WHAT ARE THEY DOING TO US?

There is a phenomenon in the land. We see it everywhere. It takes no holidays; we see it especially on holidays. It expresses itself in gag orders, sanctions and censorship. It's real and there for all to see, but its cause remains to many invisible to the physical eye. To see it, we need the spiritual lens provided by Genesis 3:15 in which God speaks of a supernatural conflict between the seed of the serpent and the Seed of the woman.

SHAME! SHAME! CANDY CANES

A public school principal in Nebraska prohibits candy canes — because, she writes, "Historically, the shape is a "J" for Jesus. The red is for the blood of Christ, and the white is a symbol of His resurrection." Her prohibition would also include different colored candy canes, not only the red and the white.

However, the principal is propagating a myth and a legend: "The first historical reference to the familiar cane shape goes back to 1670. The choirmaster at the Cologne Cathedral in Germany first bent the sugar-sticks into the shape of canes to represent a shepherd's staff. The all-white candy canes were then given to children during the long-winded nativity services. It has been claimed that the cane was shaped like a "J" for "Jesus" and that the red-and-white stripes represented Christ's blood and purity.

"The three red stripes were also said to symbolize the Holy Trinity and the hardness of the candy represented the church's foundation on solid rock. . . However, no historical evidence exists to support these claims." (Mary Bellis)

Not content with prohibiting candy canes, the principal censored two colors, red and green items along with an animal, the reindeer. The principal wrote to parents giving her reason: "Manchester Elementary will seek to be inclusive and culturally sensitive to all of our students.

Really? We wonder. Could there be another, a sinister reason of which the history-deprived principal is unaware? Or is she in on the plot?

ROCKY MOUNTAIN HIGH

Over in the Centennial State, the Elbert County Charter School in Elizabeth, Colorado, had a holiday program that included"Jingle Bells." The school district was threatened with a lawsuit unless the event was cleansed of the song. After all, they reasoned, hearing "Jingle Bells" might trigger the sensitive hearers to think, "Christmas." The basis of the lawsuit was that "Jingle Bells" was unconstitutional on the grounds of the separation of church and state.

Really? To listen to or to sing "Jingle Bells" is tantamount to establishing a national church? Really? Aside from that, this phenomenon wants to control what a person thinks. That's scary.

But, "Jingle Bells wasn't written about Christmas but was composed as a song about wintertime fun.  The song doesn't contain the name "Jesus," anything about Bethlehem, the Magi, the shepherds, or the angels. The composer, James Pierpoint, wrote the song in 1857, about Thanksgiving as a celebration of winter recreation. We see this focus on winter fun when we examine one of the verses in which the lines are:

A day or two ago
I thought I'd take a ride
And soon Miss Fanny Bright
Was seated by my side

The horse was lean and lank
Misfortune seemed his lot
We got into a drifted bank
And then we got upset." 

It's difficult to find any theology in those lines. Then there are the two lines which express the joy of winter: "Oh, what fun it is to ride/In a one-horse open sleigh." (However, many right-thinking people in the South know there's no such thing as "winter fun" in bone-numbing temperatures, shoveling snow, losing control of the car on black ice, dead batteries, and standing alongside a car gone into a ditch waiting for a tow truck. In spite of riding in a "one-horse open sleigh," wintertime's restriction of normal activities is best summed up as "going to jail for 6 months.") 

But, the question is, what is this phenomenon? Is it really a fear of a national, state-sanctioned church?

In New Jersey, the state motto is, "Liberty and Prosperity." The musical question on Maplewood, N.J.’s Columbia High School's agenda was the question of whether or not the school’s brass ensemble would be allowed to present instrumental — but not vocal — renditions of Christmas carols. The ensemble would not include the words of the carols; no words of the carols would be in the programs; just the instrumental versions of "Silent Night" and other traditional carols. They decided that there would be no instrumental Christmas carols.

What's going on?

Hypocrisy Alert! Schools may display items associated with Islam. But more than that--according to Israel National News, "A program called 'Access Islam' is being introduced as an educational religious program for millions of children in public schools across America. The initial phase of the program involves the basic tenets of Islam, called the five pillars of Islam." This curriculum is for grades 5-12. The recommended class time is three to four 45-minute sessions for the course.

But schools prohibit candy canes, carols, and colors. The question is, are they really afraid of a national church, a church which hasn't existed ever at any time in America even with all the in-school celebrations, with all the billions of times Americans have wished each other a "Merry Christmas," there's still no nationally sponsored church or denomination.

Is something else going on? I believe there is. I believe behind it all there's a goal that is tailor-made to the desires of the world-system. I believe the goal is a complete secularization of the society when it comes to Christianity and by that, I mean "a process by which religious ideas (a code word for "Christianity" in this case), institutions, and interpretations lose their social significance."

This phenomenon is not something new under the sun as we read the minutes of a meeting recorded by Dr. Luke in Acts 4:13-18: "Now as they observed the confidence of Peter and John and understood that they were uneducated and untrained men, they [the Jewish religious officials] were amazed, and began to recognize them as having been with Jesus. And seeing the man who had been healed standing with them, they had nothing to say in reply. But when they had ordered them to leave the ^[b]Council, they began to confer with one another, saying, “What shall we do with these men? For the fact that a noteworthy miracle has taken place through them is apparent to all who live in Jerusalem, and we cannot deny it.  But so that it will not spread any further among the people, let us warn them to speak no longer to any man in this name.”  And when they had summoned them, they commanded them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus." 

How will the apostles and the early church present the gospel if they obey the gag order not to say, "Jesus?" Impossible, therefore Luke reports the response of Peter and John: “Whether it is right in the sight of God to give heed to you rather than to God, you be the judge; for we cannot stop speaking about what we have seen and heard.”

Secularization is what's going on the  process by which religious ideas (a code word for "Christianity" in this case), institutions and interpretations lose their social significance.