nothing for just girls, or just for the boys.

Nothing that claimed to be gender specific.

Nothing that's warlike or non-pacifistic.

No candy or sweets ... they were bad for the tooth.

Nothing that seemed to embellish a truth.

And fairy tales, while not yet forbidden,

Were like Ken and Barbie, better off hidden.

For they raised the hackles of those psychological

Who claimed the only good gift is one ecological.

No baseball, no football ... someone could get hurt;

Besides, playing sports exposed kids to dirt.

Dolls were said to be sexist, and should be passe;

And Nintendo would rot your brain away.

So Santa just stood there, disheveled, perplexed;

He just could not figure out what to do next.

His sack was quite empty, limp to the ground;

Nothing fully acceptable was to be found.

Something special was needed, a gift that he might

Give to all without angering the left or the right.

So here is that gift, its price beyond worth...

"May you and your loved ones enjoy PEACE ON EARTH."

#4272

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Today's society places a premium on being politically correct. Proper terminology must be used so as not to be offensive to anyone.

For example, obese people are now referred to as the gravitationally challenged. An old person is gerontologically advanced. A meter maid is a parking enforcement adjudicator.

Someone who is blind is photonically non-receptive. Political correctness first defined the deaf person as hearing impaired, but more recently has suggested that such an individual is visually oriented. The man with a receding hairline is not balding, but in follicle regression.

Political correctness refuses to call anyone who tarries long at the wine a drunk, but simply suggests that such a person may be intemperate. The embezzler has only misappropriated funds, and the sexually promiscuous person is only guilty of an indiscretion. Consequently, those who call for PC refuse to call anyone a sinner, but at best regard him or her as spiritually challenged.

We now have politically correct Bibles that are gender-neutral and hymnals that have translated what is referred to as offensive language into something more palatable to our modern society.

To me, all of this sugar-sweet, easy-to-digest, don't-upset-anyone kind of gospel is a long way from repentance. It is almost certain that this kind of “Christianity” does not result in the kind of life change needed to impact the world for God and for good.

Actually, those who insist on political correctness are interested in far more than terminology. They are proponents of a philosophy that embraces a way of life that is foreign to the biblical principles we hold dear. Their buzzwords are toleration and inclusivism. They want to reduce our beliefs and convictions to the lowest common denominator so that no one is offended by anything that is said or done.

As a result of a humanistic, secular world's vigilance and the church's indifference, we are becoming an antinomian society -- a society without regard for the law of God.

Scripture verses have been removed from national parks; the Ten Commandments have been taken down from courthouse walls; and nativity scenes have been removed from town squares because they are supposedly a violation of First Amendment rights. In other words, they are not politically correct.

Therefore, for a preacher to be politically correct he must no longer ring the bell on sin, and he must suppress any thought that might prompt him to mention the “h” word. He must avoid all biblical references to theological definiteness and exclusivity lest he be regarded as narrow-minded or bigoted.

However, Jesus never seemed to be interested in political correctness. He dared to drive the moneychangers out of the temple, challenged the dead religion of his day and called the religious leaders “hypocrites,” “blind guides” and “fools” (Matthew 23:13-17). On one occasion he even called them a “brood of vipers” (Matthew 3:7).

Furthermore, Jesus made exclusive claims. He said, “I am the way, the truth and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6). In fact, the Word of God unflinchingly and unapologetically and without any pseudo-intellectual mumbo-jumbo attests to the uniqueness of Jesus as the only way to be saved and avows that Christianity cannot accord moral equivalence to any other religion.

This unyielding exclusivism incites hostility from the politically correct crowd because it contradicts the “enlightened” tenets of secular humanism, which are incompatible with the absolute truth found in Holy Scripture.

In a society where everything seems to be tolerated but the pure, uncompromising preaching of the Word of God, we must remember that Jesus said, “The disciple is not above his master, nor the servant above his lord. It is enough for the disciple that he be as his master, and the servant as his lord. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more shall they call them of his household?” (Matthew 10:24-25).

Dare to have an unswerving allegiance to the truth. It may get you in trouble on earth, but it will win you the favor of heaven.

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Gerald Harris is editor of The Christian Index, newsjournal of the Georgia Baptist Convention.

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[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #1734]

The notion that civility is on the decline is a perennial one. If the BBC website’s Have Your Say slot had existed in Tudor England, you can be sure “Mike from London” would have used it to rail against insolent costermongers and youths playing their lutes too loudly. The thesis has been challenged – a report last year from the Young Foundation argued that civility is thriving, especially in disadvantaged areas – but the perception seems unshakable: one survey, in 2009, found that 90% of Britons believed manners were getting worse. Still, whatever the facts, we can all agree it would be bad if true. Or can we? After reading the philosopher Emrys Westacott’s book, The Virtues Of Our Vices – subtitled A Modest Defence Of Gossip, Rudeness, And Other Bad Habits – I’m less sure. He claims rudeness isn’t all bad; and before telling him to shut his face, we should politely consider his argument.

Our debates about civility are undeniably odd. Have you noticed, for example, how those who complain most about declining manners are enraged by “political correctness”? Set aside the fact that PC is largely imaginary, an emission of foul mind-gas from the brain of Richard Littlejohn. Even if it weren’t, it would be a case of too much politeness towards others, not too little. Also: is rudeness based on obliviousness the same as rudeness based on contempt? And so on. Maybe we need a philosopher, after all.

The idea of applying philosophy to everyday life has been back in fashion for a while, but as Westacott points out, it isn’t always as practical as it purports to be. Bringing Heidegger to bear on your views on the death penalty isn’t of practical use most days. And while thought experiments like the one about pushing a fat man off a bridge are a staple of “practical ethics”, here’s hoping you never face that dilemma. Westacott focuses instead on “microethics”, the philosophical conundrums we encounter hourly. “Precisely because rudeness is quite common,” he writes, “it is not a trivial issue... in our day-to-day lives it is possibly responsible for more pain than any other moral failing.”

At the core of rudeness, Westacott argues, is the violation of social convention, which leads to a crucial distinction – between violating (out of selfishness) a convention to which one otherwise subscribes, versus simply not subscribing to it. We tend to assume most rudeness belongs to the former category. But conventions change, and “rudeness” may often just be the label we give to the friction between two people following different rules. When sons started abandoning the convention of calling their fathers “Sir”, it was presumably perceived as rude. It’s disconcerting to realise that “music in train carriages ought not to be audible to others” might prove just as historically contingent.

“The problem is not that people today are trampling underfoot the time-honoured rules of polite behaviour; the problem is that these rules are in flux,” Westacott writes. Rudeness is the price we pay for “living in a dynamic culture”. That may not make it good, exactly, but it makes it an inevitable by-product of something many of us think of as good. Maybe that explains why critics of PC also bemoan the rise of rudeness: both complaints are reactions against change. A world with no rudeness, and no material for stories about “PC gone mad”, would be one that had come to a standstill.

Irish teachers urged to drop "Mummy and Daddy"

DUBLIN, Ireland (Reuters) - The Roman Catholic Church in Ireland has urged teachers to drop "Mummy and Daddy" from their classroom vocabulary to recognize the growing number of one-parent families, the Irish Independent newspaper said Friday.

Instead, teachers should use phrases such as "the adults who live in your house" or "the people who look after you," the paper said.

The language was part of the Church's new Irish religious education program for four- to five-year-olds which was launched in Belfast, Northern Ireland, Thursday.

"Whereas in the past a family had a Mummy and a Daddy, now we don't say those kind of things," the paper quoted one of the organizers of the campaign as saying.

^REUTERS@

LESBIAN PASTOR ASSOCIATED WITH UCC

"Loey Powell, the lesbian pastor of a small church in Tallahassee, FL, has been appointed as Executive of the Coordinating Center for Women, which oversees the United Church of Christ's ministry to women and provides resources for women's fellowships in local churches. Christian News" (The Evangelical Methodist, Sept. 1997)

CLINTON TABS LESBIAN NUN FOR WHITE HOUSE POST

"President Bill Clinton, who recently assured homosexual supporters that he would fill at least five White House posts with homosexuals, followed through with his promise by naming former Catholic nun Virginia Apuzzo to run the White House management shop. The 56-year-old Apuzzo, a renowned homosexual-rights activist, becomes one of just 18 'assistants to the president,' taking over the management and administration operation once headed by Clinton pal David Watkins. (Watkins is best remembered for his firing after flying a Marine helicopter to a Maryland golf course." (National Liberty Journal, November 97)

1960s arithmetic test: "A logger cuts and sells truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is four-fifths of that amount. What is his profit?"

1970s new-math test: "A logger exchanges a set (L) of lumber for a set (M) of money. The cardinality of Set M is 100. The Set C of production costs contains 20 fewer points. What is the cardinality of Set P of profits?"

1980s dumbed down version: "A logger cuts and sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost is $80, his profit is $20. Find and circle the number 20."

90s version: "An unenlightened logger cuts down a beautiful stand of 100 trees in order to amke a $20 profit. Write out an essay explaining how you feel about this as a way to make money. Topic for discussion: How did the forest birds and squirrels feel?"

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Kinda makes you warm and fuzzy all over, don't it?

Parents and students attending this year’s commencement at Georgetown University, a Catholic school, would surely expect to hear a commencement address that took Catholic teaching seriously. And that’s what they got. But many in the crowd were offended, even outraged.

The commencement speaker was Francis Cardinal Arinze, the head of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue. The dean who invited Arinze expected him to speak about the relationship between Christianity and Islam, especially in places like the Cardinal’s native Nigeria.

Instead, Cardinal Arinze told Georgetown’s class of 2003 that “happiness is found not in the pursuit of material wealth or pleasures of the flesh, but by fervently adhering to religious beliefs.” Warming to his task, he then told graduates and guests about the importance of the family in Christian faith and life.

He said that “in many parts of the world, the family is under siege” as a result of what he called “an anti-life mentality [that can be seen] in contraception, abortion, infanticide, and euthanasia.” Instead of being honored, the family is “scorned and banalized by pornography, desecrated by fornication and adultery, mocked by homosexuality, sabotaged by irregular unions, and cut in two by divorce.”

Well, that’s a very Catholic message one might expect from a Catholic cardinal. But it proved too much for many in the audience. Teresa Sanders, a professor of THEOLOGY, left the stage DURING Arinze’s remarks. Seventy other faculty members signed a letter to the dean protesting what one of them called Arinze’s “wildly inappropriate” remarks. Really? As a result, the dean apologized for the Cardinal’s remarks and the “hurt” they caused.

This incident speaks volumes about the spiritual and moral condition of the West. As historian Philip Jenkins has written, the numerical and geographical heart of Christianity has shifted from the West to the developing world. One result of this shift is that, as was predicted, Christians from Africa are now evangelizing Europe and America, instead of the other way around.

Thus, we see Anglican bishops from Africa standing against Western apostasy by ordaining American clergy who will uphold historic Christian teaching on faith and morals. And we see Cardinal Arinze pointing out the damage being wrought by the West’s forsaking of these teachings.

The response to the Cardinal shows just how phony all the rhetoric about “tolerance” really is. Tolerance originally meant allowing people whom you believed to be wrong to live according to their beliefs without fear of reprisal.

It then mutated into the idea that all beliefs are equally valid. While this was mistaken, at least it allowed for the possibility that Christians might publicly express their beliefs. Now “tolerance” means that no one — other than Christians — should ever hear anything that contradicts what they think, or otherwise upsets them. This is especially true if the subject is human sexuality.

This bogus definition of tolerance is why the dean felt the need to apologize for what the Cardinal said. Fortunately, our African brethren think otherwise. They take their faith seriously — seriously enough to tell the truth about the state of our souls, whether we like it or not.

There is hope in Africa, if not in Georgetown.

FOR FURTHER READING:

Read the TEXT OF CARDINAL ARINZE’S SPEECH (scroll down to “Francis Cardinal Arinze: Arise, Rejoice, God Is Calling You”).

Julia Duin, “CRITICISM OF GAYS RILES GEORGETOWN,” WASHINGTON TIMES, May 30, 2003.

Al Dobras, “WILL THE REAL BIGOTS PLEASE STAND UP?“ BREAKPOINT ONLINE, May 9, 2003.

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Copyright (c) 2003 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

The snow is aglow in Mammoth. In the mountains of Northern California, the brilliance of the moon and stars that rule the night cascade down upon rippled swells of rocks and gullies. Still as breath, these austere mountains, robed in powered whiteness, stand with their peaks to the heavens in silent reference to the One who made them.

Though this draws the eye and stills the soul, I am thankful that the winter is not merely about snow on mountains (in the Northern Hemisphere). If a deeper meaning were not given to this kind of beauty of rock and frozen ice, it could well be a curse to the longing of the heart. This is instantly what the children felt when they crossed from our world into Narnia in C. S. Lewis's The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. They felt the cold on their faces and in their hearts when they learned that the White Witched cast a spell on Narnia to make it “always winter and never Christmas.”

That spell continues to work upon the hearts of men and women. For some, the white mountains are the sum total of the season. Atheists celebrate it as Winter Solstice. Religions around the world also attribute their own stories to the season with such names as Hanukkah, Christmas, and Kwanza. For secular societies, they all get lumped together as a simple “Happy Holidays,” which as a British expression would simply mean “Happy Vacation Time.”

But not all stories were created equal. In the name of political correctness, the most important story can be squeezed out in the name of equal rights. That story of God coming down to man, though it may sound harsh to say it, is better news than all the others. If it is a true story, then it has the power to break the illusions of any culture and liberate the human heart.

This advent season, let us not repeat the desperate question of Mary Magdalene at the empty tomb, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” Though it may feel this way in our societies with Santa Claus and reindeer lining the aisles from early October, we can peel away the disguises placed upon Christ's coming and see it for its worth. Wherever they are, followers of Christ can remember again, despite all the trappings, that God touched down and gave us his Son. As the songwriter puts it,

I wonder as I wander out under the sky

How Jesus the Savior did come forth to die

For poor ordinary people like you and like I

I wonder as I wander out under the sky.

As we behold the winter wonderland in our part of the world, bend your gaze again toward that sky where that one bright star once shown. Remember again the Savior in swaddling clothes. Taste afresh his salvation that no commercialism, spell, or political correctness can ever diminish.

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Copyright © 2004 Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM). Reprinted with permission. "A Slice of Infinity" is a radio ministry of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries.

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Dartmouth College is older than the United States of America, having been established in 1750 as “Moore's Indian Charity School.” That's a part of Dartmouth's history that would be unknown to most Americans, but the school was established by Reverend Eleazar Wheelock, a leading figure in the nation's first Great Awakening. Wheelock established the school with the purpose of evangelizing American Indians, and he intended for the school eventually known as Dartmouth College to compete with Harvard and Yale in terms of academic distinction. In other words, Dartmouth College is an Ivy League institution originally established for the evangelization of Native Americans.

Keep that in mind as you learn of more recent developments. On September 20, Dartmouth's student body president, Noah Riner, delivered the customary convocation address -- a responsibility that comes with his elected position. Mr. Riner's speech was relatively short, intensely personal, and intellectually courageous. All that explains why Mr. Riner, a home-schooled native of Louisville, Kentucky, soon found himself at the center of controversy.

The response to Riner's speech included vitriolic outrage. He was denounced, criticized, and lambasted for the content of his controversial address. The Student Assembly's vice president for student life resigned the very next day, indicating that she could not serve with Riner because of his “appalling” speech to incoming freshmen.

What in the world did Riner say? “You really are special,” he told the Dartmouth class of 2009. But Mr. Riner didn't stop there.

“But it isn't enough to be special,” he continued. “It isn't enough to be talented, to be beautiful, to be smart. Generations of amazing students have come before you, and have sat in your seats. Some have been good, some have been bad. All have been special.”

Just a few words into his convocation address, Riner signaled that he intended to address the incoming students with something more than emotionalism, congratulations, and simplistic affirmation. He had another issue in mind -- character.

His speech took a fascinating turn when Riner recited a list of Dartmouth graduates who had ended up as examples of deficient character. A member of the class of 1939 became a Soviet spy, even as a later graduate committed murder and yet another was arrested for sexually assaulting a fifteen-year-old student.

“These stories demonstrate that it takes more than a Dartmouth degree to build character,” Riner asserted. Even at this point, we must recognize that Riner's convocation address must have broken the norm. After all, he was addressing the bright, privileged, and ambitious new class with the message that a Dartmouth education, while important, was not ultimate.

From that point, Riner expanded his focus to include developments such as looting in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and a crisis of character that affects the entire nation.

“We have the same flaws as the individuals who pillaged New Orleans. Ours haven't been given such free reign, but they exist and are part of us all the same.”

We can be fairly certain that at least some of those bright young people sitting in the audience would have been surprised, if not offended, to be told that they are sinners. “Let's be honest,” Riner insisted, “the differences are in degree.”

But if Riner's assertion that character is primary was not offensive enough, his example of character set many to squirming in their seats.

“Character has a lot to do with sacrifice, laying our personal interests down for something bigger,” Riner argued. “The best example of this is Jesus. In the Garden of Gethsemane, just hours before His crucifixion, Jesus prayed, 'Father, if Thou be willing, remove this cup from Me: nevertheless not My will, but Thine, be done.’ He knew the right thing to do. He knew the cost would be agonizing torture and death. He did it anyway. That's character.”

Noah Riner went on. “Jesus is a good example of character, but He's also much more than that. He is the solution to flawed people like corrupt Dartmouth alums, looters, and me.” As he later explained, “Jesus' message of redemption is simple. People are imperfect, and there are consequences for our actions. He gave His life for our sin so that we wouldn't have to bear the penalty of the law; so we could see love. The problem is me; the solution is God's love: Jesus on the cross, for us.”

The response was immediate, vitriolic, and revealing. The cartoonist for the college's campus newspaper, The Dartmouth, drew a comic strip depicting Riner as a crusading theocrat and Jesus as a marijuana smoker. Kaelin Goulet not only resigned as vice president for student life, but also condemned Riner for his speech. “Your first opportunity to represent Student Assembly to the incoming freshmen was appalling,” she wrote. “You embarrassed the organization; you embarrassed yourself.” In an email message cited by the campus newspaper, Goulet charged, “I consider his choice of topic for the Convocation speech reprehensible and an abuse of power.”

“I have been looking forward to working with you all and thought we were in agreement for what SA stands for,” the former vice president wrote. “Apparently, I was incorrect.” Her spirit of cooperation evidently did not extend to Mr. Riner's right to speak his mind in his convocation address.

Leaders of Hillel and Shanti, the Jewish and Hindu religious groups on Dartmouth's campus, wrote a letter to the campus newspaper that described Noah Riner's convocation address as a “disrespectful action” which represents “the complete antithesis of the value that Dartmouth espouses.”

The editors of The Dartmouth acknowledged the college's roots, reminding readers that Dartmouth had been founded “to bring Christianity to Native Americans.” Nevertheless, the paper celebrated the fact that “Dartmouth has more recently eschewed this goal in favor of providing a balanced, secular and inclusive education to its students.”

According to the editors, “The problem with Riner's address was his insinuation that turning to Jesus is the only way to find character. Indeed, Jesus was the only positive example of character Riner offered. While many of the ideas Jesus exemplified and his followers espoused stretch across faiths, statements such as, 'Jesus is a good example of character, but He's also much more than that. He is the solution to flawed people like corrupt Dartmouth alums, looters, and me' and, 'The problem is me; the solution is God's love: Jesus on the cross, for us,' are explicitly Christian and, as such, managed to alienate many in the audience regardless of their faiths.”

Note clearly -- the very fact that Dartmouth's student body president would espouse convictions consistent with the college's founding vision was considered an act virtually tantamount to treason against Dartmouth's current “secular and inclusive” vision.

Brian Martin, guest columnist for the campus newspaper, described Riner's convocation address as “fire-and-brimstone remarks” that demonstrated “casual disrespect for the diversity of the captive audience.”

“We are a community that welcomes and respects all its members, no matter what your creed,” Martin insisted. Evidently, this means welcome and respect to all members and all creeds -- except for the founding creed of the institution.

Martin pushed his point one step further, arguing that “Jesus would not have wanted to make new students feel unwelcome, to make faculty feel uncomfortable or to make alumni question whether this was the same Dartmouth that they had attended.” Are we to assume that Jesus Christ would have felt himself constrained by Ivy League etiquette? So much for cleansing the Temple.

Mr. Riner was not without his defenders. “Had Noah Riner opened his convocation speech with 'I'm gay,' this wouldn't be happening. That's not Noah, but if it were, no one would have resigned. No one would be organizing protests. Such a reaction, according to our rigid social standards, would be bigotry. If there were any Op-Eds or outcries, they would be praising his ability to encourage individualism and progressivism in Dartmouth.” Those are the words of Stacey Kourlis, who defended Riner in a column published in The Dartmouth. “We chose a leader who is willing to stand up and articulate his or her beliefs,” Kourlis argued. “We didn't default to someone who's doing this for a resume. That's a testament to how special we [are] as a community. So let's take it one step further and allow Riner to say precisely what he thinks, without fear of political correctness.”

The charter that established what we now know as Dartmouth College was granted by King George III of England, who stated that the purpose of the institution should be “for civilizing and Christianizing the children of pagans, as well as in all liberal arts and sciences, and also of English youths and any others.” Noah Riner's crime was to fulfill that mission by speaking honestly, courageously, and sincerely about his Christian faith. It was a bold and powerful demonstration of Christian witness, and it was one young man's demonstration of the very strength of character that authentic education is to stimulate and strengthen, not subvert and marginalize.

The controversy over Noah Riner's convocation address at Dartmouth is a bracing reminder of the fact that America's most prestigious academic institutions have become openly hostile to the very convictions upon which they were established. In the name of diversity, voices such as Noah Riner's are decried and condemned. Just sixty years ago, Ernest M. Hopkins, then president of Dartmouth, said, “Dartmouth is a Christian college founded for the Christianization of its students.” One wonders whether Reverend Wheelock and President Hopkins would be welcomed today on the campus of the college they respectively founded and led.

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From Baptist Press, October 12, 2005, by Erin Curry:

His speech has been called “appalling,” “reprehensible,” “an abuse of power,” “disrespectful” and “embarrassing.” What could have drawn such consternation?

The outrage is over a convocation speech by Noah Riner, student body president of Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, one which employed the sinless example of Jesus Christ as how men and women can manage to display good character as they make their way through a sinful world.

Riner gave the speech as he welcomed freshmen to the Ivy League campus Sept. 20, beginning with compliments toward the accomplished students.

“You’ve been told that you are a special class,” he said, according to a partial transcript published by The Washington Times. “A quick look at the statistics confirms that claim. Quite simply, you are the smartest and most diverse group of freshmen to set foot on the Dartmouth campus. You have more potential than all of the other classes. You really are special.”

The seasoned student went on to point out that it’s not enough to be special, talented, beautiful or smart because plenty of students have been so and have even graduated from Dartmouth but have gone on to commit crimes rooted in their corrupt character. Riner listed some examples, including a graduate who became a Soviet spy, one who murdered and one who sexually assaulted a young girl.

Then came the controversy.

“Character has a lot to do with sacrifice, laying our personal interests down for something bigger,” he said. “The best example of this is Jesus. In the Garden of Gethsemane, just hours before His crucifixion, Jesus prayed, ‘Father, if Thou be willing, remove this cup from me; nevertheless, not my will, but Thine, be done.’ He knew the right thing to do. He knew the cost would be agonizing torture and death. He did it anyway. That’s character.”

Riner added that Jesus is the solution for sinners like him and all others and Jesus’ message of redemption means there are consequences for actions.

“He gave His life for our sin so that we wouldn’t have to bear the penalty of the law, so we could see love. The problem is me; the solution is God’s love: Jesus on the cross, for us,” Riner said.

The next day, the vice president of the student body resigned, telling Riner, “Your first opportunity to represent Student Assembly to the incoming freshmen was appalling. You embarrassed the organization; you embarrassed yourself.”

Others heaped vicious criticism on Riner, including opinion pieces and cartoons in the student newspaper.

R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, addressed the debacle in his Oct. 7 commentary on albertmohler.com.

“The controversy over Noah Riner’s convocation address at Dartmouth is a bracing reminder of the fact that America’s most prestigious academic institutions have become openly hostile to the very convictions upon which they were established,” Mohler wrote, after noting that the predecessor to Dartmouth College was founded in 1750 for the purpose of evangelizing Native Americans.

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Last January, a fifth grader named Stephanie Versher celebrated her birthday by bringing brownies and gifts to her classmates. Among the gifts were pencils printed with the words “Jesus loves me this I know; for the Bible tells me so.”

But just as she was handing them out, the school principal showed up. She grabbed the pencils and scolded Stephanie for violating school policy. And she told Stephanie’s mother that if Stephanie was caught giving away religious items again, she would be expelled.

This was not the first time the Plano, Texas, Independent School District had violated the constitutional rights of kids. As John Gibson writes in his book, The War on Christmas, when children attended school Winter Break Parties — formerly known as Christmas Parties — they were warned not to put anything of a religious nature in goody bags to be shared with friends. Teachers didn’t hesitate to confiscate items like candy canes attached to cards explaining the Christian “Legend of the Candy Cane.”

Parents who helped out at Christmas — excuse me, Winter parties — were told not to bring red or green napkins, paper plates, or cupcakes. After all, these were the colors of Christmas! Nor could students pass out tickets to a popular Christmas pageant held every year at a local church. They were even forbidden to say “Merry Christmas” to their classmates.

Parents met several times with school authorities and finally decided they had no choice but to file a federal lawsuit: Their children’s constitutional rights were being systematically violated.

Sometimes going to court can be the only alternative we have against those determined to defy the law. But Christians must be mindful of how they go about this. And the Apostle Paul offers an example of how to behave when our rights as citizens are violated.

Paul took a backseat to no one when it came to his legal rights. We read in the book of Acts that when Paul was falsely accused by Jewish leaders, and was about to be scourged, he boldly asked a centurion, “Is it lawful for you to scourge a man who is a Roman citizen, and uncondemned?” No, it wasn’t — and the scourging was cancelled.

Later, Paul told Festus, the procurator of Judea, “I am standing before Caesar’s tribunal, where I ought to be tried; to the Jews I have done no wrong, as you know very well.” And then Paul exploited the nuclear option of that day: “I appeal to Caesar!” he said.

But Paul never forgot his Christian witness — even when his listeners were hostile. While behind bars, he witnessed to Felix, his wife, Drusilla, and to Herod Agrippa II. When he was taken as a prisoner on a ship bound for Italy, he comforted sailors during a shipwreck. During his two years under house arrest in Rome, we are told he “welcomed all who came to him, preaching the kingdom of God.”

It’s hard to keep cool when our children’s rights are attacked and when we witness such insane efforts to erase Christian symbols from public life. But even when we are dealing with hostile school authorities — or even when we go to court in extreme cases — remember always that our ultimate goal is not winning earthly battles, important though they are, but souls for eternity. So, protest, but do it always in love.

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Copyright (c) 2005 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

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It’s that joyous season once again. And nothing so warms a wintry heart like singing “O Mid-Year Break Tree,” “We Wish You a Merry Solstice,” or that more recent favorite, “A Whiskered White Male Is Coming to Town.”

Never heard of these carols? Well, despite the American Civil Liberties Union and its allies’ claims to the contrary, that is how the event formerly called Christmas will be celebrated if they have their way. You better watch out, you better not say the wrong words or display a nativity scene; otherwise, you may hear “Hark! The Herald Lawyers Sing” at your doorstep next December.

The ACLU actually claims to defend religious liberty, but it’s their special sanitized version. Time and time again they’ve done everything in their power to replace Christmas with a vague, secularized holiday. Now, countless public officials are so rattled by the potential of a lawsuit -- after years of ACLU campaigns of fear, intimidation and disinformation -- that they preemptively restrict freedom of speech and freedom of religion at Christmastime without even a “demand letter” to prompt them.

This year, school officials in Jackson County, Ga., attempted to censor staff and teachers from wearing any pins, angels, crosses or clothing that might evoke religious expression at Christmas. Teachers were even asked not to wish anyone a “Merry Christmas.” However, one teacher decided to stand up to Scrooge by contacting the Alliance Defense Fund. An ADF attorney let the district know that this overreaction was completely unconstitutional.

“Frankly, it’s ridiculous that we’re even debating whether it’s OK to say ‘Merry Christmas,’” ADF’s David Cortman said. “I’m sure just about everyone would rather have a Merry Christmas than a meaningless winter holiday.”

Of course, he’s right. According to several polls, an overwhelming majority of Americans think we should publicly celebrate Christmas. A 2005 Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll confirmed that 95 percent of Americans celebrate Christmas. According to other polls, 90 percent of Americans recognize Christmas as the birthday of Jesus Christ (Gallup, 2000), and 87 percent believe that nativity scenes should be allowed on public property (Fox News/Opinion Dynamics, 2003).

These overwhelming numbers prove that Christmas is a non-partisan issue. And it’s OK for all Americans to say “Merry Christmas” whenever or wherever they want -- even on property the public paid for with their hard-earned tax dollars.

But in the ACLU’s version of America, it’s always winter and never Christmas. The group filed a suit against a Louisiana elementary school for displaying a nativity scene, even though it was unquestionably lawful and surrounded by numerous displays of other holiday and faith traditions. Last Christmas, the ACLU sued to shut down “equal access” for different holiday traditions -- including a nativity scene -- on behalf of a woman who was “offended” by such displays on a Rhode Island city lawn. Thankfully, the holiday displays were ultimately protected in both cases.

Despite some persistent misconceptions, even our current judicial system does not endorse the radical anti-history, anti-heritage, and anti-religious agenda of the ACLU. The Supreme Court has never said that saying “Merry Christmas” or having a merry Christmas is illegal. It is completely lawful to sing Christmas carols and pass out candy canes in public schools. It’s also fine to display Christian symbols like nativity scenes on public property. Yes, court rulings give guidelines, but they are not nearly so oppressive as imagined -- even if a few Grinches don’t like it.

Christmas is a time for goodness, giving and hope -- not fear, intimidation and disinformation. No one is advocating that anyone be forced to celebrate Christmas. No one is suggesting that the celebration of other faith traditions should be mocked or banned. The Constitution protects the rights of Americans to celebrate any number of holidays at this time of year or to celebrate no holiday at all. But some far-left radical groups, like the ACLU, would prefer to single out Christmas to be left in the cold -- banishing it from our heritage or making it part of an unrecognizable “seasonal potpourri” -- instead of supporting those who wish to rejoice in its unique observation.

So what can Americans do to promote the reason for the season? It is vital that all of us exercise our First Amendment rights and not be intimidated by those who would take them away.

So display your Christmas tree decked with any decoration you like. Fear not to display your nativity scene. Unabashedly sing “Away in a Manger,” “O, Come All Ye Faithful,” or any of your other favorite carols. Wear a cross, an angel pin or any other Christmas attire whether you are at work, school or officiating at a city council meeting. And strongly encourage your community and your public officials to allow Christmas symbols to return prominently to the public square and its name to reappear on the community and school calendars.

But most of all, just offer a hearty and heartfelt “Merry Christmas” to anyone who needs a little cheer. Especially those glum lawyers at the ACLU.

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“As government, we have a different responsibility about advancing the cause of religion, which we are not going to do,” said St. Paul, Minnesota, City Council President Kathy Lantry. She was supporting a move by the city Human Rights Director, Tyrone Terrill, who had asked that a cloth Easter bunny, pastel-colored eggs, and other Easter-related decorations be removed from city hall because they “could be offensive to non-Christians,” according to Terrill. “We can't celebrate spring with bunnies and fake grass?” grumbled a city councilman. Nope, Lantry said. “It's not about being politically correct or anything else. Someone complained.”

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Minneapolis Star Tribune

Randy Cassingham: It's ironic that even the secularized version of Easter is outlawed and offensive.

Artur Boruc, 26, a goalkeeper for the Celtics Football Club, was playing in a soccer match against the Rangers in Glasgow, Scotland. At the start of the second half Boruc, who is Polish and signed with the Celtics a year ago, crossed himself as he took his position. The Strathclyde Police was called in, and their report was passed to prosecutors. The Crown Office ruled that in the “charged atmosphere” of a football match, the act of crossing himself “provoked alarm and crowd trouble and as such constituted a breach of the peace.” Boruc received a formal caution, leaving him with a criminal record. “It is worrying some spectators saw fit to complain,” said a spokesman for Scotland’s Catholic Church, “but even more so that police felt it merited investigation. This decision could lead us down a very intolerant road.”

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Glasgow Daily Record, PA

[Later reports say Boruc was cited for deliberately provoking the crowd, not for blessing himself.]

Do you know what the C in YMCA stands for?

You may know it stands for “Christian,” but I wouldn’t be surprised if you didn’t. The YMCA has come far from its founders’ intent when it was organized in 1844 — so far that many people have forgotten its roots as a Christian organization established to disciple young men. Today, as John Alexander of the Danville, Illinois, YMCA says, “Unfortunately, people look at us and just see a swim and gym.”

Sadly, over the years the YMCA has redefined its original mission right out of existence. At first, the YMCA’s method of adapting itself to meet community needs looked harmless enough. They moved from what one article called “narrow evangelistic goals” to a goal of “developing the ‘whole man,’” focusing on physical and social development as well as spiritual development.

This wasn’t inherently wrong. But as YMCA staffers realized that physical development programs were becoming far more popular than Bible studies and prayer meetings, they found themselves with a choice to make. I don’t think I need to tell you how they decided.

Since it has abandoned its religious programs and focused on the physical, today’s YMCA is commonly seen as “successful” in terms of membership and revenue. But how is it successful if you fall so far short of your original goal that you end up getting rid of it entirely?

Or, as Christ would have put it, how is it successful to gain the world and lose your soul?

Thankfully, there are still those who battle for the soul of the YMCA, like my friend Dr. Jim Gills, one of America’s premier eye surgeons. Jim has given millions to fund the building of YMCAs in Florida — YMCAs that provide for faith as well as fitness. He is building one now that will have a basketball court where church services will be held on Sundays. Jim says YMCAs “aren’t just a place for people to lift weights.... They’re a place for people to go to have fulfillment.”

And at the national convention this summer, many YMCA directors and staffers spoke out about the need to “lift up the C” in “YMCA.” Some YMCAs have formed a movement for this purpose called YMCA Mission, which holds an annual “John 17:21 Conference.”

But it’s an uphill fight. At the YMCA convention, ideas like posting Bible verses on the wall or maintaining a prayer request box met with disapproval from many. Dick Blattner of the Hollywood, Florida, YMCA, complained, “I respect your religion. But when I see posters and placards on the wall that reflect Christian principles, I feel left out.... It offended me, and I don’t think it’s right for the Y.”

Only in today’s hypersensitive society could a leader in an organization with CHRISTIAN in its name be offended by Christianity. But it reminds us what happens when Christians sell out our core principles and abandon our worldview for the sake of “success.” Take this as a cautionary tale and support those who are trying once again to “lift up the C” in the YMCA.

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Copyright (c) 2006 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

Along with fruit cake and caroling, one of the many traditions to look forward to in December is the annual “War on Christmas,” in which religious and conservative activists and pundits accuse secularists and innocent fans of the phrase “Happy Holidays” of stripping Christianity from the occasion. But this year, seasonal skirmishes have broken out on new fronts. In these new fights, it’s not that the holiday is sliding down a slippery slope away from the manger. Instead, it’s that Christmas is bad for the economy, bad for your health and bad for the environment:

THE WAR ON CHRISTMAS GIFTS

While those reindeer sweaters and charming dress socks you put under the tree are good for the retail business, Joel Waldfogel, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, has been spending recent weeks railing against Christmas gift-giving, arguing that it’s an inefficient way to spend money that costs the country $25 billion a year.

In his book, “Scroogenomics: Why You Shouldn’t Buy Presents for the Holidays,” Waldfogel says gifts generate less satisfaction than things we buy ourselves. We don’t really know what other people want, he says, but we do know what we want. Because of this, in his view, Christmas shopping is “an orgy of wealth destruction” as we spend on things people don’t value as much as the money we pay for them.

One writer called Christmas shopping “an orgy of wealth destruction.” “I’m not against spending, just sloppy spending,” Waldfogel said on NPR’s TELL ME MORE.

In one experiment, Waldfogel asked his students to rate the level of satisfaction they had with gifts they were given. From this survey, he determined that gifts generate an average of 20 percent less satisfaction than things we buy for ourselves. He says this is not true of gifts we buy for our closest family members and friends, who we know well enough to gift accurately.

The theory behind this should not be surprising to economists who know well that consumers are best equipped to make decisions about purchasing for themselves.

“That’s frankly the basis of many economists’ disdain for government. Because after all, when government chooses for us, they get us the wrong health care program, the wrong color shirt, the bridge to nowhere. And so this notion that we’re best situated to choose for ourselves is a pretty basic notion and fairly a common-sense one,” Waldfogel said.

While the theory may bear up to microeconomic scrutiny, others say Waldfogel is missing the point altogether: Giving gifts is good for society.

“Like other forms of sharing, giving gifts cements social bonds,” Aditya Chakrabortty wrote in The Guardian. “Such ties barely exist in Waldfogel’s world of consumer-onanism -- where shoppers ideally please only themselves -- but that isn’t the world the rest of us live in.”

THE WAR ON SANTA’S GUT

Last week, Australian public health expert Dr. Nathan Grills of Monash University was called a “killjoy” and a “scrooge” in the media for an article he wrote suggesting Santa Claus was promoting bad health habits. The article, called “Santa Claus: A public health pariah?” was published at bmj.com, a British medical journal, and suggested that Santa was sending the wrong message with his obesity, drunk sleigh-driving, speeding and generally bad lifestyle choices.

Grills also said Santa could easily become a vehicle for spreading disease because he allows so many children to sit on his lap. Factor in all the sugary products he helps sell, he added, and the man in red is clearly not pushing a healthy agenda.

But as the media jumped on the story, Grills said the article was a spoof he wrote in his spare time. He rigorously defended his love of Santa and said people had misunderstood what was meant to be tongue in cheek.

“We need to reclaim Christmas for the beauty of giving and loving. It is definitely not about alcohol companies and Coca-Cola exploiting Santa’s selling power! Santa has never accepted the job as chief sales consultant for a tobacco company,” Grills wrote in an e-mail to Sphere. “I believe in the true meaning of Santa. The true Santa, St. Nicholas, was a very generous man who gave of all his wealth to bless others who were in need.”

THE WAR ON YOUR NEIGHBOR’S LIGHT DISPLAY

As Christmas trees went up and light displays started flashing around the world, some people cringed at the thought of the electricity required to light the season. One environmental group, the Energy Justice Network, is providing tickets on their Web site for people to hand out to egregious offenders of Christmas light waste.

“Global warming is threatening Santa’s workshop, and the elves are worried about having to work in galoshes because of the ice melting,” the group says on its Web site.

Many of these light detractors suggest swapping out traditional Christmas lights with LED (light-emitting diodes) strings, which can be 90 percent more efficient. LED lights are used in the five miles of lights on Rockefeller Center’s Christmas tree and in the 32,256 lights in the New Year’s Eve ball in Times Square.

While using LED lights may be a step in the right direction, some point out that many of those lights still end up on carbon-eating trees that have been mercilessly chopped down.

“Nothing marks you out as an eco Scrooge quicker than protesting about non-essential festive lighting,” Lucy Siegle writes in The Observer. “So I refuse to condemn a few tree lights, although there’s a lot of truth in the idea that the only really green tree is the one with its roots still in the ground,”

Do we hear a new Christmas fault line opening?

A British defense of free speech.

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To people like me, educated in post-war Britain, free speech has been a firm premise of the British way of life. As John Stuart Mill expressed the point:

“The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.”

That famous statement is not the last word on the question, but it is the first word and was, during my youth, the received opinion of all educated people. The law, we believed, would protect the heretics, the dissidents and the doubters against any punishments devised to intimidate or silence them, for the very reason that truth and argument are sacred, and must be protected from those who seek to suppress them.

Moreover, public opinion was entirely on the side of the law, ready to shame those who assumed the right to silence their opponents, whatever the matter under discussion, and however extreme or absurd the views expressed.

All that is now changing. Under the Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006, it is an offence to stir up hatred towards religious and racial groups. “Stirring up hatred” is an expression both loaded and undefined. Do I stir up hatred towards a religious group by criticising its beliefs in outspoken terms? Under the terms of the act, I would have to use “threatening words and behaviour” and also intend to stir up hatred.

But is giving offence a reason to convict someone of a crime? The robust English view used to be that the correct response to offensive words is to ignore them, or to answer them with a rebuke. If you invoke the law at all, it should be to protect the one who gives the offence, and not the one who takes it. Now, it seems, it is all the other way round.

At the time of the attacks on the twin towers, many expressed their shock at the gratuitous murder of 3,000 innocent people, blaming doctrinal Islam for the perversion of the criminals responsible. Immediately a new word entered the public discourse - Islamophobia.

The religious fanaticism of those who had flown into the twin towers and the so-called Islamophobia of their critics were both represented as crimes, hardly distinguishable in their destructiveness. The main purpose of future policy, it was implied, must be to ensure that neither crime is committed again. Pressure mounted to forbid Islamophobia by law - and in its way that is what the Racial and Religious Hatred Act has tried to do.

Ed Miliband promised last April that a future Labour government would make Islamophobia into an aggravated criminal offence, and meanwhile the consequences for a civil servant, a policeman or a teacher of being accused of this fault are serious in the extreme.

This takes us back to what John Stuart Mill had in mind. It is not falsehood that causes the greatest offence, but truth. You can endure insults and abuse when you know them to be false. But if the remarks that offend you are true, their truth becomes a dagger in the soul - you cry “lies!” at the top of your voice, and know that you must silence the one who utters them.

That is what has happened in the case of Islamophobia. Muslims in our society are often victims of prejudice, abuse and assault, and this is a distressing situation that the law strives to remedy. But when people invent a phobia to explain all criticism of Islam it is not that kind of abuse that they have in mind. They wish to hide the truth, to shout “lies!” in the face of criticism and to silence any attempt at discussion. In my view, however, it is time to bring the truth into the open, including the truth about the Holy Book itself.

The classical Islamic philosophers, the early jurists and the Sufi poets all tried to interpret the Koran so that it would be compatible with life in the real world. But their efforts were increasingly disapproved of, and now it is widely held among orthodox Sunnis that interpretation is no longer permitted - or, as the saying goes, “the gate of ijtihad is closed”.

None of the real difficulties are to be discussed. And yet it is just now, in Islam’s encounter with Western democracy, that discussion is most needed. Muslims must adapt, just as we all must adapt, to the changed circumstances in which we live. And we adapt by putting things in question, by asking whether this or that belief is true or binding, and in general by opening our hearts to other people’s arguments and attempting to meet them with arguments of our own.

Free speech is not the cause of the tensions that are growing around us, but the only possible solution to them. If the government is to succeed in its new measures to eradicate Islamic extremism, therefore, it should be encouraging people to discuss the matter openly, regardless of who might take offence.

In 2008 it also became a crime to stir up hatred against groups defined by their sexual orientation. The orthodox liberal view is that homosexuality is innate and guiltless. Like the Islamists, the advocates of this view have invented a phobia with which to denounce their opponents. Deviate in the smallest matter from the orthodoxy, and you will be accused of homophobia and, although this is not yet a crime, it is accompanied, especially for those with any kind of public office, by real social costs.

The fear of accusation, of standing aside from the crowd, of not being impeccably on the side of the received opinion, explains much of the legislation attacking free speech in this country. Politicians have not sufficiently examined what they meant by “stirring up hatred”. They have been too keen to show that they are on the side of Muslims and also of homosexuals notwithstanding the manifest conflict between the two.

It is precisely for this reason that they should have been careful about introducing vague phrases that could be used to silence discussion. We may disapprove of the view that homosexuality is a sin, but it does not follow that the street preachers who have recently been arrested for saying so are stirring up hatred. However misguided their opinion might be, it is a legitimate contribution to a much-needed public debate - a debate that will not now occur, so fierce is the condemnation of those who deviate from the one permitted opinion.

What, then, should be the role of the law in policing the forum of public debate? It seems to me that it should not criminalise opinions that give offence, but protect those who express them. In the age of the internet, the Twitter crowd and social media, however, it is increasingly difficult for the law to intervene - abuse and persecution rapidly become widespread and anonymous, avoiding all punishment and blame.

A recent example illustrates what I mean. In the course of a scientific conference in Korea, Professor Sir Tim Hunt, the Nobel-prize winning biologist, said that when “girls” were present in a research laboratory “you fall in love with them, they fall in love with you, and when you criticise them they cry”.

As a result of the ensuing witch-hunt, Sir Tim was forced to resign from his professorship at University College London, the Royal Society (of which he is a fellow) went public with a denunciation, and he was pushed aside by the scientific community. A lifetime of distinguished creative work has ended in ruin.

The orthodox view today is that sex is in every respect irrelevant to the pursuit of a scientific career. I don’t know whether that view is true, though I doubt that it is, and clearly Sir Tim does not entirely endorse it either. How would I find out who is right? Surely, by considering the arguments, by weighing the competing opinions in the balance of reasoned discussion, and by encouraging the free expression of heretical views.

That is what free speech is about, and why the law has set out to protect it. Truth arises by an invisible hand from our many errors, and both error and truth must be protected. The heretic, however, is now exposed to public intimidation and abuse on a scale inconceivable before the invention of the internet.

Of course, we have moved on a bit from the Middle Ages. It is not the man who is assassinated now, but only his character. But the effect is the same. Free discussion is being everywhere shut down, so that we will never know who is right - the heretics, or those who try to silence them.

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A selection of reader comments:

To try to shut down a debate by simple condemnation or personal abuse is a sign of intellectual laziness and moral cowardice. It is very disturbing that apparently intelligent people can resort to bullying rather than considered discussion and tolerance of an opposing view.

-- David Jackson, Henley-on-Thames, UK

This is not philosophy; it’s a straight, white man defending his privilege. Because he is not a member of a group that has been oppressed and vilified, he cannot comprehend what he is defending. Black people don’t just hear hate speech when they hear the N word; they hear the credible threat of assault, murder or false imprisonment. Gay men who hear the F word are all too familiar with the punches and kicks that follow it. Hate speech IS an assault. It’s a shame that Mr Scruton can’t muster the empathy needed to understand that basic fact of life that many of us face every day.

-- John Edward, USA

Free speech must be upheld and protected by law. It is only through free speech that society can progress and achieve harmonious agreement on ethical standards which are the essence for a fair society and acceptable to all. Those who preach that there is ‘only one right way’ need to be constantly challenged.

-- Nicola Maurer, Bedford, UK

If our society is to continue to thrive and develop it is absolutely imperative that individuals are able to debate beliefs and ideas without fear of persecution. The stifling of philosophical thought and debate will lay us prey to narrow and unchallenged ideologies and create generations afraid to question and challenge ridiculous superstitions masquerading under the protective banner of religion.

-- Sally, London, UK

The gradual erosion of our liberties by political correctness, driven by who shouts loudest, is not the open society that I value so highly.

-- John Gallacher, Cardiff, UK

Free speech allows me to insult anyone. Can I go up to a complete stranger and insult his or her mother and then expect no retaliation? Can I go up to a police officer and swear at him or her and expect no consequence? Technically I could say that I am expressing my opinion in both cases. No: both cases are disrupting the peace and in both cases I should be duly punished. Free speech does not exist in the real world but respect for others should.

-- Zain Patel, Stafford, UK

The big flaw in Roger’s ‘obviously correct’ argument is that we are rarely dealing with people who can adopt the requisite dispassionate and objective views. For a start, over half the world is religious. Where will you find interested truth seekers in that population? Even among those only socially religious, there are still far too many people swayed by instinct and emotion rather than logic and reason.

-- Brian Boru, USA

Free speech must be upheld and protected by law. It is only through free speech that society can progress and achieve harmonious agreement on ethical standards which are the essence for a fair society and acceptable to all. Those who preach that there is ‘only one right way’ need to be constantly challenged.

-- Hugh Collins, Cheltenham, UK

Preachers standing on the street yelling that homosexuality is a sin are not making a “legitimate contribution to a much-needed public debate”, and saying something so ridiculous really undermines the position being presented. Yelling on street corners is not a public debate, and you’re ascribing values not once but twice by first declaring that society absolutely needs to debate whether homosexuality should be accepted or not, and then labelling this action as ‘legitimate’. I support the right to free speech, including posting ridiculous articles like this, but I reserve the right to critique them.

-- Emmy, Crawley, UK

Thirty years ago, as she accepted her Nobel Peace Prize, Mother Teresa told the story of a group of American professors who’d come to see her doing the Lord’s work in Calcutta. Before taking their leave, they asked for a bit of wisdom to take home with them. “Smile,” she replied, “for the smile is the beginning of love.”

Mother Teresa’s contention was that the first duty of a person who believes in Christ is to show others that you are happy -- that Christianity is working for you. This is the initial step in bearing witness to faith. A second is to enunciate that faith aloud. This would seem to be a requirement of those who follow Jesus; after all, he instructed his followers to give their testimony “to the ends of the Earth.”

But the secular world can be as resistant to hearing the “good news” of the gospel as it was in Jesus’ time, and few places in modern America are more secular than a big-city newsroom. Just ask Brit Hume, who had the temerity to offer a brief affirmation of his own faith this week -- and was promptly pilloried for it, especially in the media.

In case you missed it, Hume was on a panel of pundits talking about Tiger Woods’ troubles. Noting that the great golfer once publicly identified himself with Buddhism, the faith of his mother, Brit Hume said: “I don’t think that faith offers the kind of forgiveness and redemption that is offered by the Christian faith. So my message to Tiger would be, ‘Tiger, turn to the Christian faith and you can make a total recovery and be a great example to the world.’”

It was a pretty mild pitch, as these things go, but only if God-talk is familiar to you. It was clearly quite jarring to many of Hume’s colleagues. In a typical reaction, Jay Bookman of the Atlanta Journal Constitution asserted that “faith is a private matter between that person and God, and is not a matter to be judged by some pompous TV anchor.” In case Hume was misunderstood, Bookman subsequently called him “rude and crass” and guilty of “bad manners.” MSNBC anchor David Shuster maintained that Hume had somehow “denigrated” and “diminished” Christianity. Even knowledgeable religion writers were nonplussed by Hume. USA Today religion writer Cathy Grossman asserted on her blog that the Fox commentator was “talking trash.”

Others used the occasion for ad-hominem attacks on Fox News, Hume, and conservative Christians. (A few of these bon mots were clever: My friend E.J. Dionne passed along a quip making the rounds that Fox’s new mantra should be: “We report, you convert.”) But good natured ribbing seemed the exception. Many of Hume’s critics tended to be mean, misinformed, and all-too-willing to engage in the very intolerance they were decrying.

Leading the charge was the Huffington Post, which makes sense in today’s environment because it’s even more partisan than Fox News -- and on the other side of the political spectrum. But an ideological point of view seems an inadequate excuse for the kind of invective on display at HuffPo. In one post, Hume was blasted for being “sanctimonious” and “distasteful” and “inflammatory.” This much was true: HuffPo was certainly inflamed.

“Beware the Brit Humes in Your Office,” blared the headline from another Huffington Post blogger. This one, penned by business columnist Eve Tahmincioglu, included the following passage: “The fact that a journalist -- and I use that term loosely as it pertains to Hume -- would go on a national news show and put down another high-profile individual’s faith should tell all of us that religious bigotry, and bigotry as a whole, is a growing problem in this country.”

The most steamed scribe may have been Tom Shales, the prominent television writer at The Washington Post. Shales complained in his column that Hume’s comparative riff “sounded a little like one of those Verizon vs. AT&T commercials -- our brand is better than your brand -- except that Hume was comparing two of the world’s great religions, not a couple of greedy communications conglomerates.”

“Further,” Shales added, “is it really his job to run around trying to drum up new business? He doesn’t really have the authority, does he, unless one believes that every Christian by mandate must proselytize?” Shales went on this way at some length, gratuitously (and inaccurately) insulting Calvin Coolidge along the way. Hume’s “madness” and “off-the-cuff, off-the-wall” comments were, Shales insisted, destined to be “one of the most ridiculous” public statements of the year.

“First off, apologize,” Shales instructed Hume. “You gotta.”

Hume most definitely did not apologize. In fact, he was booked again on Fox News, this time as a guest, telling Bill O’Reilly that “if you speak the name Jesus Christ – and I don’t mean to make a pun here – but all hell breaks loose.” For those of us who knew Brit Hume before his conversion to Christianity, this droll observation was vintage Brit. It didn’t do much for his critics, however. Jon Stewart, who prides himself on his sense of irony, mocked Hume for playing the victim, apparently not realizing that in his sneering segment Stewart confirmed what Hume was saying, which is that you could prescribe almost anything for Tiger Woods without making yourself the target – anything but a spiritual solution.

Certainly no one pushed back when commentators on nearly every network offered up the junk science diagnosis of “sex addiction” for Tiger Woods. You just couldn’t tell Tiger to get his [rear-end] in church. Lisa Miller, writing in Newsweek, put it this way: “I’m not at all sure why the liberal left is always so shocked that evangelical Christians want other people to become Christians.”

But even Hume’s rare defenders, such as Miller, couldn’t countenance his overt comparison of Christianity to Buddhism. This is obviously politically incorrect, and it probably ought to be. I get that. In an era of worldwide sectarian violence, much of it propagated by religious fanatics who shriek “God is great,” before killing themselves along with innocent strangers, the emphasis ought to be on ecumenism, not sectarianism.

That said, it’s obvious that Hume has no particular animus for Buddhism; he was mainly using it as a rhetorical launching pad. Still, Woods is not known to closely follow any spiritual system, and practicing Buddhists didn’t appreciate being used as a foil in Hume’s brief sermon. But a funny thing happened when journos called prominent scholars of Buddhism for comment: They tended to confirm Hume’s underlying point about the Eastern faith.

Stephen Prothero, a Boston University professor on Buddhism, told Tamara Lush of the Associated Press: “You have the law of karma, so no matter what Woods says or does, he is going to have to pay for whatever wrongs he’s done. There’s no accountant in the sky wiping sins off your balance sheet, like there is in Christianity.” Added James William Coleman, a professor of Buddhist studies at Cal Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, Calif. “If you do what [Tiger Woods] has done, it comes back and hurts you.”

In other words, although Hume may have been inartful, he was not necessarily inaccurate: Redemption is a concept flowing out of the Judeo-Christian tradition rather than Eastern thought, although, again I concede that truth is not always a defense to insensitivity. (And, as my esteemed colleague David Gibson noted, polling suggests that American Buddhists are less likely to step out on their spouses than Protestants. So one alternate lesson would be that Tiger Woods ought to embrace his mother’s Eastern religion more faithfully.)

HUME’S OWN FAITH JOURNEY

I first met Brit Hume in the early 1990s when I covered the Clinton White House for The Baltimore Sun and Brit was the senior correspondent for ABC News. He was already an established presence in Washington journalism with an impressive résumé, a hefty salary, and the diffident presence of a man confident in his own abilities. He’d sit in the front row in the White House briefing room or on the press plane doing crossword puzzles, seeming not to take the anxieties of the day too much to heart.

In 1998, tragedy struck Brit Hume and his family when his son and namesake, Alexander Britton Hume Jr., committed suicide. Sandy Hume, as he was known, was 28 years old, an up-and-comer in Washington journalism. He’d been drinking heavily one night, was arrested by the U.S. Park Police for driving under the influence, had tried to strangle himself in his cell, and then, inexplicably released by authorities, had gone home and shot himself.

Such a horror is not something you ever get over. But you have to go on, and Brit Hume was able to do so, by his own account, because of the people who reached out to him in God’s name. Nearly 1,000 sympathy cards arrived, from strangers as well as friends.

“I read them all,” Hume told Christianity Today. “My mailbox would be stuffed with them night after night. I’d weep over some of them. Some of them were prayer cards, some of them would tell me a tree had been planted somewhere. I felt that I was seeing the face of God. I felt people’s support and love. To me it was a miracle. I’ve been trying to face up to the implications of believing in Christ and believing in God ever since.”

It only stands to reason, then, that out of this crucible, Brit Hume would want to share that miracle with others who are hurting -- with Tiger Woods, for example. And so, channeling Mother Teresa and not Tom Shales, Hume’s first duty is to smile, as painful as that must be some days. His second duty, as he sees it, is to share the reason he’s able to smile. So why would anyone begrudge him that?

When referring to the Trinity, most Christians are likely to say “Father, Son and the Holy Spirit.”

But leaders of the Presbyterian Church (USA) are suggesting some additional designations: “Compassionate Mother, Beloved Child and Life-giving Womb,” or perhaps “Overflowing Font, Living Water, Flowing River.” Then there’s “Rock, Cornerstone and Temple” and “Rainbow of Promise, Ark of Salvation and Dove of Peace.”

The phrases are among 12 suggested but not mandatory wordings essentially endorsed this month by delegates to the church’s policy-making body to describe a “triune God,” the Christian doctrine of God in three persons.

The Rev. Mark Brewer, senior pastor of Bel Air Presbyterian Church, is among those in the 2.3-million-member denomination unhappy with the additions. “You might as well put in Huey, Dewey and Louie,” he said.

Others include “Sun, Light and Burning Ray” and “Speaker, Word and Breath.” The wordings are meant to reflect particular aspects of worship, so a prayer noting God’s “wrath in the face of evil” might use “Fire That Consumes, Sword That Divides and Storm That Melts Mountains.” Some of the suggestions are familiar ones, such as “Creator, Savior, Sanctifier” and “Rock, Redeemer, Friend,” which other denominations already use.

“Any time you get together representatives of 2 1/2 million people, you get some really solid people and some really wacky people,” he said, referring to the delegates who attended the 217th General Assembly in Birmingham, Alabama.

Although the delegates did not officially adopt a report recommending the new designations, after extensive debate they voted 282 to 212 to “receive” the document. By not rejecting the report, the delegates essentially allowed individual churches to decide how to use the new phraseology.

Written by a diverse panel of working pastors and theologians, the report noted that the traditional language of the Trinity portrays God as male and implies men are superior to women. “For this and other distortions of Trinitarian doctrine we repent,” the report said.

Daniel L. Migliore, a member of the committee that spent five years crafting the report, said critics miss the point. “What we are speaking of is supplementary ways of referring to the triune God — not replacements, not substitutes,” said Migliore, professor of systematic theology at Princeton Theological Seminary.

And the Rev. Rebecca Button Prichard, pastor of Tustin Presbyterian Church, who headed the panel that wrote “The Trinity: God’s Love Overflowing,” strongly defended it as theologically sound. “What people are afraid is that they think we are taking ‘Father, Son and Holy Spirit’ away from them,” she said. “We’re not. What we want to say is that no words can fully describe God. And so we want people to seek a variety of expression, so we can do justice to the greatness of God.”

The concept that the omniscience of God is beyond comprehension — and, hence, human language — dates to antiquity. In ancient Israel, Jews did not dare to invoke the name of God — Yahweh — who declared in the Decalogue, “You shall have no other gods before me.”

But critics of the new designations say the wordings are confusing and reflect a concession to touchy modern sensibilities.

“They’re attempting to be politically correct, and unnecessarily so,” said Hank Hanegraaff, president of the Christian Research Institute in Charlotte, N.C. Hanegraaff contends that the report is based on a false premise that Christianity is patriarchal, an assumption he called “an urban legend” being circulated with increasing frequency. “Jesus Christ comes into a culture in which women are considered to be on the lowest rung of the socioeconomic ladder ... and makes women his disciples,” he said. “Women are the first to bear witness to the empty tomb, which is central in Christianity. The Bible says in Christ there is neither male nor female. We are one in Christ.”

Like many longtime Presbyterians, Sherie Zander, a Brentwood psychotherapist, has followed the General Assembly’s actions. She worries that the report on the Trinity will further divide her denomination, already polarized over issues such as the ordination of gays.

“It’s very odd and bizarre,” she said. When she first heard about the report last week from a friend who called her from Birmingham with “You’ve got to hear this,” she burst out laughing.

“It’s very clear that God refers to himself as the father,” she said. “Jesus, when he walked on the Earth, referred to himself as the son. All through Scripture, the Holy Spirit is referred to as the spirit. What would give any of us the right to change that?”

This is the 300th anniversary of American Presbyterianism. Presbyterians tend to be well-educated and middle- or upper-middle-class, and they place an emphasis on studying Scripture.

The Presbyterian Church (USA), the largest of the three Presbyterian groups, has traditionally been part of mainstream Protestantism, though it has tended to take liberal stands in recent years.

The church, which like other mainline denominations is losing thousands of members a year, is encouraging its 11,000 congregations to employ the Trinity designations except in baptism, which will continue to use “Father, Son and the Holy Spirit.”

The report will be made widely available “for study and reflection,” and study materials will be prepared for dissemination in congregations.

The Rev. Jonathan Lovelady, senior pastor of Westminster Presbyterian Church in Waynesboro, Va., said the panel made a noncontroversial matter into a controversy, adding that decisions like this encourage some churches to consider leaving the denomination.

“The report creates confusion for the name of God, by making a name equal with analogies and/or metaphors for God,” said Lovelady, a member of the General Assembly’s committee on theological issues. He sought to file a minority report against the recommendations, but it was rejected. “Is Father, Son and Holy Spirit interchangeable with Rainbow, Ark and Dove, or Compassionate Mother, Beloved Child and Life-giving Womb?” Lovelady asked.

Bishop Steven Charleston, president and dean of Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Mass., where inclusive language has been used for three decades, said he respects what the Presbyterian Church is trying to do. “When I saw the language that is being suggested here, I really understood it as a search that many Christian communities are undergoing now, to find more inclusive ways of referring to God,” he said.

The Rev. David M. Scholer, a professor of the New Testament at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, said this is a difficult task. “We don’t want to do things that perpetuate patriarchy,” said Scholer, an ordained American Baptist minister who supports inclusive language. “On the other hand, we don’t want to use terms that take away from awe and transcendence of God and what was accomplished in the life, death and resurrection of Christ.”

Bel Air’s Brewer also warned against over-familiar language. A child calling parents “Father” and “Mother,” he said, is far different from calling them “Billy and Betty.”

==============

The ideas come in threes

The Presbyterian Church (USA) is encouraging its members to use new wordings to reflect the Trinity, in addition to “Father, Son and the Holy Spirit.” A church report suggests how to phrase prayers, such as “The triune God is known to us as ‘Speaker, Word, and Breath.’ “

The specific references to the Trinity in the report:

Sun, Light and Burning Ray

• Compassionate Mother, Beloved Child and Life-giving Womb

• Giver, Gift and Giving

• Rainbow of Promise, Ark of Salvation and Dove of Peace.

• Lover, Beloved and the Love, and Binds Together Lover and Beloved

• Overflowing Font, Living Water, Flowing River

• One From Whom, the One Through Whom, and the One in Whom We Offer Our Praise

• Rock, Cornerstone and Temple

• Fire That Consumes, Sword That Divides, and Storm That Melts Mountains

• Creator, Savior, Sanctifier

• Rock, Redeemer, Friend

• King of Glory, Prince of Peace, Spirit of Love

• One Who Was, the One Who Is and the One Who Is to Come

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Source: “The Trinity: God’s Love Overflowing,” a report by a committee of the Presbyterian Church (USA)

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Note at end of article, by truthandgrace.com editor: "Heretics are replacing nouns with adjectives thereby eliminating the Persons of the Trinity."

Politically correct colleges are actually harming their students by trying to protect them from ever being offended. Trigger warnings and censorship in education, next on BreakPoint.

On many college campuses, a movement is afoot to shut down statements or topics that might offend some people, or that will “trigger” unpleasant feelings or emotions. They’re called “microagressions.” And what qualifies as a “microagression” that may “trigger” someone these days can get downright ridiculous.

For example, earlier this year at Brandeis University, an Asian American student group put up a display with comments such as, “Aren’t you supposed to be good at math?” and even “I’m colorblind! I don’t see race.” Well, even this was too much for some other Asian students, who said the display itself was offensive — and had it taken down. Meanwhile, the University of California system has deemed many statements, including “America is the land of opportunity” and “I believe the most qualified person should get the job,” to be offensive.

Now you can’t make this stuff up, but it’s no laughing matter.

In The Atlantic, Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt note that “The ultimate aim, it seems, is to turn campuses into ‘safe spaces’ where young adults are shielded from words and ideas that make some uncomfortable. And ... this movement seeks to punish anyone who interferes with that aim, even accidentally. You might call this impulse vindictive protectiveness. It is creating a culture in which everyone must think twice before speaking up, lest they face charges of insensitivity, aggression, or worse.”

Lukianoff and Haidt correctly observe that such foolishness is anathema to the very idea of higher education — that the campus should be a place where tough questions can be asked without fear or favor, and where students are taught not what to think but how to think. They point out that the effort to shield people from what is unpleasant or what they fear actually can make phobias worse.

They write, “According to the most-basic tenets of psychology, helping people with anxiety disorders avoid the things they fear is misguided ... What are we doing to our students if we encourage them to develop extra-thin skin just before they leave the cocoon of adult protection?”

It’s a good question we need to ask in the church, too. Censoring everything that makes our kids uncomfortable prepares them for a world that simply doesn’t exist. Christian Smith’s research on the religious beliefs of young people and the pallid “moralistic therapeutic deism” that many of them have withdrawn into suggests that we must not only help them develop a Christian worldview, but a robust Christian worldview, one that’s big enough for the brokenness, the struggle, the challenges, and the tensions of the real world.

Steve Garber, in one of my favorite books on education, “The Fabric of Faithfulness: Weaving Together Belief and Behavior”, describes what a “big enough” worldview looks like. First, he says, we need to see the Bible not as a collection of rules and maxims but as a single story of God’s plan of redemption of all things, and where our role is in that story. Second, Garber says, a “big enough” worldview won’t constrict our options as believers but will instead open the doors of our imagination in all areas of life.

Third, and this is a big one for young people, a “big enough” worldview will help us confront all issues of life. How different from the cramped visions of political correctness on our campuses today! And fourth, Garber says, a “big enough” worldview is measured not just by our formal doctrines and creeds — as important as they are — but how it impacts our lives. After all, our worldview is not revealed by what we say, but how we live.

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Copyright (c) 2015 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

Are you in the mood for a Christmas movie? How about one where a department-store Santa swears incessantly at little kids, gets falling-down drunk, robs stores, and has a few graphic sex scenes?

Believe it or not, that movie, called BAD SANTA, opened a few weeks ago. I haven't had the privilege of seeing this little gem, but the reviews were full of details about its rampant vulgarity. BAD SANTA didn't do too well at the box office, but, boy, did the critics love it. To take just a few of the many examples: Mark Caro of the CHICAGO TRIBUNE called the dark comedy “the foulest holiday movie I've ever seen — and the funniest.” He recommends it “for those ... who tire of Christmas cheer being rammed down their throats.” And Mary Brennan of the SEATTLE TIMES called the movie “a profane, wildly politically incorrect and sometimes shockingly funny holiday comedy ... [and] a welcome antidote to all that precious, wholesome holiday cheer.” (Isn't it interesting, by the way, that even some of those who like “political incorrectness” can't bring themselves to use the word CHRISTMAS instead of the word HOLIDAY?)

As Michael Medved, himself a respected film critic, has written, critics get jaded after too much movie viewing and start to welcome anything that's bizarre and different. But this time, there may be more to it. What the critics are saying about “holiday cheer” points to what they really like about BAD SANTA: the way it subverts all our expectations about Christmas movies. While most such movies are optimistic and sweet, BAD SANTA is glum and sour — and some people see that as what one reviewer called “a breath of fresh air.”

It just shows the damage that's been done by our culture's attempt to redefine Christmas. For decades, Christmas has been commercialized and secularized. Silly “holiday specials” announce that the “true meaning of Christmas” is spending time with family and friends, or buying special gifts, or feeling happy all the time. Christmas has been whitewashed and sugarcoated within an inch of its life. Really, is it any wonder that a season of relentless, meaningless hype is making some people feel crankier at Christmas than at any other time of the year?

I wonder what would happen if more people were willing to take a fresh look at Christmas. Could anything be more shocking than the idea that God was born into this world as a helpless baby? Or the thought that He eventually let Himself be murdered by His fellow human beings so that He could take the punishment for all the wrong we have done?

As Dorothy L. Sayers wrote, “If you show people that, they are shocked. So they should be. If that does not shock them, nothing can.” If we Christians persisted in speaking out about the “politically incorrect” meaning of Christmas, Jesus — and if we practice what we preach by truly celebrating the Incarnation of our Lord — I think it could be a very different day. And some of those world-weary cynics out there wouldn't have to rely on profanity and bleakness to get some excitement out of life.

FOR FURTHER READING AND INFORMATION:

• Mary Brennan, “'Bad Santa' way past naughty or nice,” Seattle Times, 26 November 2003.

• Mark Caro, “Holiday feast,” Chicago Tribune, 26 November 2003.

• John Kass, “Disney owes fans apology for 'Bad Santa' ad,” Chicago Tribune, 21 November 2003.

• James Bowman, “Innocence, Appreciated,” National Review Online, 26 November 2003.

• Peter Wood, “Defining Obscenity Down,” National Review Online, 3 December 2003.

• Andrew McGinn, “Good Grief! Clueless network executives almost killed 'A Charlie Brown Christmas' nearly 40 years ago,” Springfield News-Sun, 11 December 2003.

• BreakPoint Commentary No. 021224, “O Come All Ye Shoppers.” (Archived commentary; free registration required.)

• Michael Snyder, “Holy Invasion,” BreakPoint WorldView, December 2003.

• BreakPoint Commentary No. 001221, “A Modern Christmas Carol.”

• M. Moore, “The Week before Christmas,” BreakPoint Online, 19 December 2002.

• John Fischer, “The Scandal of the Dancing Christ,” BreakPoint Online, December 2001.

• Roberto Rivera, “Elf: Men in Tights,” BreakPoint Online, 5 November 2003.

• Michael Medved, Hollywood vs. America (HarperCollins, 1993).

• Dorothy L. Sayers, The Man Born to Be King (Ignatius, 1990 edition).

• Madeleine L'Engle, The Glorious Impossible (Simon & Schuster, 1990).

• Richard Exley, The Indescribable Gift (Honor Books, 1997).

• See the “BreakPoint with Chuck Colson Recommended Films“ list for more movie-viewing ideas.

• Ted Baehr, What Can We Watch Tonight?: A Family Guide to Movies (Zondervan, 2003).

• Richard Winter, Still Bored in a Culture of Entertainment: Rediscovering Passion and Wonder (InterVarsity, 2002).

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Copyright (c) 2003 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

Ben Stein, a lawyer by training, served as a speechwriter for President Richard M. Nixon before he became an actor in Hollywood. He is probably best known for his role as the dreadfully dull economics teacher in the film FERRIS BUELLER’S DAY OFF.

Mr. Stein currently offers occasional commentaries for the CBS Sunday Morning news program, and his commentary on December 18, 2005, is quoted below:

====================

Here at this happy time of year, a few confessions from my beating heart. I have no freaking clue who Nick and Jessica [Simpson] are.

I see them on the cover of PEOPLE and US constantly when I’m buying my dog biscuits. I still don’t know. I often ask the checkers at the grocery stores who they are. They don’t know who Nick and Jessica are, either. Who are they? Will it change my life if I know who they are and why they’ve broken up? Why are they so darned important?

I don’t know who Lindsay Lohan is either, and I don’t care at all about Tom Cruise’s baby.

Am I going to be called before a Senate committee and asked if I’m a subversive? Maybe. But I just have no clue who Nick and Jessica are. Is this what it means to be no longer young? Hm, not so bad.

Next confession: I am a Jew and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish, and it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautifully lit-up, bejeweled trees Christmas trees.

I don’t feel threatened. I don’t feel discriminated against. That’s what they are — Christmas trees. It doesn’t bother me a bit when people say ‘Merry Christmas’ to me. I don’t think they’re slighting me or getting ready to put me in a ghetto. In fact, I kind of like it. I shows that we’re all brothers and sisters celebrating this happy time of year.

It doesn’t bother me one bit that there’s a manger scene on display at a key intersection at my beach house in Malibu.

If people want a creche, fine. The menorah a few hundred yards away is fine, too. I do not like getting pushed around for being a Jew, and I don’t think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians. I think people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period. I have no idea where the concept came from that America is an explicitly atheist country. I can’t find it in the Constitution and I don’t like it being shoved down my throat. Or maybe I can put it another way. Where did the idea come from that we should worship Nick and Jessica and aren’t allowed to worship God as we understand him? I guess that’s a sign that I’m getting old, too. But there are a lot of us who are wondering where Nick and Jessica came from and where the America we used to know went to.

Thirty years ago, as she accepted her Nobel Peace Prize, Mother Teresa told the story of a group of American professors who’d come to see her doing the Lord’s work in Calcutta. Before taking their leave, they asked for a bit of wisdom to take home with them. “Smile,” she replied, “for the smile is the beginning of love.”

Mother Teresa’s contention was that the first duty of a person who believes in Christ is to show others that you are happy -- that Christianity is working for you. This is the initial step in bearing witness to faith. A second is to enunciate that faith aloud. This would seem to be a requirement of those who follow Jesus; after all, he instructed his followers to give their testimony “to the ends of the Earth.”

But the secular world can be as resistant to hearing the “good news” of the gospel as it was in Jesus’ time, and few places in modern America are more secular than a big-city newsroom. Just ask Brit Hume, who had the temerity to offer a brief affirmation of his own faith this week -- and was promptly pilloried for it, especially in the media.

In case you missed it, Hume was on a panel of pundits talking about Tiger Woods’ troubles. Noting that the great golfer once publicly identified himself with Buddhism, the faith of his mother, Brit Hume said: “I don’t think that faith offers the kind of forgiveness and redemption that is offered by the Christian faith. So my message to Tiger would be, ‘Tiger, turn to the Christian faith and you can make a total recovery and be a great example to the world.’”

It was a pretty mild pitch, as these things go, but only if God-talk is familiar to you. It was clearly quite jarring to many of Hume’s colleagues. In a typical reaction, Jay Bookman of the Atlanta Journal Constitution asserted that “faith is a private matter between that person and God, and is not a matter to be judged by some pompous TV anchor.” In case Hume was misunderstood, Bookman subsequently called him “rude and crass” and guilty of “bad manners.” MSNBC anchor David Shuster maintained that Hume had somehow “denigrated” and “diminished” Christianity. Even knowledgeable religion writers were nonplussed by Hume. USA Today religion writer Cathy Grossman asserted on her blog that the Fox commentator was “talking trash.”

Others used the occasion for ad-hominem attacks on Fox News, Hume, and conservative Christians. (A few of these bon mots were clever: My friend E.J. Dionne passed along a quip making the rounds that Fox’s new mantra should be: “We report, you convert.”) But good natured ribbing seemed the exception. Many of Hume’s critics tended to be mean, misinformed, and all-too-willing to engage in the very intolerance they were decrying.

Leading the charge was the Huffington Post, which makes sense in today’s environment because it’s even more partisan than Fox News -- and on the other side of the political spectrum. But an ideological point of view seems an inadequate excuse for the kind of invective on display at HuffPo. In one post, Hume was blasted for being “sanctimonious” and “distasteful” and “inflammatory.” This much was true: HuffPo was certainly inflamed.

“Beware the Brit Humes in Your Office,” blared the headline from another Huffington Post blogger. This one, penned by business columnist Eve Tahmincioglu, included the following passage: “The fact that a journalist -- and I use that term loosely as it pertains to Hume -- would go on a national news show and put down another high-profile individual’s faith should tell all of us that religious bigotry, and bigotry as a whole, is a growing problem in this country.”

The most steamed scribe may have been Tom Shales, the prominent television writer at The Washington Post. Shales complained in his column that Hume’s comparative riff “sounded a little like one of those Verizon vs. AT&T commercials -- our brand is better than your brand -- except that Hume was comparing two of the world’s great religions, not a couple of greedy communications conglomerates.”

“Further,” Shales added, “is it really his job to run around trying to drum up new business? He doesn’t really have the authority, does he, unless one believes that every Christian by mandate must proselytize?” Shales went on this way at some length, gratuitously (and inaccurately) insulting Calvin Coolidge along the way. Hume’s “madness” and “off-the-cuff, off-the-wall” comments were, Shales insisted, destined to be “one of the most ridiculous” public statements of the year.

“First off, apologize,” Shales instructed Hume. “You gotta.”

Hume most definitely did not apologize. In fact, he was booked again on Fox News, this time as a guest, telling Bill O’Reilly that “if you speak the name Jesus Christ – and I don’t mean to make a pun here – but all hell breaks loose.” For those of us who knew Brit Hume before his conversion to Christianity, this droll observation was vintage Brit. It didn’t do much for his critics, however. Jon Stewart, who prides himself on his sense of irony, mocked Hume for playing the victim, apparently not realizing that in his sneering segment Stewart confirmed what Hume was saying, which is that you could prescribe almost anything for Tiger Woods without making yourself the target – anything but a spiritual solution.

Certainly no one pushed back when commentators on nearly every network offered up the junk science diagnosis of “sex addiction” for Tiger Woods. You just couldn’t tell Tiger to get his [rear-end] in church. Lisa Miller, writing in Newsweek, put it this way: “I’m not at all sure why the liberal left is always so shocked that evangelical Christians want other people to become Christians.”

But even Hume’s rare defenders, such as Miller, couldn’t countenance his overt comparison of Christianity to Buddhism. This is obviously politically incorrect, and it probably ought to be. I get that. In an era of worldwide sectarian violence, much of it propagated by religious fanatics who shriek “God is great,” before killing themselves along with innocent strangers, the emphasis ought to be on ecumenism, not sectarianism.

That said, it’s obvious that Hume has no particular animus for Buddhism; he was mainly using it as a rhetorical launching pad. Still, Woods is not known to closely follow any spiritual system, and practicing Buddhists didn’t appreciate being used as a foil in Hume’s brief sermon. But a funny thing happened when journos called prominent scholars of Buddhism for comment: They tended to confirm Hume’s underlying point about the Eastern faith.

Stephen Prothero, a Boston University professor on Buddhism, told Tamara Lush of the Associated Press: “You have the law of karma, so no matter what Woods says or does, he is going to have to pay for whatever wrongs he’s done. There’s no accountant in the sky wiping sins off your balance sheet, like there is in Christianity.” Added James William Coleman, a professor of Buddhist studies at Cal Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, Calif. “If you do what [Tiger Woods] has done, it comes back and hurts you.”

In other words, although Hume may have been inartful, he was not necessarily inaccurate: Redemption is a concept flowing out of the Judeo-Christian tradition rather than Eastern thought, although, again I concede that truth is not always a defense to insensitivity. (And, as my esteemed colleague David Gibson noted, polling suggests that American Buddhists are less likely to step out on their spouses than Protestants. So one alternate lesson would be that Tiger Woods ought to embrace his mother’s Eastern religion more faithfully.)

HUME’S OWN FAITH JOURNEY

I first met Brit Hume in the early 1990s when I covered the Clinton White House for The Baltimore Sun and Brit was the senior correspondent for ABC News. He was already an established presence in Washington journalism with an impressive résumé, a hefty salary, and the diffident presence of a man confident in his own abilities. He’d sit in the front row in the White House briefing room or on the press plane doing crossword puzzles, seeming not to take the anxieties of the day too much to heart.

In 1998, tragedy struck Brit Hume and his family when his son and namesake, Alexander Britton Hume Jr., committed suicide. Sandy Hume, as he was known, was 28 years old, an up-and-comer in Washington journalism. He’d been drinking heavily one night, was arrested by the U.S. Park Police for driving under the influence, had tried to strangle himself in his cell, and then, inexplicably released by authorities, had gone home and shot himself.

Such a horror is not something you ever get over. But you have to go on, and Brit Hume was able to do so, by his own account, because of the people who reached out to him in God’s name. Nearly 1,000 sympathy cards arrived, from strangers as well as friends.

“I read them all,” Hume told Christianity Today. “My mailbox would be stuffed with them night after night. I’d weep over some of them. Some of them were prayer cards, some of them would tell me a tree had been planted somewhere. I felt that I was seeing the face of God. I felt people’s support and love. To me it was a miracle. I’ve been trying to face up to the implications of believing in Christ and believing in God ever since.”

It only stands to reason, then, that out of this crucible, Brit Hume would want to share that miracle with others who are hurting -- with Tiger Woods, for example. And so, channeling Mother Teresa and not Tom Shales, Hume’s first duty is to smile, as painful as that must be some days. His second duty, as he sees it, is to share the reason he’s able to smile. So why would anyone begrudge him that?

The Church of England has eliminated temptation -- or at least, the reference to it in the Lord's Prayer.

Senior clerics voted this week to delete the words "Lead us not into temptation" and substitute "Save us from the time of trial" in a modern version of the prayer to be introduced in church services in the new millennium.

The change was voted in on Wednesday by the church's general synod, or council -- which also heard a warning from the Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, not to pursue "modernity for the sake of it."

Church spokesman Steve Jenkins said he didn't see a contradiction.

"He (Carey) was warning about excessive modernisation, for modernisation's sake. This (changing the prayer) isn't," Jenkins said.

Jenkins cautioned that the prayer change is still not final because it must go to a revision committee and then be approved again by the general synod, possibly later this year.

Congregations will still have a choice of whether to use the traditional version of the prayer or the modern one, he said.

Up to two million people attend Church of England services every Sunday.

Traditionalists who opposed the new version argued that the old version was part of the nation's linguistic inheritance, and a Gallup poll appeared to back them up.

The poll, taken for the church's millennium team, said 82 percent of those surveyed could recite the Lord's Prayer, and almost half had learned it at school.

Dartmouth College is older than the United States of America, having been established in 1750 as “Moore's Indian Charity School.” That's a part of Dartmouth's history that would be unknown to most Americans, but the school was established by Reverend Eleazar Wheelock, a leading figure in the nation's first Great Awakening. Wheelock established the school with the purpose of evangelizing American Indians, and he intended for the school eventually known as Dartmouth College to compete with Harvard and Yale in terms of academic distinction. In other words, Dartmouth College is an Ivy League institution originally established for the evangelization of Native Americans.

Keep that in mind as you learn of more recent developments. On September 20, Dartmouth's student body president, Noah Riner, delivered the customary convocation address -- a responsibility that comes with his elected position. Mr. Riner's speech was relatively short, intensely personal, and intellectually courageous. All that explains why Mr. Riner, a home-schooled native of Louisville, Kentucky, soon found himself at the center of controversy.

The response to Riner's speech included vitriolic outrage. He was denounced, criticized, and lambasted for the content of his controversial address. The Student Assembly's vice president for student life resigned the very next day, indicating that she could not serve with Riner because of his “appalling” speech to incoming freshmen.

What in the world did Riner say? “You really are special,” he told the Dartmouth class of 2009. But Mr. Riner didn't stop there.

“But it isn't enough to be special,” he continued. “It isn't enough to be talented, to be beautiful, to be smart. Generations of amazing students have come before you, and have sat in your seats. Some have been good, some have been bad. All have been special.”

Just a few words into his convocation address, Riner signaled that he intended to address the incoming students with something more than emotionalism, congratulations, and simplistic affirmation. He had another issue in mind -- character.

His speech took a fascinating turn when Riner recited a list of Dartmouth graduates who had ended up as examples of deficient character. A member of the class of 1939 became a Soviet spy, even as a later graduate committed murder and yet another was arrested for sexually assaulting a fifteen-year-old student.

“These stories demonstrate that it takes more than a Dartmouth degree to build character,” Riner asserted. Even at this point, we must recognize that Riner's convocation address must have broken the norm. After all, he was addressing the bright, privileged, and ambitious new class with the message that a Dartmouth education, while important, was not ultimate.

From that point, Riner expanded his focus to include developments such as looting in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and a crisis of character that affects the entire nation.

“We have the same flaws as the individuals who pillaged New Orleans. Ours haven't been given such free reign, but they exist and are part of us all the same.”

We can be fairly certain that at least some of those bright young people sitting in the audience would have been surprised, if not offended, to be told that they are sinners. “Let's be honest,” Riner insisted, “the differences are in degree.”

But if Riner's assertion that character is primary was not offensive enough, his example of character set many to squirming in their seats.

“Character has a lot to do with sacrifice, laying our personal interests down for something bigger,” Riner argued. “The best example of this is Jesus. In the Garden of Gethsemane, just hours before His crucifixion, Jesus prayed, 'Father, if Thou be willing, remove this cup from Me: nevertheless not My will, but Thine, be done.’ He knew the right thing to do. He knew the cost would be agonizing torture and death. He did it anyway. That's character.”

Noah Riner went on. “Jesus is a good example of character, but He's also much more than that. He is the solution to flawed people like corrupt Dartmouth alums, looters, and me.” As he later explained, “Jesus' message of redemption is simple. People are imperfect, and there are consequences for our actions. He gave His life for our sin so that we wouldn't have to bear the penalty of the law; so we could see love. The problem is me; the solution is God's love: Jesus on the cross, for us.”

The response was immediate, vitriolic, and revealing. The cartoonist for the college's campus newspaper, The Dartmouth, drew a comic strip depicting Riner as a crusading theocrat and Jesus as a marijuana smoker. Kaelin Goulet not only resigned as vice president for student life, but also condemned Riner for his speech. “Your first opportunity to represent Student Assembly to the incoming freshmen was appalling,” she wrote. “You embarrassed the organization; you embarrassed yourself.” In an email message cited by the campus newspaper, Goulet charged, “I consider his choice of topic for the Convocation speech reprehensible and an abuse of power.”

“I have been looking forward to working with you all and thought we were in agreement for what SA stands for,” the former vice president wrote. “Apparently, I was incorrect.” Her spirit of cooperation evidently did not extend to Mr. Riner's right to speak his mind in his convocation address.

Leaders of Hillel and Shanti, the Jewish and Hindu religious groups on Dartmouth's campus, wrote a letter to the campus newspaper that described Noah Riner's convocation address as a “disrespectful action” which represents “the complete antithesis of the value that Dartmouth espouses.”

The editors of The Dartmouth acknowledged the college's roots, reminding readers that Dartmouth had been founded “to bring Christianity to Native Americans.” Nevertheless, the paper celebrated the fact that “Dartmouth has more recently eschewed this goal in favor of providing a balanced, secular and inclusive education to its students.”

According to the editors, “The problem with Riner's address was his insinuation that turning to Jesus is the only way to find character. Indeed, Jesus was the only positive example of character Riner offered. While many of the ideas Jesus exemplified and his followers espoused stretch across faiths, statements such as, 'Jesus is a good example of character, but He's also much more than that. He is the solution to flawed people like corrupt Dartmouth alums, looters, and me' and, 'The problem is me; the solution is God's love: Jesus on the cross, for us,' are explicitly Christian and, as such, managed to alienate many in the audience regardless of their faiths.”

Note clearly -- the very fact that Dartmouth's student body president would espouse convictions consistent with the college's founding vision was considered an act virtually tantamount to treason against Dartmouth's current “secular and inclusive” vision.

Brian Martin, guest columnist for the campus newspaper, described Riner's convocation address as “fire-and-brimstone remarks” that demonstrated “casual disrespect for the diversity of the captive audience.”

“We are a community that welcomes and respects all its members, no matter what your creed,” Martin insisted. Evidently, this means welcome and respect to all members and all creeds -- except for the founding creed of the institution.

Martin pushed his point one step further, arguing that “Jesus would not have wanted to make new students feel unwelcome, to make faculty feel uncomfortable or to make alumni question whether this was the same Dartmouth that they had attended.” Are we to assume that Jesus Christ would have felt himself constrained by Ivy League etiquette? So much for cleansing the Temple.

Mr. Riner was not without his defenders. “Had Noah Riner opened his convocation speech with 'I'm gay,' this wouldn't be happening. That's not Noah, but if it were, no one would have resigned. No one would be organizing protests. Such a reaction, according to our rigid social standards, would be bigotry. If there were any Op-Eds or outcries, they would be praising his ability to encourage individualism and progressivism in Dartmouth.” Those are the words of Stacey Kourlis, who defended Riner in a column published in The Dartmouth. “We chose a leader who is willing to stand up and articulate his or her beliefs,” Kourlis argued. “We didn't default to someone who's doing this for a resume. That's a testament to how special we [are] as a community. So let's take it one step further and allow Riner to say precisely what he thinks, without fear of political correctness.”

The charter that established what we now know as Dartmouth College was granted by King George III of England, who stated that the purpose of the institution should be “for civilizing and Christianizing the children of pagans, as well as in all liberal arts and sciences, and also of English youths and any others.” Noah Riner's crime was to fulfill that mission by speaking honestly, courageously, and sincerely about his Christian faith. It was a bold and powerful demonstration of Christian witness, and it was one young man's demonstration of the very strength of character that authentic education is to stimulate and strengthen, not subvert and marginalize.

The controversy over Noah Riner's convocation address at Dartmouth is a bracing reminder of the fact that America's most prestigious academic institutions have become openly hostile to the very convictions upon which they were established. In the name of diversity, voices such as Noah Riner's are decried and condemned. Just sixty years ago, Ernest M. Hopkins, then president of Dartmouth, said, “Dartmouth is a Christian college founded for the Christianization of its students.” One wonders whether Reverend Wheelock and President Hopkins would be welcomed today on the campus of the college they respectively founded and led.

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From Baptist Press, October 12, 2005, by Erin Curry:

His speech has been called “appalling,” “reprehensible,” “an abuse of power,” “disrespectful” and “embarrassing.” What could have drawn such consternation?

The outrage is over a convocation speech by Noah Riner, student body president of Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, one which employed the sinless example of Jesus Christ as how men and women can manage to display good character as they make their way through a sinful world.

Riner gave the speech as he welcomed freshmen to the Ivy League campus Sept. 20, beginning with compliments toward the accomplished students.

“You’ve been told that you are a special class,” he said, according to a partial transcript published by The Washington Times. “A quick look at the statistics confirms that claim. Quite simply, you are the smartest and most diverse group of freshmen to set foot on the Dartmouth campus. You have more potential than all of the other classes. You really are special.”

The seasoned student went on to point out that it’s not enough to be special, talented, beautiful or smart because plenty of students have been so and have even graduated from Dartmouth but have gone on to commit crimes rooted in their corrupt character. Riner listed some examples, including a graduate who became a Soviet spy, one who murdered and one who sexually assaulted a young girl.

Then came the controversy.

“Character has a lot to do with sacrifice, laying our personal interests down for something bigger,” he said. “The best example of this is Jesus. In the Garden of Gethsemane, just hours before His crucifixion, Jesus prayed, ‘Father, if Thou be willing, remove this cup from me; nevertheless, not my will, but Thine, be done.’ He knew the right thing to do. He knew the cost would be agonizing torture and death. He did it anyway. That’s character.”

Riner added that Jesus is the solution for sinners like him and all others and Jesus’ message of redemption means there are consequences for actions.

“He gave His life for our sin so that we wouldn’t have to bear the penalty of the law, so we could see love. The problem is me; the solution is God’s love: Jesus on the cross, for us,” Riner said.

The next day, the vice president of the student body resigned, telling Riner, “Your first opportunity to represent Student Assembly to the incoming freshmen was appalling. You embarrassed the organization; you embarrassed yourself.”

Others heaped vicious criticism on Riner, including opinion pieces and cartoons in the student newspaper.

R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, addressed the debacle in his Oct. 7 commentary on albertmohler.com.

“The controversy over Noah Riner’s convocation address at Dartmouth is a bracing reminder of the fact that America’s most prestigious academic institutions have become openly hostile to the very convictions upon which they were established,” Mohler wrote, after noting that the predecessor to Dartmouth College was founded in 1750 for the purpose of evangelizing Native Americans.

*

In June 2017, the Canadian Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario (EFTO) asked teachers to attend a seminar on LGGBDTTTIQQAAPP Inclusiveness Training. An images of the flyer was recirculated recently on social media after being featured in an article in the Daily Mail, and the flyer has gained quite a bit of attention for the use of the lengthy acronym. According to the flyer, LGGBDTTTIQQAAPP stands for Lesbian, Gay, Genderqueer, Bisexual, Demisexual, Transgender, Transsexual, Twospirit, Intersex, Queer, Questioning, Asexual, Allies, Pansexual, and Polyamorous.

Some of these terms in the acronym may require an explanation. According to the Daily Wire, “Genderqueer” refers to a person who “does not subscribe to conventional gender distinctions but identifies with neither, both, or a combination of male and female genders.” A “demisexual” is a person who requires a strong emotional connection with someone before feeling a sexual attraction to that person. “Two-spirited” identifies individuals who feel that they have both masculine and feminine spirits. “Intersex” is a birth defect once called hermaphrodite, in which a child is born with both sex organs of male and female. If you are an “ally,” you are apparently someone who makes your support for the LGBTQ community quite well known despite not being a member of that community. PJMedia.com describes this as someone who “virtue signal[s] constantly on Twitter” in order to “shield themselves from the gaystappo squads who come around looking for people who aren’t properly broadcasting their approval of the queer agenda.” “Pansexual” claims to be different than bisexual in that pansexuals are attracted to people of various “gender identities,” not just males or females.

Once the flyer circulated on social media, users could not help but poke fun at the sheer length of the acronym. “When the keyboard gets stuck and you just go with it,” one user joked. Another remarked, “Isn’t that a village in Wales?”

While many (understandably) thought the whole thing was hoax, the organizers of the event told Snopes, “Yes, the poster is genuine. The intent of the title was to draw workshop participants (teachers) by acknowledging that keeping track of diverse LGBTQ identities can be overwhelming, especially as our students are continuously identifying new ones. In our union, we use LGBTQ as an umbrella term for all marginalized sexual and gender identities.”

Note that point: Those students identifying new “gender identities” are in elementary school.

The flyer stated, “Fewer than 1 percent of EFTO members are open with their identities, though some surveys suggest as much as half of the public secretly identifies as LGBT to some extent.” But there are other explanations for the survey results that are worth considering before jumping to the conclusion that half of the public “secretly” identifies as LGBTQ. The statistic comes from a knee-jerk reading of a YouGov study in which just 46 percent of 18- to 24-year olds rated themselves as “completely heterosexual.”

Is it possible that perhaps the young people surveyed had been misled by the seemingly unending array of words that have been created to describe sexual identity, best evidenced by the length of the acronym used on the flyer?

Another possible explanation for the results is that this generation has been brow-beaten into believing that sexuality is a spectrum and it is nearly impossible to be “completely” on one end of that spectrum or the other.

Perhaps the majority of the young people who were surveyed identify as “Allies” to the LGBTQ community and believed that by failing to identify as “completely heterosexual,” they were standing with their LGGBDTTTIQQAAPP friends by showcasing their open-mindedness to sexuality.

One thing that the study seems to underscore is that the notion of gender “fluidity” is really a cultural one. The younger the individuals surveyed were, the less likely they were to claim that they were “completely heterosexual.” This makes sense if one understands that gender and sexuality fluidity are quite trendy notions.

Nevertheless, the LGGBDTTTIQQAAPP seminar attempted to help attendees wade through the confusing alphabet soup.

It’s worth noting that the YouGov survey was based on a scale created by noted sexual scientist Alfred Kinsey, who utilized highly controversial methods, including child molestation, in the name of science and has been criticized for promoting promiscuity and the destruction of the family unit.